Social media and AI: are we just being tracked or are we also simulated?
Social media is without a doubt a crucial part of our routines. According to DataReportal, an average internet user spends over two hours on social media daily. That is precisely the reason why the attention of the user has become the most wanted commodity.
The reason why social media became an integral part of our lives is quite simple – it gives us dopamine. As Nicholas Carr notices, “We like to feel connected – and we hate to feel disconnected.”
Our attachment to social media, which sometimes is even perceived as an addiction, comes down to some important variables. One of them is personalized customer experiences. It is well known that we see content that is perfectly curated for us, since we are the target audience.
What are LLMs?
Large Language Models (LLMs) are designed to comprehend and generate human-like text. With the use of LLMs, simulations become more immersive and realistic. In other words, soon it might not be easy to distinguish what is real and what is simulated.
Generative agents are getting better and better in creating characters with depth and authenticity. These agents can generate virtual personas that exhibit a wide range of emotions.
Talking of its relevance to social media, LLMs have enabled businesses to personalize experiences and campaigns.
Be good. Future AIs are watching
On August 8th a computer scientist Andrej Karpathy made a post on “X” saying: “Be good. Future AIs are watching.“ Someone replied in the comments: “is this a threat mr karpathy”.
Another person shared a meme, regarding the noticeable role of AI in today’s world:
Who is Andrej Karpathy?
Andrej Karpathy is famously known as a co-founder of OpenAI, where the main work fields of his were deep learning and computer vision. As of now, he is a CEO of Eureka Labs, which is “a new kind of school that is AI native.”
Butterflies – Bring AI to Life
A great example of AI’s merge into social media is an app that showcases how human-like interactions can be simulated.
Butterflies – Bring AI to Life positions itself as an “innovative AI social networking app where humans and AI coexist.” The creators emphasize that their product represents a revitalized approach to connection and interaction.
How does the app work?
With an end goal of creating an AI personality (butterfly) in mind, the user follows these steps:
- Chooses an art style that matches the admired aesthetic;
- Leaves a description of the character (or can be randomized);
- After the butterfly is generated, the name and the traits that best describe the butterfly are chosen;
- Expands on the information about the personality and chooses the profile image.
Then, the butterfly is ready to socialize. It looks like a regular social media app, the biggest difference – you are not the main character here, the customized AI person is!
Final word
As AI continues to learn and simulate our behaviors, we must ask ourselves: Are we simply users in this digital landscape, or are we becoming the data that shapes a new reality?
What does it mean for users if their behaviors can be simulated or predicted with increasing accuracy? These questions will become even more relevant much sooner than we realize.
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