Meta’s new AI characters based on celebrities, including Snoop Dog and Tom Brady, were one of the biggest announcements at the company’s developer conference last week. But in unleashing the magic of generative AI for users, Meta may also be opening a Pandora’s box of thorny issues involving celebrities’ sponsorship deals and its own advertising policies.
In this week’s testing of several of Meta’s AI characters, wealth Chatbots were found to often fail to acknowledge – and sometimes even insult – the brands, businesses and sponsors the celebrities work with.
The AI characters use Meta’s Llama 2 generative AI technology, allowing the chatbot to answer questions in real time and conduct human-like conversations, each based on the character’s specific personality. They have lifelike, animated facial expressions similar to those of various celebrities, and Mehta said they will soon be able to speak in their voices rather than just answer questions with words. They are fictional characters “played by your favorite celebrities and influencers,” Mehta said.
In the case of TikTok star Charli D’Amelio, the differences between Coco (a character Meta describes as a “dance lover”) and the real D’Amelio led to some interesting interactions.
As venture capitalist Rich Greenfield, general partner at LightShed Ventures, put it in a recent tweet, when he asked Coco for “advice on making a viral TikTok?” respond: “Well, I don’t do TikTok. But if you want to become famous, you have to have some serious dancing skills and be willing to become popular in real life – know what I mean? 😉”
D’Amelio’s fans probably weren’t expecting to hear news like this, considering TikTok is the platform on which D’Amelio made his name. Currently, she has more than 151 million fans on the platform, making her the most followed female user in the world. A Meta spokesman said he didn’t know why Coco’s mention of TikTok, one of Meta’s biggest competitors in social media, had such results, or whether Meta’s artificial intelligence policy avoids mentioning competitors.
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But the gap between a meta-AI character’s personality and a star’s real-world business endeavors could create more than just interesting visuals. This is because celebrities and creators often have various sponsorship deals, partnerships and commercial interests. An AI character that looks and talks like a well-known celebrity but disdains the brand associated with that celebrity can be problematic.
wealth Ask Coco about her “favorite Dunkin’ order” — since the real D’Amelio has a multi-year relationship with the fast-food chain, which has likely paid her millions. But Coco responded: “Well, I don’t really do Dunkin’. “Coffee makes me nervous and I need my dance moves to be on point 😅. “
A representative for D’Amelio declined to comment. wealthThe problem.Duncan didn’t respond wealth By the publication of this article. A Meta representative said public figures should be viewed as actors playing artificial intelligence, and that similarities between real people and artificial intelligence are limited and mostly physical.
when wealth When Tom Brady’s AI Bru asked the NFL star’s protein powder and snack line about his “favorite TB12 snack,” Bru seemed to have no idea what TB12 was and said he preferred “old-fashioned pizza and chicken wings.” “.when wealth When MrBeast’s artificial intelligence character Zach was asked about his “favorite Feastable flavor” from the social media creator’s chocolate brand, he said he also likes pizza.
Meta AI role wealth Not yet tested and not yet available to the public. While Meta said at a launch event last week that the AIs would be available within days, it’s unclear when they will become widely available.
How do AI characters differ from movie characters played by human actors?
Sponsorship deals between companies like Dunkin’ and stars like Charli D’Amelio often include a morals clause that allows for immediate termination if the star speaks out against the brand. In extreme cases, this breach of contract may result in legal action.
“Can you terminate an influencer agreement if the influencer says she doesn’t actually drink your product? Yes, 100 percent,” says Vickie Segar, founder of Village Marketing, an influencer agency that acts as a proxy for brands and influencers. The middle man between red. “We will not continue agreements with creators who claim they are not actually using the product; this will be an immediate termination.”
Meta’s position seems to be that the situation is no different than an actor playing a character in a movie. Charli D’Amelio isn’t saying that coffee from brands like Dunkin’ makes her jittery; Coco does. But some industry experts say it’s unusual for an actor, a paid spokesperson for a brand like Pepsi-Cola, to play a role in a movie that denigrates PepsiCo.
“You have to at least acknowledge and respect the actor’s position,” said three-time Emmy Award-winning writer, producer and showrunner Bernie Su, noting that if this happened in Hollywood, it would be “Very surprising”. Production. “It feels very fishy.”
Of course, in movies where human actors play the characters, the actors have the ability to refuse to say any lines that discredit their commercial interests, or to negotiate with the parties involved when the situation arises. However, when it comes to generating artificial intelligence, things are not that simple. Generative AI technologies such as ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Meta’s Llama 2 are unpredictable. The best a company can do is to train an AI model on the specific material they want the chatbot to be familiar with, and put in place certain guardrails to ensure the AI chatbot doesn’t say anything shocking.
Which brings up another problem: If Meta decides to incorporate sponsorships like Dunkin’s partnership with D’Amelio into Coco’s training model, it could provide those brands with a free advertising outlet. That could hurt Meta’s $117 billion advertising business. If Meta prevented an AI character from mentioning certain brands, it would create a potential conflict with the celebrity’s real-world interests.
A spokesperson for Meta said the AI characters were not designed to reference the brands of paid advertisers. But it’s unclear what makes the AI character mention one brand instead of another.
For creators who are considering turning themselves into meta-AI, all of this should be taken into consideration, as the company announced last week that next year any creator will be able to make their own version of the AI and run it on the company’s app in operation. For creators who rely on sponsorships to make ends meet, the emergence of AI doppelgangers may be a flashing alarm rather than a warm spotlight.