Wait... Threads beat X?!

Matt Navarra

Hello, geeks!

I’m writing this week’s Geekout propped up in bed, shattered.

One of the many 💩 things about ADHD? The meds. Side effects include random nights of zero sleep.

So at 4am I was watching AI-generated Michael Jackson videos on TikTok and interrogating ChatGPT on whether pre-ordering the new iPhone Duo was a bad decision.

Ironically, TikTok’s hottest trend this week is telling people to stop scrolling TikTok.

The good news? Soon I won’t have to doomscroll myself. Zuck wants billions of Muses doing our shopping, work and plans, while chatting to other people’s Muses.

He reckons it’ll make more money than Facebook and Instagram.

Bold.

Coming up in this week’s Geekout…

• 🤖 Zuck wants your Muse to talk to my Muse. Billions of them. Should we be worried?

• 💸 Meta just got a $25bn bill for misleading Facebook users

• 🧵 Threads has overtaken X, says Meta. The numbers inside

• 💼 LinkedIn will now flag your side hustle. Hope your boss doesn’t mind

• 🙅 Hotels and restaurants are banning influencers. Tripods out

• 🚫 Elon is banning “ugly” ads on X. Guess who decides what’s ugly

But before we get into it...

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🔥 TOP STORY: Meta wants to build a giant social network of AI agents serving billions of people.

2. Meta ordered to pay $25bn for misleading Facebook users [PUNISHMENT]

3. X’s Grok reportedly helped spread an assault accuser's alleged identity [NEGLIGENCE]

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5. Meta's new terms say advertisers are “solely responsible” for AI ad edits [PASSING THE BUCK]

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Enter the ‘Museverse’? Zuck’s new vision of the future

Move over, metaverse, Zuck’s got a new big vision for the future. We could call it… the Museverse?

As The Verge explains:

“It’s early days, but Zuckerberg told investors during Wednesday’s call that he sees a future where ‘billions’ of people are using Muse, and those people’s Muses are talking to and transacting with other people’s Muses in a ‘large-scale Muse network.’”

Oh, and Zuck said that all these Muses will make Meta more money than Facebook and Instagram.

Are you ready for a world where you don’t really need to touch the internet yourself, because you have your little AI buddy doing it all for you? Shopping, work, making plans with friends, all handled by ultra-capable agents with cute avatars operating on our behalf.

Perhaps ‘touch grass, not your phone’ could be the tagline.

But if you’re freaked out by this whole idea, don’t worry. It might not pan out like this. Meta just really needs to tell its investors a story about a world in which all its incredibly expensive AI development makes a massive profit.

And since Muse is currently a hit (at least in the US, the only place it’s available), it makes sense to spin up a vision of Muse being INCREDIBLY successful.

In reality, Muse won’t be the only AI agent in town by a long shot; there will be lots of competition, and AI is developing so fast we all have very little idea how it will play out. And hey, Meta’s habit of overshooting and taking liberties with user privacy could well come back to bite it along the way.

A big question is what happens to traditional social platforms if agents take over. Will we all crave human connection on apps like Instagram while the bots take over everything else? Or will those platforms just become filled with Muses posting AI-generated videos to each other?

Either way, if Zuck is right and Muse does take over the internet… you’d better just get used to it. Meta’s CFO told investors: “Agents are going to be an important part of how reality evolves, and everyone is just going to have to adapt.”

Oh, okay then.

Keep reading

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