Here’s another artificial intelligence feature from Meta that falls into the category of “Why?”
Today, Facebook has announced a new option to use AI to animate your profile image, with a range of preset options available to give your headshot motion and depth.
As explained by Facebook: “You can now animate your profile picture, turning a still photo into a playful animation in seconds. Choose from preset animations 0 like natural, party hat, confetti, wave, and heart 0 to bring your profile picture to life depending on how you’re feeling. We’ll add more animation options throughout the year so you can celebrate and express yourself during seasonal moments and special events.”
So rather than taking a video of yourself, and uploading that to the platform, you can now simulate emotion and activity through AI, which, for some reason, Meta thinks is a valuable use of its multi-billion-dollar technology.
“For the best results, we recommend using a photo that features a single person facing the camera with their face clearly visible, and not holding other objects. You can select photos to animate directly from your camera roll or choose photos you’ve already uploaded to Facebook. Once a photo is animated, you can share it to your Feed and view it on your profile.”
So now, you can share an AI puppet version of yourself doing the heart sign with your fingers. Because, apparently, Meta thinks that filming a short clip of yourself doing this in real life is too complex and time-consuming for most people.
Though it is worth noting that you can’t actually use an uploaded video of yourself as your profile image on FB, as you can with these AI-simulated animations. You could once, but Facebook retired the option back in 2022.
Why? Because nobody used it, so it’s pretty baffling as to why Facebook has decided to roll this out again, a decade after the original launch of the feature, in the hopes that it will generate more interest.
But, it’s AI now, and AI’s cool, right?
Facebook’s also rolling out an AI-powered Restyle option for Facebook Stories and Memories, which will enable you to utilize preset style options, or your own text-based AI prompt to reimagine your visuals.
“After uploading a photo to Stories or viewing your Memories to share on Stories, you can tap Restyle and either use Meta AI to change things up how you want, or pick from Styles (like anime or illustrated), Moods (like glowy), Lighting (like ethereal), Colors (like cool or pink), and Backdrops (like beach or cityscape).”
Finally, Facebook’s also adding new AI-animated backgrounds for text posts, in various seasonal iterations.
So, more AI, as Meta looks for more ways to get more people more interested in its generative AI options, in the hopes that, eventually, it will be able to make enough money to offset the massive costs of running these tools.
But as always, AI tools like this feel a little out of place on social media, and on Facebook in particular, because Facebook is where you share personal updates with family and friends, real notes on what you’re up to and what’s happening.
In this context, AI-generated stuff just doesn’t make sense. I mean, social media more broadly is about sharing your personal perspective, so where fake AI depictions fit at all is a bit of a mystery.
But again, Meta’s super keen to showcase what its AI tools can do, in the hopes of drumming up more consumer interest in its AI products.
So now, you get this. And soon, you won’t need to have any real reactions to anything at all, as AI will be able to simulate all of it for you.
