AI chatbots have become very humanlike in the space of a year, but Facebook wants to take them even further. If things go as planned, you may eventually see AI “people,” complete with a generated profile picture and biography, commenting on posts and interacting with you.
Your Next Facebook Friend May Be an AI Chatbot
As reported by The Financial Times, Facebook wants to make its apps more interactive and entertaining in 2025. To achieve this, the company is looking into using generative AI to make unique experiences. Connor Hayes, the vice president of product for generative AI at Meta (Facebook’s owner), has a pretty unique idea on how to do this:
“We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do. 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.”
The vice president didn’t go into detail as to how these accounts will work. It’s likely that they will, at least, use AI to generate posts and talk with people over Facebook’s direct messaging system. But how about sending a friend request to an AI or perhaps having them comment on your posts?
This development does track with Meta’s previous track record with AI. The media has been going all-in on using generative models to create content for people, which we discovered when we tested Meta AI and found that it beat its competitors in several areas. However, all of that forward momentum comes at a price: the company is likely using all of your Facebook content to train its AI without you knowing.