Meta shuts down this annoying AI feature, but is it gone for good?

Those who have nothing good to say of Meta's AI profiles on Facebook and Instagram will be extremely pleased to learn that the company is now getting rid of them.

Zuckerberg's Meta has recently removed a number of its AI-generated profiles from its social media platforms, following public criticism and ridicule from users. These profiles, launched in September 2023 and labeled as "AI managed by Meta", were part of the company's attempt to pack its projects with as much AI as possible. They were introduced alongside celebrity-branded AI chatbots, which have also been discontinued.

These AI profiles were designed to offer diverse personalities, with handles like "hellograndpabrian", portraying a "retired textile businessman", and "datingwithCarter", an AI dating coach. On Instagram, these accounts also featured AI-generated posts that many users likened to spam commonly found on social media. However, the implementation faced significant backlash and fierce criticism.

Probably the worst part was the users’ inability to block these profiles due to a technical glitch.

In response, Meta confirmed it was ending the experiment. Meta has reportedly acknowledged the blocking issue, stating that the company has decided to stop the experiment completely. Well, that's one way of fixing things, right? According to Meta, a bug had made it impossible for users to block the AI profiles, so they removed the accounts to solve the issue.

Even though this experiment looks like a failure, I don't believe for a second that Meta won't go on an even bigger AI journey pretty soon. The company has shown ideas like AI versions of people that can have realistic video calls. It’s also trying out AI-generated images on Facebook and letting creators make chatbots to talk to their followers. Expect more AI!