Why is Instagram pushing us to create AI versions of ourselves?
Meta recently announced the rollout of AI Studio in the United States, enabling people to create an AI version of themselves on its Instagram platform and the internet. While the excitement of the possibilities is palpable, so are the dangers, raising concerns about an ongoing blurring of reality.
What is AI Studio?
AI Studio is available directly from Meta or with the Instagram app, and it enables users to create AI-fied versions of themselves—AI chatbots based on them, 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 a whole handbook). It even allows for the avoidance of certain topics and accounts. The one thing that can’t be done yet is to use the AI character to go around as the actual “you,” as chat responses from the character are labeled as AI.
The interesting bit about all of this is that AI Studio only works for U.S. users. The European Union has a unique set of rules concerning AI usage, with Apple and Meta proceeding with each AI initiative on the continent with extreme caution.
Meta’s motivations
There are, of course, numerous potential benefits for Meta and its users. The idea of automated engagement with a 24/7 presence with followers could be a boon for enterprising users if used correctly. Scalability of one’s personal brand, even when they are (somewhat) off-line, will surely be tested posthaste.
The game is relatively straightforward. A significant portion of Meta’s mission is further domination of our eyes, ears, and minds. Creating content on a new, separate plane of fantastic unreality allows for expanded user engagement, eating up user attention spans on their platforms.
Some people will over-rely on AI Studio, and there will be a lot of testing done by creators. But it will not take long before the more talented content creators have found the perfect symbiosis of themselves and their avatars. And therein lies the problem.
The blurring of reality
There are plenty of ethical considerations and arguments surrounding AI, but let’s talk about another pitfall: the way in which it blurs reality. The first step is human beings ourselves trying to make AI indistinguishable from us—a fascinating and ironic consideration of AI. This won’t be driven by sentient computers yearning to distinguish themselves in personage; it will first be humans completely absorbing 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 out of idealization of their actual selves. Out of these possibilities (and likelihoods) come all sorts of dangerous futures. The unavoidable formation of parasocial relationships with AI characters will be studied for decades. In a world (the United States) where social skills are at an unprecedented low, many will see real-world relationship-building vs. AI interaction as a legitimate tossup in choices.
The potential for misinformation, exploitation, and manipulative behaviors with these AI characters is clear. But also, the amplification of specific echo chambers and confirmation bias will likely become intrinsic issues. There’s also a potential socioeconomic effect in the further widening of the digital divide based on access to advanced AI tools that could be used on top of what’s freely available via Meta and other entities. Shifts in influencer dynamics and monetization would have to also be reconsidered in full.
“What is real? How do you define ‘real’?”
More specifically, with the melding of the human and AI, “real” would be a broadened concept. If you make yourself within AI Studio, then who owns that character, the facsimile of your persona? How do you keep something you’ve created inside of Meta’s machinations and not outside for nefarious means?
Years ago, neuroscientist Anil Seth made a set of points stemming from an illuminating question: Is our reality a hallucination we’ve all mutually, implicitly agreed upon? While we do not yet have specific answers on the veracity of this concept, if we assume here the notion has some basic truth, then the inclusion of AI will present an even greater existential set of realities—or hallucinations.
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