The parent company of Instagram, Meta, is now looking into AI deeper than ever, having tested AI-generated comments to increase user engagement. This feature, still in beta, could potentially transform user interactions within the platform entirely, but at the same time, it poses critical concerns surrounding online interactions and authenticity.
Automating Social Interactions via AI
Some users of Instagram have been identifying a new feature that contains a pencil with a star icon. Pressing on this symbol allows AI to provide suggestions based on the content of the post and customize them accordingly. The objective is to remove the barriers to participation so that users do not have to create a new comment; instead, they can just use the provided suggestions.
The described strategy underscores the pace with which engagement automation is being embraced on social media. Although Ishaan Sethi of CNBCTV18 points out the limitations of this kind of service, which has already been offered on LinkedIn and Gmail, saying that with Meta, the proprietary aim is to create precise comments as opposed to generic responses.
According to Manoj Harjani, a research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), the purpose of this feature is to mimic human interaction as closely as possible with the hope of increasing activity within Instagram.
Meta’s Tactic: Engagement Versus Authenticity
As reported, Meta is working on AI-driven bot profiles that could engage with users on all of its platforms. These bots would interact with user posts, which would create the appearance of greater levels of engagement. If successful, this tactic could increase engagement through the perception that users’ posts are truly attended to.
The prospects for Meta are evident; user activity metrics would increase. An increase in responses to posts may enhance visibility of user feeds, creating a cycle that fosters more interactions. This may increase the activity within Meta’s platforms, thereby improving advertising revenues and data collection.
The engagement with the AI-generated content is problematic. Engagement, through automated comments, still poses the question of if the users will consider these interactions to be meaningful when they know the responses are AI-generated. Some analysts argue that if there is a propelling effect on the comments, then the question of who posted the comments may not matter.
The What’s in a Name Investigation Report: A Multimodal Study of Meta Users
This approach also has its possible disadvantages. As was indicated in earlier sections, the possibility of automated responses AI responds to comments on the platform will most likely hurt the quality of the interactions. With more and more automated comments responding to people’s questions, the true essence of value engagement would drastically change for the worse.
Also, concerning the comments that are generated by AI, Meta would have to deal with some perception problems in regard to content moderation and the abuse of these automatic comments. The problems of spam, misinformation, and offensive content would be hard to control if these comments are made indistinguishable from human-made responses. For a company like Meta that has previously faced allegations over how they moderate content, the issue of generated comments would make things even more complicated and raise more questions.
User Acceptance: The Judging Force of Existence
It goes without saying that users’ comments interacting with each other with the hope that AI-generated comments to aid interaction will make things easier is a nice idea but will heavily depend on users approval. If the respondents deem the comments as satisfactory and engaging, the chances are that the AI comment offerings will increase the platforms overall activity. In such cases, the strategy can be termed a success. On the other hand, if the answers provided are perceived as robotic and lacking humanity, then the chances of users getting disenchanted with Meta’s aim increase.
Meta’s initiatives involving AI-generated content highlight the competition within the social media ecosystem to enhance user engagement. Rival companies like TikTok and Twitter are also incorporating AI technologies to boost user engagement on their platforms. Unlike the other social media platforms, Meta is more fixated on automating replies, which demonstrates a stronger inclination toward AI’s power to manipulate user behavior.If AI-generated responses result in higher engagement, Meta stands to gain an unrivaled competitive edge in the social media landscape. Nonetheless, achieving a reasonable mix between automation and genuine human engagement will be essential for the sustainability of this approach.
