News rolled in recently that Meta has now opened a feed directly aimed at providing content similar to shorts and Instagram reels — Mark Zuckerberg recently announced the introduction of ‘Vibes’. But instead of content uploaded by users of their cute cats jumping away from cucumbers, people base jumping off buildings, or people scaring their mums by bursting into the kitchen, the feed is totally for AI content.
This is an interesting development for sure, but is it one we really need? And is it one we really want? AI seems to be permeating every facet of modern entertainment now, and while this can be a good and positive thing, as we’ll see, maybe use of the nascent technology has gone a bit overboard.
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AI for Entertainment
We can’t have it both ways, though. AI has brought about many positive changes in the way we consume content and entertain ourselves online. Modern consumers are more demanding than ever, and they want their user interface and customer journey to be heavily personalised. Take the enormous online casino industry as an example. AI algorithms and machine learning can learn about customer behaviour, likes and dislikes, and many more data aspects in real-time, creating a more personalised experience that heightens the enjoyment customers get, as well as encouraging customer loyalty. This involves in-game bonuses, tailored recommendations and more. The same can be said for gamers, and streaming services such as Netflix and Prime.
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Human Touch
Many coders use AI as a means of writing simple code so that they can streamline their processes and concentrate on larger, more complex problems. Sometimes, this works well, but a lot of the time AI makes mistakes, causing the programmers more of a headache unravelling what went wrong. A lot of this is based on AI prompts — the prompt is a very important part of this process, and needs to be precise to get good results. On the other hand, other types of business can use AI to solve smaller problems or take care of routine admin jobs which free up staff to take better care of their customers or to tackle more involving situations their businesses might face.
Customer Service
One area in which AI seems to do best is customer service. It’s able to answer queries based on FAQs, customer behaviour and other traits quickly and efficiently, once again freeing up human hands when intervention is needed. What’s more, in our global marketplace it's important to have round-the-clock access to customer service, and advanced algorithm-driven chatbots seem to be having great success in helping customers with basic queries and common questions. However, some may find this more impersonal than before — many prefer to use social media as a form of communication with brands they’re involved with.
The main takeaway here is that we can’t have it both ways. AI is both enriching our lives, whilst at the same time frustrating and even worrying us (the machines are taking over!). But a project like Vibes seems perhaps a step too far — we still crave human content, and favour it over AI.
