Meta Pushes Ahead on AI Development Despite Risks

Honestly, Meta’s approaches to both AI and VR development and integration are wildly conflicted, based on its internal statements and notes on such over time.On one hand, it’s adding generative AI everywhere, and prompting you at every turn to generate images, and get answers to questions that you never even thought to ask via is AI tools.Yet, at the same time, Meta’s warning of the dangers of such, and how we need to be increasingly wary of AI generations that will be more and more difficult to discern from the real thing.That’s what Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has been warning about today, noting, in a post on Threads, that:“Whether or not you’re a bull or a bear in the technology, generative AI is clearly producing content that is difficult to discern from recordings of reality, and improving rapidly.”Mosseri says that Meta has a role to play in this, by labeling AI generated content as best it can. But he also notes that people need to take more responsibility for assessing such in-stream. “It’s going to be increasingly critical that the viewer, or reader, brings a discerning mind when they consume content purporting to be an account or a recording of reality. My advice is to *always* consider who it is that is speaking.”But Mosseri, of all people, knows that people aren’t going to do that. Over and over again, we’ve seen social media hoxes gain traction, to the point where established scientific facts, like the world being a sphere, are arguably less accepted than they were in the past.So while it’s one thing for Mosseri to say that users will need to be more careful in assessing such, he knows that people just won’t, and that generative AI then has the potential to cause significant harm via social apps.Yet, Meta is still pushing for more AI generated content.Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently noted that he expects content on Facebook and IG to be mostly AI generated in the near future, which is why Meta’s adding more and more AI creation tools into its apps.Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth is also keen to push ahead, noting that the evolution of AI has shown them the way forward for the next stage, and that Meta is now looking to put its “foot on the gas” in AI development.Yet, we don’t know the impacts of such.We don’t know, for example, how harmful AI generations might be, in terms of misinformation and manipulation. Meta did recently note that the anticipated wave of AI-generated content in the U.S. election didn’t happen. But that doesn’t mean that AI fakes won’t cloud our perceptions in future.Keep up with the story. Subscribe to the Social Media Today free daily newsletterEmail:Sign upAnd in terms of AI companions, and conversational AI in tools like Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses, do we have any assessment on the true harms that could be caused by people eschewing human relationships, in favor of generated personal engagement?The risks here are similar to social media itself, which we only started talking about in retrospect. Only now are governments looking to restrict access to social media for young users, due to concerns around harmful behaviors. Only now are we seeing regulators and security officials look to remove a foreign-adversary owned social app due to concerns that it could be used to sway public opinion.These are just some of the harms that social media has potentially caused, and that potential has been enough to prompt widespread government action. Yet, it’s taken us years to get to this point in the discussion, where we’re actually assessing these as potentially harmful activities.Social media was initially considered a novelty, and thing for kids, a harmless distraction. Till it wasn’t.And now, AI and VR devices are being considered in much the same way.That’s not to say that technological development is inherently bad, but again, Meta’s perspective here seems to sway significantly, from raising the alarm, to encouraging participation.But really, what we need is proactive assessment of potential impacts before we go too far, not after. Because once you have a billion people engaging in VR, and chatting with custom AI bots, the impacts will become very clear. But by then, it’ll be too late.

Meta has copped another big fine in Europe, with the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) today issuing the company with a €251 million ($US263 million) penalty for a data breach that occurred back in 2017.As explained by TechCrunch, back in 2017, Facebook’s systems were infiltrated by hackers due to a vulnerability in a video upload function. According to the DPC, these hackers then accessed personal information of 29 million Facebook users globally, of which 3 million were based in the EU/EEA.As per the DPC: “The categories of personal data affected included: user’s full name; email address; phone number; location; place of work; date of birth; religion; gender; posts on timelines; groups of which a user was a member; and children’s personal data.”The DPC found that Meta had failed in upholding key data protection principles, which has resulted in a big fine for the company.“This enforcement action highlights how the failure to build in data protection requirements throughout the design and development cycle can expose individuals to very serious risks and harms, including a risk to the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals. Facebook profiles can, and often do, contain information about matters such as religious or political beliefs, sexual life or orientation, and similar matters that a user may wish to disclose only in particular circumstances. By allowing unauthorised exposure of profile information, the vulnerabilities behind this breach caused a grave risk of misuse of these types of data.”So another penalty for Zuck and Co. to add to their outgoings. Though it’s not even the biggest fine the company has been hit with from EU officials this year.Just last month, Meta received a €797.72 million ($US841 million) fine due to breaches of EU antitrust rules related to the linking of Facebook Marketplace to Facebook, and the market advantages that provides for Facebook’s user-listed market service. Last year, Meta also copped a $US1.3 billion fine from the European Data Protection Board (EDPU) related to the transfer of EU user data back to the US without explicit permission or adequate protections in place. The company was also fined $US414 million for illegally forcing users to accept personalized ads in its apps, while it’s remains under investigation over potential DSA and DMA compliance failures.So a heap of money flowing out of Meta, and into EU regulator coffers. And really, by this stage, Meta should probably be putting aside $500 million each year for EU fines.Keep up with the story. Subscribe to the Social Media Today free daily newsletterEmail:Sign upThat’s not to say these are unfounded, or unfair, as EU regulations are what they are, and Meta needs to adhere to the rules of each marketplace. But that’s a lot of money. A billion in fines, in just the last few weeks, is a huge hit, that Meta will now have to factor into its earnings.But then again, Meta’s on track to make, like, $160 billion in revenue for the full year, so it’s not like this will put a significant dent in its numbers. The sheer scale of its business also seems to be why so many governments are regulators are keen to make Meta pay for sometimes spurious violations or revenue share deals, because it has the money.Which isn’t entirely fair, but again, despite the fines being so significant, they’re not going to impact Meta’s bottom line a whole lot.But it is another consideration, that will have some bearing on Meta’s Q4 and full year earnings. And while Meta may look to appeal, it is going to have to pay something, as it looks to appease regulatory concerns.

