Facebook seeks to capitalise on the AI craze while competing with OpenAI, Snap, and TikTok.
In an effort to increase engagement with its social media platforms, Facebook owner Meta is planning to deploy a variety of artificial intelligence-powered chatbots with distinct personalities as early as next month.
According to three people with knowledge of the plans, the digital titan led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been developing prototypes for chatbots that can have human-like conversations with its roughly 4 billion users.
According to these sources, some of the chatbots, termed “personas” by staff, take on the appearance of other characters. According to a person familiar with the ideas, the corporation has considered introducing one that looks like Abraham Lincoln and another that gives travel advice in the guise of a surfer.
According to the source, the chatbots might be available as early as September. Their goal will be to provide a new search function and recommendations, as well as to be an entertaining tool for people to use.
The move comes as the $800 billion firm strives to recruit and maintain users as it competes with social media upstarts like TikTok and tries to capitalise on the huge enthusiasm in Silicon Valley surrounding AI since Microsoft-backed OpenAI released ChatGPT in November.
Experts believe that, in addition to increasing interaction, chatbots could capture large quantities of fresh data about users’ interests. This could assist Meta in better targeting consumers with more relevant information and advertisements. The majority of Meta’s $117 billion in annual revenue comes from advertising.
“Once users interact with a chatbot, it really exposes much more of their data to the company, so the company can do anything they want with that data,” said Ravit Dotan, an AI ethics expert and researcher.
She stated that the discoveries raise worries about privacy as well as potential “manipulation and nudging.”
Meta did not respond.
Rival tech companies have already produced chatbots with personalities. Character.ai, a $1 billion start-up sponsored by Andreessen Horowitz, employs massive language models to generate conversation in the style of people like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Nintendo character Mario.
In an effort to increase engagement with its social media platforms, Facebook owner Meta is planning to deploy a variety of artificial intelligence-powered chatbots with distinct personalities as early as next month.
According to three people with knowledge of the plans, the digital titan led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been developing prototypes for chatbots that can have human-like conversations with its roughly 4 billion users.
According to these sources, some of the chatbots, termed “personas” by staff, take on the appearance of other characters. According to a person familiar with the ideas, the corporation has considered introducing one that looks like Abraham Lincoln and another that gives travel advice in the guise of a surfer.
According to the source, the chatbots might be available as early as September. Their goal will be to provide a new search function and recommendations, as well as to be an entertaining tool for people to use.
The move comes as the $800 billion firm strives to recruit and maintain users as it competes with social media upstarts like TikTok and tries to capitalise on the huge enthusiasm in Silicon Valley surrounding AI since Microsoft-backed OpenAI released ChatGPT in November.
Experts believe that, in addition to increasing interaction, chatbots could capture large quantities of fresh data about users’ interests. This could assist Meta in better targeting consumers with more relevant information and advertisements. The majority of Meta’s $117 billion in annual revenue comes from advertising.
“Once users interact with a chatbot, it really exposes much more of their data to the company, so the company can do anything they want with that data,” said Ravit Dotan, an AI ethics expert and researcher.
She stated that the discoveries raise worries about privacy as well as potential “manipulation and nudging.”
Meta did not respond.
Rival tech companies have already produced chatbots with personalities. Character.ai, a $1 billion start-up sponsored by Andreessen Horowitz, employs massive language models to generate conversation in the style of people like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Nintendo character Mario.
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