Meta recently announced the launch of AI Studio in the US, which will allow people to create an AI version of themselves on the Instagram platform and across the internet. The excitement about the possibilities is palpable, but the dangers are also great, raising concerns that reality is becoming increasingly blurred.
What is AI Studio?
Available directly through Meta or the Instagram app, AI Studio allows users to create AI versions of themselves—AI chatbots based on them and designed to “sound like (them)”—or they can create custom characters. These bots can have avatars, specific knowledge sets, and personalities, and users can chat with them on Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. Meta provides a straightforward step-by-step process (and an entire manual). It even allows for avoiding certain topics and accounts. The only thing it can’t do is still is to use the AI character to act as your actual “you”, since chat responses from the character are marked as AI.
The interesting thing about all this is that AI Studio only works for US users. The European Union has a unique set of rules for AI usage, and Apple and Meta are approaching any AI initiative on the continent with extreme caution.
Meta’s motivations
Of course, there are numerous potential benefits for Meta and its users. The idea of automated interaction with a 24/7 presence with followers could be a boon for enterprising users if used correctly. The scalability of one’s personal brand, even when (somewhat) offline, will surely be put to the test immediately.
The game is relatively straightforward. A key part of Meta’s mission is to further dominate our eyes, ears, and minds. Creating content on a new, separate plane of fantastical unreality allows for expanded user engagement and engages the attention spans of users on their platforms.
Some people rely too heavily on AI Studio, and developers will do a lot of testing. But it won’t be long before the more talented content creators find the perfect symbiosis between themselves and their avatars. And that’s exactly the problem.
The blurring of reality
There are many ethical considerations and arguments surrounding AI, but let’s talk about another pitfall: the way it blurs reality. The first step is for us humans ourselves to try to make AI indistinguishable from us – a fascinating and ironic take on AI. This will not be driven by sentient computers yearning to distinguish themselves through their personalities; it will first be humans who fully embrace AI into their lives, as an attempt at online immortality.
This reality could lead users to over-rely on AI interactions out of convenience, and perhaps even prefer them because they idealize their real selves. All sorts of dangerous future scenarios arise from these possibilities (and probabilities). The inevitable formation of parasocial relationships with AI characters will be studied for decades to come. In a world (the United States) where social skills are at an unprecedented low, many will view building real-world relationships over AI interactions as a legitimate choice.
The potential for misinformation, exploitation, and manipulative behavior in these AI characters is clear. But the amplification of certain echo chambers and confirmation biases will also likely become inherent problems. There is also a potential socioeconomic effect in further widening the digital divide due to access to advanced AI tools that could be used in addition to what is freely available via meta and other entities. Changes in influencer dynamics and monetization would also need to be fully reconsidered.
“What is real? How do you define ‘real’?”
More specifically, with the merging of humans and AI, “real” would be an expanded term. When you create yourself in AI Studio, who owns that character, the image of your personality? How do you keep something you’ve created within the machinations of Meta and not outside of it for nefarious purposes?
Years ago, neuroscientist Anil Seth put forward a series of arguments based on an insightful question: Is our reality a hallucination that we have all implicitly agreed to? While we don’t yet have concrete answers to the veracity of this concept, if we assume there is some truth to the idea here, then the inclusion of AI will present an even larger existential set of realities – or hallucinations.
