Blog Post 2: Meta’s AI Friends

News Article:
Meta hypes AI friends as social media’s future, but users want real connections

Argument:

P1: Social media companies are pushing for AI chatbots for people to chat with instead of relying on friends to fill their feeds.
P2: This has let to people socializing with their friends less on social media platforms. But again, that is due to social media platforms shoving other things down people’s throat.
P3: Because of the decisions of some social media apps, activists want social media platforms to work with each other, and allow users to maintain their friends and followers across apps.
C: With the onset of these AI chatbots as friends for people online, we need to be weary of the future of social media. It will just end up being a feed full of fake post from fake, AI friends.

Problems With the Argument:

Challenge: The future of social media apps doesn’t change this much if we introduce AI chatbots to the apps. Just because one person wants to increase the time spent on their platform by adding interactive elements they can control doesn’t mean it is spreading to every social media app, or that it becomes the foundation of social media apps in general. This is somewhat of a butterfly effect situation, where the small change is causing significant uproar, and getting stretched.

Fallacies:
P1: The introduction of AI chatbots could be a useful one, especially if someone needs reassurance urgently. The involvement of chatbots doesn’t also necesarily take up their full feed, just some spots.
P2: People have started socializing less on social media for a plethora of reasons, not just because of these bots. It could be that people are socializing less on social media because they are spending more time socializing in real life, after covid!
P3: Activists have been pushing for this(combining media accounts for cross platform use) forever, and for many more reasons than just these AI chatbots. The interoperability of these platforms will greatly benefit the activists no matter what the platforms do.
Rubuttal: We are getting more chatbots in our social media apps, but we are still a long ways away from the time of fake friends innundating our feeds on every social media app. It is necesary to take a step back, and realize that this small change won’t create a landslide overnight, and that we have time to decide what we want from our social media platforms. This is called the Slippery Slope fallacy.

Alternative Argument C2: With social media apps starting to develop AI chatbots to supplement communications, it is an important time to consider what we want from our social media apps, and choose what services we use to reflect that choice.

How To Use Technology These fake friends could be quite useful for people to have some form of social interaction. If it helps their mental health, is it even bad at all? They can also be quite useful if you want to practice your social skills and step out of your comfort zone in a safe and un-stressful environment. We should use these as training tools like I mentioned, instead of a trustworthy source of information and a trusted friend to socialize with. That difference is key, using these fake friends to practice communication but setting a clear boundary to not rely on them for social engagement.

Reflection: This was pretty hard for me, since I have a hard time coming up with alternative ways of thinking while I am being told what I “should” think, based on what the authors want. This exercise helped me get better at this, and see that I was missing it.