Recently, celebrity Kendall Jenner started a new Instagram account—or at least that’s what it seemed. The account showed her photo, but the name on the profile was “Billie,” and the bio explained the profile is an “AI managed by Meta.”
According to recent reporting by The Information, Meta is paying celebs such as Snoop Dog, Kendall Jenner, and Charli D’Amelio millions to use their likenesses for fictional AI characters. The move is part of a major push by the company to integrate AI across its products and match the hype of AI tools from competitors like Google and Microsoft.
Meta unveiled AI Assistants during the company’s Connect event last month. In addition to a ChatGPT-like chatbot, they also introduced 28 new chatbots with different personalities, each using a celebrity’s image. Kendall Jenner’s AI, Billie, is meant to be like a big sister you can go to for advice, evidenced in her handle @yoursisbillie. Other chatbots include @Bru, a chatbot using Tom Brady’s likeness for debating sports. The fact that “Billie” wants to give us advice and act as a surrogate sister is alarming given Meta’s track record on teen mental health.
This isn’t the first time a fictional character has taken over our social feeds. Lil Miquela was among one of the first computer-generated influencers to gain millions of followers on Instagram and score brand deals with companies like Pacsun and Prada. Lil Miquela wasn’t without scandal. Calvin Klein had to apologize after they released an ad in which supermodel Bella Hadid and Miquela made out.
While Lil Miquela was clearly not real, Kendall and Billie are indistinguishable. Videos of Billie shared in real-time mimic Kendall’s face, expressions, and voice. I would say that the whole experiment has an uncanny valley feeling to it, but that doesn’t seem to be the right phrase; the uncanny valley is used to describe when representations of humans closely resemble us but are not quite convincingly realistic. Billie is a realistic depiction of an internet celebrity, a deep-fake that can be used and manipulated.
The collaboration also comes at a time when Hollywood screenwriters and actors just spent more than 100 days on strike in an effort to prevent generative AI from entering their workplace.
The whole project has a very “Joan is Awful” feeling to it. In case you’re not familiar, “Joan is Awful” is a recent episode of Black Mirror. It tells the story of a woman who at the end of each day realizes with horror that her actions have been produced into a biographical drama, with her bad decisions played out on screen for all the world to stream. She’s played by Salma Hayek, but we soon learn it’s not Salma Hayek, it’s an AI-generated likeness of her. The episode foreshadows a future where actors sell off their likeness to be used any way producers and studios want.
With the introduction of Billie and the other cast of AI characters generated by Meta, we’ve officially entered the next phase of media and digital identity. Meta says the capability to create your own AI will be available early next year. Buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
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