Sarah Magliocco writes about Meta's new cohort of celebrity-backed AI assistants, and why A-listers lending their likenesses to a chatbot heralds a new - albeit it, to some minds, unsettling - era of AI accessibility.
Companionship is one of our most human needs, and despite there being more ways to connect than ever before, many of us still feel profound loneliness.
The potential for embarrassment, uncertainty and rejection is always present when engaging with another person, be that platonically, professionally or romantically, but when you remove the human element, so goes with it the risk, but not the social reward.
Meta has introduced a slew of new "AI assistants," who are on hand to chat with users about anything, from "advice" to telling "corny jokes."
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The company already has its own AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT - a language model-based chatbot that can offer detailed responses to prompts - but has now rolled out 28 new chatbots with specific personalities and actual human faces, as a number of celebrities have rented out their likenesses to the company to use as the veneers for the bots.
American football star Tom Brady plays Bru, a chatbot for debating sports; YouTube creator MrBeast's AI performs a particular brand of macho comedy; and TikTok elite Charli D'aMelio plays Coco, a dancer who is here to show you her best moves. Meanwhile, Kendall Jenner’s AI likeness exhibits a penchant for offering you big sister guidance.
The bots answer questions, engage the user, and even prompt the user to tell them things by asking questions to keep the real-time conversation going. Some have specific areas of expertise, like chef instruction or personal training, while others are there for more personal conversation.
Introduced during the company's Connect event in September, the roll out of their AI assistants is still in the beta stage, and thus far is only available to a demographic of US-based users, but enough people have been trialling the process to start airing their impressions of the new dimension to their social media experience.
So far, it's been a strange one. They seem like an extension of Jenner or Brady or Paris Hilton's consciousness, despite them taking on entirely different personas, and it feels like users are getting an intimate glimpse into a new side of the lives and personalities of these celebrities.
It makes sense that AI chatting would be introduced to a global audience under the sheen of celebrity familiarity. It's much easier to become adjusted to something if there is already a sense of comfort there, and the more people engage, the more data Meta will have to measure how people interact with these entities.
Meta itself has emphasised the importance of machine learning to its future. "At Meta, our biggest priorities as a company are currently benefiting from more than a decade of investment in AI," they noted in a 2022 article about their perceptions of the future of tech.
The more that people connect with these characters, the longer they will pass the time on Meta apps, and with social media companies primarily making their money from advertising revenue, keeping your eyeballs on their apps makes them all the more appealing to said advertisers.
It’s not the first time that AI has been used to mimic real life figures or fictional characters. Two apps that have come into the realm of public discourse recently offer the same kind of experience.
The Historical Figures app offers 20,000 figures from history for users to chat with, a move that was deemed controversial due to the inclusion of figures such as Adolf Hitler. Another app called Text With Jesus allows you to, well, the clue is in the name with that one. Jesus Christ, Mary, the apostles, and a whole host of biblical figures - including Satan - are available to chat with, offering pious answers to all of your questions.
Other companies aim to capitalise on loneliness by creating romance chatbots, where users can pay to talk with AI characters in an intimate way. Earlier this year, social media influencer Caryn Marjorie hit the headlines when she created a generative AI clone of herself.
The idea came as Marjorie wanted a method of interacting with her primarily male fanbase, without having to personally field and respond to all of the messages she receives. Her fans get a huge benefit - interaction with an extension of her - and she gets to maintain her fanbase without the impossible task of finding time to reach out to each of them personally.
When you log on to her site, you are greeted with the message "the first influencer transformed into AI…discover Caryn AI - your virtual girlfriend," before another box pops up to read "at capacity," with a link to sign up to join the waitlist. Users can chat to her for set costs per minute, and the chatbot has been designed to reflect her personality.
"CarynAI is the first step in the right direction to cure loneliness", the influencer said in a tweet after the launch. "Men are told to suppress their emotions, hide their masculinity, and to not talk about issues they are having. I vow to fix this with CarynAI."
She also claimed that she had worked with psychologists to incorporate aspects of cognitive behaviour therapy and dialectical behaviour therapy in the chats, to "help undo trauma, rebuild physical and emotional confidene, and rebuild what has been taken away by the pandemic".
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Social media companion Replika launched in 2017, and bills itself as the "AI companion who cares." This chatbot allows you to create your ideal digital companion and develop a relationship. "Who do you want your Replika to be for you?" it asks. "Virtual girlfriend or boyfriend, friend, mentor? Or would you prefer to see how things develop organically? You get to decide the type of relationship you have with your AI!"
However, unlike Meta’s new offering of celebrity-faced assistants, Replika is not linked to a real person in the real world, it is completely unique to your specifications. This shift to adding the likenesses of real people could be viewed as helping to overcome that eerie feeling many have about interacting with AI.
The uncanny valley hypothesis - coined by Tokyo Institute of Technology professor Masahiro Morihas in the 1970s - has been well touted when it comes to discussing why people are often on edge interacting with robots who have a degree of resemblance to a human being. This cold, off-putting uncanny valley feeling is derived from our recognition that this entity is not human, but is existing behind a facade of humanity.
The addition of celebrity culture and influence to AI chatbots can also leverage the pre-existing parasocial relationships audiences have with these celebs, and lead users to feel more linked to and at ease with interacting with an artificial programme.
We are used to being spectators in the lives of influencers and celebrities, and as fans, often crave a deeper connection to those we idolise. AI versions can scratch that itch, while normalising the idea of interaction with artificial intelligence, a seemingly mutually beneficial arrangement for user, celebrity - who is being paid handsomely for the use of their likeness - and the company.
AI is due to become more and more ingrained in our day to day lives. The more we engage with it, the more it can learn, and many people maintain that they find the idea dystopian, or like something out of a Black Mirror episode.
It’s too early to say what the long term impacts of celebrity-faced AI bots will be, but their introduction has certainly gotten people talking about engaging with AI, and in turn, could translate to increasing lucrative user engagement on Meta platforms. In an attention economy, who better to command a slice of our precious time than a familiar, albeit facsimile, face?
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ.
