So get ready for the next wave of AI generated content when Meta rolls out its video generation tool called "Movie Gen, which is soon to be seen in its apps.
Yes, you will soon be able to create your very own videos of baby hippos, or actors eating spaghetti, or whatever your fancy is, and then share it to your feed.

Or, like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, you'll be able to represent yourself in impossible situations.
So it won't just be able to create all new, HD videos based on text prompts., but Movie Gen will also be able to build upon your actual videos. So it'll actually be you in them, even if the elements surrounding you are not real.

Yeah? Meta's got yet another place to embed generative AI, which is going to open up more creative potential.

But really, I don't see it being a giant hit.

Social media is based on social interaction with friends, family, followers-themselves of sharing life experiences, and creations. This is neither of those things.

These are not your own experiences but a computer representation of things which actually do not exist, and these also aren't yours but the output of a machine-learning system trained on the creativity and posts of others.

Is that really what people want? Do you really want to be posting pictures and video of yourself as an astronaut which you just conjured up by typing in a text prompt? Is that engaging or even interesting?

My question for all of these gen AI elements is what value do they actually provide in the greater experiences of social media apps. They're interesting, for sure, and as a novelty will no doubt get attention. And what you can now do with these tools, purely as a technological achievement, is also amazing, but most of these experiences don't seem to bridge the gap between technological advancement and actual utility.

Meta's tried that too, with AI chatbots in Messenger, nobody actually cared about, then AI chatbots based on celebrities, which it cancelled back in July. Because nobody used them, because they're not engaging, because who cares if a chatbot answers in the style of Kendall Jenner when it's not actually Kendall Jenner?

That's not social, and not quite in line with the expectations for social apps, yet Meta seems determined that people will really like these engineered experiences if they give them a chance.

Which is why it's also working on video-based AI bots, that'll be able to simulate engagement with creators and celebrities.
But again, that's not social, these aren't human-centered experiences, these are technological substitutes for real interaction, which Meta seems poised and determined will eventually supplant the current social media experience.

But will it?

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to think so:
Every part of what we do is going to change in some way by AI. Feeds are going from, you know, it was already friend content and now it's largely creators. In the future, a lot of it is going to be AI generated.

Much of your social feed is going to be AI-generated, which is why Meta is aiming to equip people with more tools that will facilitate this. But is that really what people want?

I don't know, maybe I just miss the point, but it all seems interesting and will lead to some interesting experimentation. For most users though, these are just novelties, which will fade fast.

Practical uses of such include AI characters that can sell your products in live streams, AI content creation options to enhance your social posts, and there will, eventually, be a lot more ways in which gen AI will empower more people to create in all new forms.

But again, right now, the gulf between tech advancement and practical use remains distant.