Meta’s Generating AI Images of Users to Spark More Interest in its AI Tools

You know what we need more of on social media? More AI and more ways for people to engage with the latest AI tools, so they can understand how advanced these generative AI functions are.

Yes, that’s what we need.

Apparently, that’s Meta’s way of thinking, as it’s now experimenting with another way to show off its generative AI engine, by creating images of real users and then showing them to those users in a stream.

As you can see in these examples, Meta currently uses selfie images of people, which are fed into its AI image generation tools, to then create custom AI representations of them in different, imagined scenarios.

As a Reddit user Green_Video_9831 explained:

“I used Meta AI to edit selfies, and now Instagram is using my face in ads targeted at me.”

Meta has confirmed that it is testing this and that some users are seeing these bizarre displays in the stream.

Which is pretty weird and a bit intrusive, and I can’t imagine that much Meta has 3 billion users they’ll be like “oh, how cool, that’s a picture of me from the cartoon, but not me, like a picture of me from Uncanny Valley.”

Like, no. It might actually be the worst kind of Uncanny Valley I’ve seen, where the picture looks like you, but not quite. And science has shown that such displays are unacceptable to humans, so why Meta’s team thought this would be a good promotional opportunity, I don’t know. But apparently a meeting was held and the decision was made to continue with AI deepfakes users, as if that’s the kind of thing that will drive more interest in their AI tools.

Interestingly, these specific images also speak to what Meta seems to think users want from AI, putting yourself in a hall of mirrors, where all other versions of you are paying attention to you. This could essentially be facilitated by Meta’s broader plan to introduce AI bot profiles into your applications, while also giving users the opportunity to create their own AI variations.

Perhaps this is the thing that Meta thinks will be popular, surrounding yourself with custom AI characters, all attuned to you and your thoughts, so you can talk to yourself in peace.

Either way, Meta will push forward, because according to its data, its AI tools are popular and more users are turning to them over time. Last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that its Meta AI chatbot now has close to 600 million monthly active usersmaking it the most widely used AI chatbot tool in the world.

This means that around a fifth of all Meta users now use its AI tools, at least somewhat regularly, although the fact that Meta has built them directly into its search bar would also play some role in increasing perceived usage.

Still, as the numbers grow, Meta will continue to add fuel to the fire, while it is also investing billions in expanding its AI data centersand expand its capacities, in order to establish itself as one of the key players in the artificial intelligence race.

So he needs people to love the AI, to justify the cost, and he really wants people to create images of themselves through his AI tools to get more content flowing through his circles.

I still don’t like AI tools that “imagine” you in unrealistic scenarios, because that, at least to me, runs counter to the purpose of social media apps, which give people a means to share their real, human experiences and connect with each other by providing your perspective.

People are sharing less anyway, so any activity is good for the apps themselves. But the more AI integrates into social platforms, the less “social” they feel, and the more they feel like a digital storefront of meaningless pictures and posts, which will eventually just become avatars of robots talking to each other.

That doesn’t seem like the outcome we should want, but curiosity and novelty seem to be winning out, at least for now.

And maybe there are people who really want to see what they might look like in a hall of mirrors, where everyone is looking at them. Imagine that they are all AI characters that you created, looking to you for guidance.

What a world.