Like it or not, Meta is very keen on making AI a more prominent part of the social media experience, and in line with that, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced today that it will be introduced to IG. Video gave a glimpse of some of the AI elements.
Yes, soon, thanks to integration with Meta’s Movie Gen engine, Instagram users will be able to create large compilations of video clips in their streams, switching between different backgrounds, outfits, expressions, Muppet versions of themselves, and more. It will be.
It’s certainly interesting and could lead to new creative trends. However, it feels like we are a step away from the “social” aspect of social media when it comes to connecting with real people and sharing experiences.
Because they are not representative of your actual experience. The AI depictions that Meta continues to push instream are just made-up images and videos that have little to do with your own life or creativity. The video editing feels a little more tailored in that it still uses content that you’ve captured yourself. Learn how to use it to create more engaging clips with visual storytelling elements and enhancements to help you create your posts.
But AI image generation is less so.
AI image generation seems like an interesting novelty, but in most cases I don’t see it as a complementary element in social media connections. Sure, you can generate an image of an alien, but it doesn’t represent anything real. Sure, you can generate an image of the beach you want to go to, but it’s not as good as the real image. The real thing you did.
Meta’s AI video tools provide enhancements and lead to new creative formats within the app. I can imagine some people finding these very valuable.
But storytelling is still key and relationships matter. Social media is inherently social, and without its core connection aspect, it’s just a short form of entertainment, with images and videos flashing into our brains and disrupting our internal circuitry.
In any case, this is what will happen with generational AI. Because artificial intelligence allows for strange, surreal and impossible creations that confuse our minds. A certain amount of weirdness is inevitable, but there’s no central thread, no story that ties things together, no story that we can relate to. Without that, you’re just generating something for the sake of it.
And while that also happens as people experiment with these new options, the real lasting value of such creations lies in their purpose, and how they can be used to enhance the communication of human stories. You will be using it.
If you get the story right, these can be great complements. Otherwise, they are just a novelty and will not resonate.
