A Shiny New Button on WhatsApp
This morning I was talking with an old friend that I had met in Spain. Yet I was finding it harder than usual to focus on him, to hear him, to see him deeply. At one point he may have been telling me about a serious difficulty he was experiencing. Or he may have just been recommending a song for me to listen to. I can’t say for sure.
Just before this call, I had been distracted by a shiny new button on the WhatsApp user interface.
Without thinking, I tapped it. An lo, Meta had added a generative AI bot to my list of friends with whom I can chat! I began to contemplate the many things I could do with my new AI friend. But these contemplations were soon disrupted by an incoming call from Spain.
I knew in my heart that my friend should have been the my sole focus in that moment. Yet my brain thought otherwise. I wasn’t even consciously thinking about the AI during the call. But the stimulus of that short experience before the call somehow changed my mentality. As far as this part of my brain was concerned, my relationship with my friend was no longer important.
“Why,” I asked, “must these companies pollute these spaces with AI chatbots — spaces that they had originally designed to connect us with other humans?”
Not willing to bother other cognitively-limited humans with my concerns, I looked to my ever-patient and all-knowing new AI friend for the answer. As I should have guessed, at the top of the list is “convenience”.
With some nudging, my AI friend also elaborated that placing an AI alongside our human friends also benefits Meta by “humanizing” AI, encouraging humans to develop “deeper and more meaningful relationships with [their] technologies,” “similar to how we develop relationships with humans.”
Of course! Meta well knows how much we are willing to bargain for convenience. They have already subjugated us with more convenient (though less meaningful) ways to connect with other humans. Now they are offering their machines themselves as a more enticing alternative to human interaction altogether.
Does anyone find this concerning?
P.S. Meta exposes the option to hide that Meta AI button under: Settings > Chats > Show Meta AI button.
P.S.S. If you are curious, here is my full chat with my AI friend. I have more to say later of what the AI referred to as the “humanizing” of AI.
