Love the casual vibe here
There’s a guy I no longer interact with because I found him too angry. But when I used to follow him, he used to talk about how Big Tech’s plan was to ‘farm’ us. It’s a very Matrix-esque metaphor, but given recent developments and collaborations between Big Tech and the government in the US, perhaps not incorrect?
Businesses like predictability. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that, per se — but, at scale, that can become a bit weird. Think, for example, how odd it is to be reduced to a single button shaped like a ‘heart’ on some social networks to be able to ‘react’ to what someone else has posted. There was a time when people would actually comment more, but the like button has reduced that.
Now, of course, some social networks allow you to ‘react’ in different ways: ‘applause’, perhaps, or maybe you might want to mark that something is ‘insightful’. We might consider doing so as being “better than nothing,” but is it? How does it rearrange our interactions with one another, allowing a particular technology platform (with its own set of affordances and norms, etc.) to intermediate our interactions?
Fast-forward to this month and, of course, Meta is experimenting with a feature that allows people to use AI to reply to posts. This is already a thing on LinkedIn. It’s going about as well as you’d expect.
AI is all over social media. We have AI influencers, AI content, and AI accounts — and, now, it looks like we might get AI comments on Instagram posts, too. What are any of us doing this for anymore?
App researcher Jonah Manzano shared a post on Threads and a video on TikTok showing how some Instagram users now notice a pencil with a star icon in their comments field, allowing them to post AI-generated comments under posts and videos.
[…]
In the video on TikTok that Manzano shared, three comment options are: “Cute living room setup!” “love the casual vibe here,” and “gray cap is so cool.” Unfortunately, all three of these are clearly computer-generated slop and take an already shaky human interaction down a notch.
It’s hard to know why you’d want to remove the human element from every aspect of social media, but Instagram seems to be going to try it anyway.
Source: Mashable
Image: Mimi Di Cianni