Instagram Experiments With AI-Generated Comments on Posts

I can’t imagine why anybody would want this, nor why Meta thinks that anyone would want it, while I also can’t see it having an overall positive impact on social media interaction.

But…

Apparently, Instagram is now experimenting with AI-generated comments on posts, so you don’t even have to come up with an opinion, or an original thought of your own, in order to respond to an update.

As you can see in this sequence, shared by app researcher Jonah Manzano, some IG users are now seeing a “pencil with a star” icon next to the comments field when you go to post a comment, which, when tapped, then generates a list of possible comments that you could make on a video or image.

So again, you no longer need to have any capacity for original ideas, thoughts, nor communicative skills of your own, you can just let Meta’s AI bot simulate a personality for you, if you want.

In fact, Meta’s also working on that in an even more literal sense, by enabling users to create their own AI bot versions of themselves, which can then engage with other users based on your chosen personality traits and responses.

So, great, more AI bots that simulate human activity, which is exactly what social media platforms need. Right?

Yeah, I don’t know why the platforms think that making their interactions less human is a pathway to better, more engaging user experiences. But LinkedIn already has AI generated comments, and Gmail has suggested replies, so I guess it’s not unusual in this sense. The only difference here is that these responses are more specific, based on the content of the post, so they should be even better in this respect.

But they’re still not human, they’re not personal, and they’re not “social” in the common definition of the term.

So why is Meta so keen to allow AI-generated content to flood its apps?

Because ideally, it’ll lead to more human engagement and usage.

For example, Meta’s also reportedly experimenting with AI-generated bot profiles, which will interact like humans throughout its apps. The benefit of this is that when a real human user posts, they’ll get more responses from these bots, with maybe hundreds of comments automatically being assigned to your posts. Maybe that then encourages more actual humans to also comment, and maybe that then encourages more humans to post themselves, and eventually, these AI bots just blend into the broader interactive mix, while also sparking more connection between real people.

And that might well work. If Meta uses only real, human replies as an algorithmic indicator (as opposed to its bot responses), then it could still measure reply volume as a marker of engagement, meaning that the best, most engaging posts would still get wider exposure, while average posts would also trigger random comments, giving creators that dopamine hit of engagement.

You can see, then, how that could prompt more and more user engagement, and how Meta wins out from the insertion of AI bot profiles and replies.

But is that really what people want? Do you really want to read a listing of AI responses to your updates? Will that still feel as engaging, and interactive, if you know that such comments aren’t from real people?

My guess would be that selective disassociation will solve for this, with people being generally able to ignore the fact that these are AI generated in favor of the positive chemical rush that they get from these engagements.

So maybe, then, this is a logical, smart step forward for Meta. But I just don’t see how generic, nothing replies are something that users should feel comfortable posting.    

Ben then again, many will, and combined with bot replies, maybe this is the future of social interaction, augmenting real human interaction with bots, in order to keep users feeling social, feeling interesting, and feel connected to the wider world.

So while it may feel like just taking up space, with random comments that require no actual thought, the logic may level out, and maybe my initial resistance is just a lack of acceptance of what looks set to gradually become the norm.