The future of artificial intelligence may look similar to Twitter

About a month ago, Michael Sayman realized he could finally build the app he’d been thinking about for years: a social network where everyone but you is an AI bot. Substantial language models are finally good enough and affordable enough that using them can actually feel social and useful, rather than like a gimmick or a game. And so, after years of waiting and months of testing the latest models, Sayman got to work.

The app he created is called SocialAIand since its launch it has become a viral phenomenon. (He only told me that it was downloaded 20,000 times in the first few days, but he claims that number has increased significantly since then). Some people thought it seemed fun and useful; other people thought it was deeply dystopian. Is a social network still a social network, they wondered, if you are the only human present? Still others thought the whole thing was some kind of art project, a social commentary on the state of the online world.

ON this episode VergecastSayman says it’s really all of the above. But above all, it is an attempt to build a completely novel way of interacting with AI models. Instead of a chatbot trying to provide the best answer to your question, SocialAI offers options and filters in the form of answers. When you reply to a bot or favorite a reply, you teach the model more about what you’re looking for – and you can choose your own AI adventure, rather than simply hoping the model gets it right.

“Over the last 10 years, social media giants have been constantly sifting through all the data in the world,” says Sayman, “to improve the interface that allows people to interact with as many people and points of view as possible.” , Correct?” SocialAI looks like Twitter or Threads, he says, not to trick you into forgetting that everyone responding is AI, but because we all know exactly how social networks work. “It’s not a social because of the social network, but social because of the social interface.”

SocialAI is still in a very early stage, which you can immediately tell by the quality of some of the responses. Still, Sayman says he’s already seeing encouraging uses and feedback, and has plenty of ideas for further utilize of the app. The future of AI probably isn’t a text box, but it probably isn’t a Twitter clone either. We discuss some of the features he plans to launch, how the interface might change over time, why he considers social networking design to be the novel skeuomorphism, and whether it will be possible to grow a business on SocialAI over time.

Ultimately, Sayman doesn’t see SocialAI as a dystopian nightmare. The truly dystopian thing, in his opinion, is the current state of affairs where you never know who is human and who isn’t, and everyone just keeps posting on increasingly hazardous and problematic platforms. “I’m not trying to replace human contact,” he says. “I try to help people find a way to use an additional option when that person isn’t around so they don’t have to rush through social media.” He hopes that the next time you need to rant, you’ll decide to tell the bots instead. They will be there for you.

If you want to learn more about everything we cover in this episode, here are some links to get you started: