About a month ago, Michael Seiman realized he could finally build the app he’d been thinking about for years: a social network where everyone but himself becomes an AI bot. Large-scale language models can end up being good enough and cheap enough that the experience actually feels social and useful, rather than gimmicky or game-like. So, after years of waiting and months of testing the latest models, Sayman got to work.
The app he built is called SocialAI, and it has become something of a viral phenomenon since it was released. (All he told me was that it had been downloaded 20,000 times in the first few days, but said that number had increased significantly since then.) It seemed fun and useful. Some people thought so. Others found it very dystopian. They wondered if a social network is still a social network, and if you’re the only human being out there. Still others thought the whole thing was an art project of sorts and a social critique of the current state of the online world.
On this episode of The Vergecast, Sayman says it’s actually all of the above. But above all, this is an attempt to build an entirely new way to interact with AI models. Instead of a chatbot trying to provide a single best response to a prompt, SocialAI provides options and filters in the form of responses. When you respond to a bot or favorite a reply, you can teach the model more about what you’re looking for, and instead of just hoping the model answers correctly, your own AI You will be able to choose your adventure.
โFor the past decade, social media giants have been iterating relentlessly to perfect interfaces that allow people to interact with as many people and perspectives as possible, using all the data in the world,โ Sayman said. says. , right? “SocialAI is similar to Twitter and Threads, he says, not to make you forget that every reply is AI, but because we all know exactly how social networks work. Because we know: “It’s not social for social networks, it’s social for social interfaces.”
SocialAI is still in its very early stages, which is readily apparent by the quality of some of the responses. Still, Seiman said he’s already seen encouraging usage and feedback and has plenty of ideas for where to take the app next. The future of AI probably won’t be text boxes, but it won’t exactly be a Twitter clone either. We discuss some of the features he plans to launch, how the interface will change over time, why he considers social network design the new skeuomorphism, and how it will change over time. and talk about whether there is a business in SocialAI.
After all, Sayman doesn’t think of SocialAI as a dystopian nightmare. What’s truly dystopian, he says, is that we have no idea who is human and who is not, and everyone is constantly posting on dangerous and problematic platforms. “I’m not trying to replace human connection,” he says. “I try to help people find ways to find a second option when they’re not around, so they don’t have to rush to social media.”Next time He hopes that when people need to vent, they might decide to tell a bot instead. they are there for you.
If you would like to learn more about what we discuss in this episode, start with the links below.