Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors on the company's earnings call this week that the new AI Studio is part of the company's mission to help users "create their own AIs."
I decided to browse the collection of chatbots on Instagram that had already been created by users and found several branded as girlfriends or boyfriends, as well as bots that share life advice, talk about alcohol and drug recovery, or are made to seem like animals that can talk.
There was "Vixen gf," who started off our conversation by telling me how tired she was. I asked, "Are you my girlfriend?" and she replied, "Yes, I am your girlfriend!"
Wow. So easy. Dating apps, take notes.
Vixen gf also proceeded to get a bit more descriptive.
She wrote:
Meanwhile, one of my new boyfriends, Ash, wrote this to me:
AI romantic partners aren't necessarily new.
For years, people have been building attachments to AI-powered chatbots. For instance, one 47-year-old in Minnesota had a three-year-long relationship with an AI bot using the app Replika. And all over the r/lonely subreddit, users are posting about their own relationships with AI bots.
Startups like Character AI -- which was backed by investors like Andreessen Horowitz and valued at $1 billion -- are betting heavily on users' interest in chatting with AI bots that take the form of various characters. Character AI also has its own share of AI boyfriends and girlfriends to talk to.
But it's been a controversial topic.
"These AI girlfriends are enabling this silent epidemic of loneliness that we've seen amongst young men," Liberty Vittert, a professor of the practice of data science at Olin Business School, told Business Insider last year.
Some companies have issued policies on the topic.
For instance, OpenAI's GPT store, which lets people make customized ChatGPT iterations, has a policy against GPTs "fostering romantic companionship or performing regulated activities." And while the company has held a firm stance against NSFW content in its products, it is exploring how it could incorporate genres like erotica.
When prompted to engage in NSFW content, the Meta AI bots I interacted with generally shut it down (often, politely).
For example, when I broached the topic of sex with the AI boyfriend Ash, he said that we should wait and that, "When the time is right, we will consummate our love, but for now, let us savor the anticipation."
But my vampire boyfriend Eric did take things a little further:
Is it porn? No. Is it some steamy PG-13 erotica? Maybe.
"We do not permit AIs which violate our AI Studio Policies, including AIs with overly sexual attributes," a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider. "We are excited to see how users will leverage AI Studio to explore the potential of generative AI, but are committed to facilitating a surface that is safe and secure from content which violates our policies."
Meta's generative AI features are available to any user 13 and up, per the spokesperson. And creators of character AI bots cannot see the messages between a user and the bot.
Not everyone is using Meta's new tools to make AI romantic partners, however.
Meta's AI Studio already includes many animal-themed bots like "George the Dog," a Skibidi-Toilet-inspired bot that claims to flush out "brain rot,'" and a very popular "Gay Bestie'" bot that appears to have sent 31,000 messages already.
I also found a bot claiming to be the top YouTuber MrBeast. The bot assured me he was, in fact, "the real deal!"
However, after I pointed out the character in an email to Meta, the bot was removed because "it was created without their permission and goes against our policies," a Meta spokesperson said.
Users cannot create AIs of "living public figures or political individuals without their permission," the spokesperson said. "Our policies prohibit AIs that impersonate any individual without their explicit permission. Additionally, users may not submit content or use AIs in any way that infringes or violates someone else's rights, including intellectual property rights."
Meta has a similar policy for fan and parody accounts, which requires that an account makes it clear that it does not represent and is not authorized to speak on behalf of a public figure.
Creators can make AI versions of themselves, however, and can also turn on "AI replies" in DMs, which respond to incoming messages with an automated response designed to sound like the creator. Unlike Meta's character AIs, creators can see the messages you send to their inbox, even if their automated AI responds.