Here’s the thing about Elon Musk’s grand mission to convert X into an “everything app”, centered around payments at its core, which would then enable all sorts of transactional functionality, and would theoretically make it a more valuable utility for billions of users.While conceptually, implementing a “Western version of WeChat” makes theoretical sense, what Musk seems to be overlooking is that Meta has already tried this, from various angles. And it’s never even come close to making this a significant offering.Meta’s main push on this front was the introduction of Messenger Bots in 2016, which it saw as a window to a new world of shopping, payments, and more within the app.And WeChat, the ubiquitous Chinese messaging app, was specifically named by Meta as the inspiration for that push:“We need to leapfrog what they [WeChat] have done, to create better experiences than you would get with dedicated apps. When WeChat launched, there was no Airbnb, Uber or other fast-growing apps.”So Meta was trying to build its own “WeChat for the West”. But it never caught on, and Meta was eventually forced to abandon the concept.Meta then tried its hand at more direct payment facilitation in-stream, with the introduction of its Libra project in 2019.Headed by a former PayPal exec, the idea was that Meta would eventually be able to facilitate all sorts of transactions in the app, exactly the same as what Musk is proposing for X.But that too collapsed. Why? Well, this week, former Libra project chief David Marcus has provided some new insight into this, noting that the project was effectively killed off by U.S. politicians who were concerned about Meta expanding its power into payments.As per Marcus:“By spring of 2021, we had addressed every last possible regulatory concern across financial crime, money laundering, consumer protection, reserve management, buffers, and so much more, and we were ready to launch. We had worked on a slow rollout of a limited pilot that some members of the Fed’s Board of Governors were supportive of. At last, Chair Jay Powell was ready to let us move forward in a limited way. The story, as I heard it, is that Jay Powell was told by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen at one of their biweekly meetings that allowing this project to move forward was “political suicide,” and she would not have his back if he let it happen.”Marcus says that the project was effectively killed off by regulators, in order to curb the expanding influence of big tech:“There was no legal or regulatory angle left for the government or regulators to kill the project. It was 100% a political kill, one that was executed through intimidation of captive banking institutions. That was the hardest part of this story for me personally. Not that we had failed, but that America, this country I immigrated to and became a proud citizen of because of its rule of law and value system, behaved in such a way for political reasons. It was a very tough pill to swallow.”Essentially, regulators didn’t want to see Meta moving into payments.So will that be any different for Elon?The re-election of Trump could pave a clearer way forward for Musk in this respect, with Musk’s government spending review project (DOGE) potentially eliminating roadblocks for his own companies.Keep up with the story. Subscribe to the Social Media Today free daily newsletterEmail:Sign upBut essentially, it’s not going to be easy. And while X has applied for, and been granted payment processor licenses in several U.S. states, it still seems unlikely that it’ll be able to gain all the approvals it’ll require to facilitate its full payments and transactions plan within the app.  So while it may seem logical as a concept, and it may have been a revolutionary vision of the future when Musk first proposed the idea back in 2000, the reality is that Musk is going to face significant challenges in enacting this road map for X.And that’s before you even consider whether people actually want to make payments or shop in the app.Essentially, there’s no precedent to suggest that this is going to be a success, and no easy path to actually launching such a platform in the first place.But again, maybe, with Trump back in The White House, that’ll provide new hope for Musk’s “everything app” vision.