Between ChatGPT's surprisingly human voice and Meta's AI characters, we may be witnessing the rise of social networks populated by synthetic companions
Between ChatGPT's surprisingly human voice and Meta's AI characters, our feeds may be about to change forever
PlatformerCasey Newton
Context & Ripple Effects
Meta's reported plan to deploy personality-based chatbots across its apps positioned synthetic interaction as a retention and youth-engagement feature, not merely a standalone assistant experiment: Meta's planned AI personas across its apps.
The arc later broadened from characters to interfaces: OpenAI improved the naturalness of voice exchange, while Meta added a Discover feed for voluntarily shared AI conversations, making spoken chatbot interaction more fluid and turning some AI use into social content.
First-order effects
ChatGPT's more humanlike voice makes conversational AI feel less like text search and more like an always-available interlocutor.
Meta's AI characters give its social products a new category of account-like interaction, competing for attention alongside posts from people and creators.
Second-order effects
Social platforms and assistant makers face pressure to differentiate through personality, voice, and distribution inside existing feeds rather than through model capability alone.
If AI conversations become shareable feed material, moderation and product teams must distinguish useful synthetic interaction from low-value automated engagement; Meta's later AI-interaction Discover feed illustrates that product direction.
Third-order effects
The durable shift is toward social surfaces where interaction can be generated on demand, increasing the supply of conversational content without requiring a corresponding increase in human participation.
Whether that improves network value or dilutes it will depend on disclosure, controls, and whether users treat synthetic companions as private utilities or public social actors.
The trend: This is an early signal of ambient AI moving from a discrete chatbot destination into the conversational and social layers of consumer apps.
This sounds terrible. Endlessly upbeat people with no inner life? No, I prefer to make friends outside of tech. — More riskily, this sort of thing risks placing people in stronger echo chambers and stunting their intellectual growth. Fuck that noise.
Love how the tech giants and social media networks were trying to shut down bots, until they introduced their own proprietary AI powered ones. https://www.theverge.com/...
The synthetic social network is coming https://www.theverge.com/... via @Verge People attach personalities to animals, stuffed toys, cartoons - virtually anything humans feel something about. Synthetic AI personas designed for the purpose are shoe-ins with no barriers whatsoever.
“You can imagine the next steps here. A #bot that gets to know your quirks; remembers your life history; offers you coaching or tutoring or therapy; entertains you in whichever way you prefer”: https://www.theverge.com/... #ethics #law #AI #chatbots #tech #privacy #business
I really appreciated this thoughtful piece from @CaseyNewton. “...Feeds that were once defined by the connections they enabled between human beings will have become something else: a partially synthetic social network.” https://www.theverge.com/...
On the relational benefits of ChatGPT—this is a longstanding tech narrative: it will heal or help people in need. Be assured: It never stays that way. https://www.theverge.com/... [image]
I would absolutely use an AI therapist. Therapy for me is having someone to listen, empathise, and remember. AI is perfect for that https://www.theverge.com/...
Besides the similar voice interface features, this article's comparison of OpenAI and Facebook may be portentous. Today's OpenAI may be 2006's Facebook. And I wouldn't be surprised if 2016's Facebook portends 2033's OpenAI. Political fallout included. https://www.theverge.com/...
“[S]omething changes when you begin speaking with the app in one of its five native #voices, which are... earnest, upbeat, and—by nature of the fact that they are powered by an #LLM—tireless”: https://www.theverge.com/... #ethics #AI #tech #chatbots #business h/t @mmitchell_ai