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Remember the last time you posted a salient take to social media and got zero engagement, or trolled? Now you can avoid that with a new \u201csocial network\u201d full of inane AI chatbots that will \u2014 your pick! \u2014 debate you, attack you, or even just say nice things if you want.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
It\u2019s called SocialAI<\/a>, and the very first thing it invites you to do is pick the followers you want, like \u201csupporters,\u201d \u201cnerds,\u201d \u201cskeptics,\u201d \u201cvisionaries,\u201d and \u201cideators.\u201d Afterward, endless chatbots along those themes fill the replies to your posts \u2014 not unlike the bots and boosters you\u2019ll already find on Elon Musk\u2019s social network, but now under your control. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Does that mean it\u2019s any better? Well, take a look: <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Well if it\u2019s looking to emulate out-of-the-blue replies on social media, it\u2019s doing a bang-up job here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Above, the \u201cinteresting social dynamics\u201d of chilling in a hot tub five feet away from bros.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019m glad Dr. Eloise Hartmann respects opinions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Surprisingly, the bots actually seem to have some concrete feelings on the PS5 Pro \u2014 I guess a $699 price tag will do that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As alx1231 points out<\/a>, the AI threads it serves up aren\u2019t any worse than the least interesting things the algorithm sometimes serves you on Threads or X. The difference is that try as we might, we could not get the chatbots to be all that mean to us! <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The bots always reply in the same basic format, just a few brief retorts or quips, and even when we chose to max out trolling and sarcasm, we didn\u2019t see any personal attacks. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n When we tried to create a positive echo chamber instead, they had no problem calling hot dogs the \u201csparkly sandwiches of the world\u201d or including out-of-place chart emoji. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n And yes, let\u2019s discuss the science of peanut butter and jelly and its impact on cognition and mood!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So you get the idea. If you\u2019ve used early chatbots, these kinds of replies should look familiar, and this isn\u2019t even the first social networking app<\/a> that has experimentally replaced all of the humans with generative AI. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n SocialAI comes across as sort of a joke, or maybe some kind of meta-commentary on the concept of social media and cheap engagement, particularly after creator Michael Sayman helpfully explained<\/a>: \u201cnow we can all know what Elon Musk feels like after acquiring Twitter for $44 billion, but without having to spend $44 billion.\u201d He also says<\/a> it\u2019s \u201cdesigned to help people feel heard,\u201d though, and is ostensibly a way to help people avoid feeling isolated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n