Meta deletes AI profiles from Facebook and Instagram after receiving backlash

Meta

Meta is discontinuing a feature it had introduced a year ago in 2023. The social media giant is removing Facebook and Instagram profiles of AI characters, as per a Financial Times report. Now if you are wondering why these were created, Meta had said that these profiles, designed to act like virtual personalities, allowed users to interact with AI-driven characters through chats and posts.

The AI generated profiles could act like therapists and relationship coaches. They had the ability to reply to users with AI generated pictures and reply to messages in real time. This often gave an impression to the users that they are conversing with a human character. Meta called these AI generated profiles an experiment to make social media more engaging, it never decided on making it a final product. The initial plan was to integrate AI into everyday online conversations, which in some way provided users with creative ways to seek advice, ask questions related to relationships et al.

Why is Meta removing the AI generated profiles?

So when it was just an experiment, why is Meta discontinuing it now? Well, this happened after users shared the screenshots of these conversations with the AI generated profiles and they went viral for all the right reasons. A conversation of Liv, an AI account which described itself as a proud Black queer momma of 2 caught people’s attention. The profile revealed that the development team consisted predominantly of white men, which drew criticism for being insensitive to the character’s identity.

This backlash highlighted concerns about diversity and authenticity in how these AI profiles were designed. Additionally, users reported that these AI profiles could not be blocked, which Meta called a technical “bug.” To address the issue and avoid further complications, the company decided to delete the profiles entirely.