In Meta's AI future, your friends are bots

Driving the news: Facebook's parent company on Tuesday debuted a new mobile app that transforms the Meta AI chatbot into a more social experience, including the ability to share AI-generated creations with friends and family. But Zuckerberg also sees the AI bot itself as your next friend.

• "The average American has, I think, it's fewer than three friends," Zuckerberg said during a podcast interview Monday. "And the average person has demand for meaningfully more."

In a media blitz that included several podcast appearances this week timed for Meta's LlamaCon event, Zuckerberg mapped out an AI future built on a foundation of augmented-reality glasses and wrist-band controllers.

• With those devices plugged into Meta's AI models, he predicted the emergence, within four or five years, of a new platform for human interaction with bots. It would, he said, be the next logical step on the internet's evolution from text to audio and video.

What they're saying: "Today, most of the time spent on Facebook and Instagram is on video, but do you think in five years we're just going to be sitting in our feed and consuming media that's just video?" Zuckerberg asked podcaster Dwarkesh Patel.

• "No," he answered himself. "It's going to be interactive. You'll be scrolling through your feed, and there will be content that maybe looks like a Reel to start, but you can talk to it, or interact with it, and it talks back, or it changes what it's doing. Or you can jump into it like a game and interact with it. That's all going to be AI."

Yes, but: Where Zuckerberg sees opportunity, critics see alarm bells, especially given Meta's history and business model.

• "The more time you spend chatting with an AI 'friend,' the more of your personal information you're giving away," Robbie Torney, Common Sense Media's senior director of AI programs, told Axios. "It's about who owns and controls and can use your intimate thoughts and expressions after you share them."

Under Meta's privacy policy, its AI chatbot can use what the company knows about you in its interactions.

• Meta can also use your conversations — and any media you upload — for training its models.
• You can choose to have Meta AI not remember specific details, but there is no way for U.S. users to opt out more broadly.

The intrigue: Zuckerberg's bot-friendship vision is arriving at a moment when AI companions face criticism and controversy, particularly as younger users encounter them.

• The Wall Street Journal reported last week that its testing showed earlier versions of Meta's chatbots — including those based on celebrity personas — are willing to engage in sexual banter, even with users who identified themselves as teens. (Meta said it has since implemented controls to prevent this from happening.)

The big picture: It's not just Meta that is being forced to navigate the social maze of chatbot-human interaction.

• Most chatbots typically serve up information users request, but as models grow in size and complexity, their makers are finding it hard to tune the bots' traits properly.
• ChatGPT maker OpenAI was forced to roll back an update after users found that its latest model was behaving with an overload of flattery — it had become, as Engadget put it, "an ass-kissing weirdo."

Between the lines: Critics' concerns range from the sensitivity of the data users are sharing to the potential for addiction to the risk of bots dispensing potentially dangerous advice.

• "These companies are optimizing for data collection first and user engagement first, with well-being as a secondary consideration, if it's a consideration at all," Torney said.
• Common Sense Media issued a report Wednesday declaring that the entire category of AI companions — including those from Character.AI, Nomi, and Replika — poses an unacceptable safety risk for minors. Torney said they can be problematic for vulnerable adults, as well.
• "People are increasingly using AIs as a source of practical help, support, entertainment and fun — and our goal is to make them even easier to use. We provide transparency, and people can manage their experience to make sure it's right for them," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

What's next: The more social AI becomes, the more likely it is that AI companies will replicate the aspects of social media that have gradually soured so many users on the platforms — which still command billions of people's attention.

• Camille Carlton, policy director at the Center for Humane Technology, sees dangers in this "transition towards engagement," as well as in companies' push to grab as much data as they can to personalize their AI services.
• Carlton noted that companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are generating revenue from business customers who pay for access — but those, like Meta, that focus on consumers will keep looking for ways to make their large investments in AI models pay off.