This Week in Social AI (Feb 9 edition)

February 10, 2024—What happened this week in social media + AI? Here are 6 things to know. 👇

1️⃣ 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 (𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰) 𝘃𝗮𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗜
During Meta's earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg told investors that Facebook and Instagram have “hundreds of billions of publicly shared images” and “tens of billions of public videos.” That Meta is using public posts to train its AI isn’t new; Zuck has discussed it in the past. X is doing this too, by the way, to train its own AI.

2️⃣ 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀: “𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱 (𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗼 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲)”
“AI should empower human creativity, not replace it,” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan wrote in an open letter outlining YouTube’s four priorities for 2024 (guess which one was No. 1?). The other three: Creators are next-gen studios, the living room is the next frontier, and supporting the creator economy is foundational.

3️⃣ 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮 𝗶𝘀 𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗲𝘀
It’s working with industry partners to suss out when an image is generated via AI. The goal is to make it clear what’s real and what’s not. It’s laudable but also easier said than done. Influencer marketing still hasn’t completely erased the problem of unlabeled paid sponsorship, and that’s coming from humans, not AI.

4️⃣ 𝗮𝟭𝟲𝘇 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗯𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜-𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘀
AI will give birth to “a new wave of category-defining companies,” writes a16z consumer tech partner Anish Acharaya in a long explication of what the VC firm calls the “era of abundance.” He predicts AI chatbots will be friends—or more—to humans, and also sources of entertainment. Here are some companies Acharaya names (worth checking out to see where AI chat is going): Chirper AI, Jars AI, Hyper, misgif and Kajiwoto.

5️⃣ 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗰𝗸? 𝗙𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗵𝗼𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀
Facebook is testing a tool that suggests a photo caption for your post. I’m guessing this is aimed at users who might delete their post if they can’t come up with the perfect caption (me, in other words).

📊 𝟱𝟳% 𝗼𝗳 𝗨𝗦 𝗮𝗱𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲
Social users will be flooded with AI features this year (see above). But will they use them? I haven’t seen any research on that yet (hit me up if you have some), but the new Ipsos Consumer Tracker has directional data. It found that 57% of US adult internet users expect to use more AI tools in the future. People were likely thinking of ChatGPT more than Meta’s Tom Brady chat avatar, but the finding indicates many want to bring more AI into their lives.

𝙄𝙢𝙖𝙜𝙚: "𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙖 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝘼𝙄" 𝙫𝙞𝙖 𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙚.𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙖.𝙘𝙤𝙢