[vosper]

This is strategic, right?

It kicks Google, a competitor for advertising dollars. Some people feel Google is under existential threat from AI (trawling through search results full of spam and ads sucks when an AI can just tell you the answer), by allowing people to build various forms of Google competitor without doing the hard lifting of creating the LLM.

It kicks OpenAI, too, though Microsoft is perhaps less obviously a competitor to Meta right now. But Microsoft has OpenAI, loads of money, loads of engineers, and lots of product lines, so they might leverage OpenAI's tech lead to _become_ more of a competitor to Meta. It's less of a risk to Meta if OpenAI doesn't have a tech lead anymore.

[DebtDeflation]

This is aimed squarely at OpenAI (and to a much lesser degree, Anthropic). Google is their own worst enemy in this space precisely because they are terrified of doing anything that will cannibalize their search business and the ad market built around it.

[anon373839]

It also makes Meta more attractive for top research talent, because researchers _really_ like to publish and get credit for their work. As OpenAI and others batten down the hatches, this could give Meta an advantage.

[stereolambda]

If so, it sounds interestingly similar to 1980s-90s IBM and its approach towards personal computers.

[barbariangrunge]

How will ai affect facebook? The number of fake news posts, even by ordinary people putting themselves in photos, etc, is going to really gut the platform of its value, won’t it? What about when the flood of ai images flood instagram? It’s going to be a weird decade or two for them

[ChatGTP]

I noticed a fair bit generated content in my Instagram feed lately. It seemed to disappear which was interesting.

I already hate looking at Instagram discover feed, but if it’s going to turn into MJ discord. I’m really done with it.

[dpflan]

It is certainly strategic to make their AI the most accessible platform for building with AI. Plus the reach of their social networks can put AI improvements that are made elsewhere into their own models and then into their software and to end users. If company A finds a way to use Model X, then that is more easily usable by Meta — they know the model quite well I would assume. Meta’s business thrives on free usage by billions of users, it needs people to keep using its platform to survive, and not leave the networks. Maybe Google is the nearest competitor in terms of ads business being so financially vital.