Cristina Criddle and Hannah Murphy, at the Financial Times, via Nick Heer and Manton Reece:

[Characters generated by AI] will fill its social media platforms in the next few years … “They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform … that’s where we see all of this going,” [Meta’s Connor Hayes] added.

Nick Heer:

Imagine how little you will see from the friends and family members you actually care about. Imagine how much slop you will be greeted with — a feed alternating between slop, suggested posts, and ads, with just enough of what you actually opened the app to see. Now consider how this will affect people who are more committed to Meta’s products, whether for economic reasons or social cohesion.

Facebook’s plan freaks me out because to so many people Facebook might as well be The Internet. They’ll just slowly boil the frog by introducing fake AI-generated users who are posting fake AI-generated content and you’ll see less of your friends and family. If you don’t think the good folks at Facebook will succeed, just replace the “AI stuff” with “ads” and you’ll see a company who has a track record of giving you less of what you want over time. People notice but don’t care enough to leave.

This idea of replacing real stuff with fake stuff reminded me of the story back in November of Spotify slowly adding AI-slop to their top playlists. Spotify will justify their actions because it saves them money (by decreasing how much they pay real artists) and they’ll be more profitable. Facebook will justify their actions by saying it’s more engaging (aka more eyeballs looking at ads). Both business models incentivize this gross behavior. So if you’re doubtful of this coming to pass, don’t be: this unwanted AI takeover will absolutely happen.

People spend so much time on these platforms and they’re just going to slowly rot to a majority of AI-slop. My concern is that the people will not revolt. They won’t vote with their feet and find a new home online. The network effects are just too strong. On a more optimistic note (it is New Years Eve, after all) my hope is that it opens the door for smaller companies like Micro.blog who believe in a people-first web. There is a small but mighty cohort of people writing and posting to their own site and following along via RSS. The problem is it’s the absolute smallest minority and I believe it should be the majority.