Meta is paying millions of dollars to high-powered celebrities — including retired NFL great Tom Brady, rapper Snoop Dogg, former reality TV star Paris Hilton and TikTok influencer Charli D’Amelio — to make use of their likeness for fictional AI chatbots, in keeping with a report.
One top creator is being paid around $5 million by Facebook’s parent company over two years in exchange for six hours of labor in a studio, in keeping with the tech news site The Information.
Meta — which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram — was so intent on getting big names to sign on that it paid in excess of $1 million for each of the celebrities to grant permission to make use of their likeness, The Information reported.
The report cited an individual accustomed to the matter as saying that other deals with top creators were in an analogous price range and that the arrangements are non-exclusive — meaning that the celebs could shop their likeness to other AI-related products in the event that they so select.
The Post has sought comment from Meta.
“We shared plans at [Meta] Connect that will likely be bringing AI experiences for creators to our platforms in the longer term,” a spokesperson for the corporate told The Information.
At a developer conference last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced an AI personal assistant people can interact with using any of Meta’s messaging apps — together with a smattering of AI characters he called “a bit more fun,” comparable to “Max the sous chef,” who will help give you ideas for dinner, or Lily, a “personal editor and writing partner.”
The bots answer questions and have interaction the user in human-like conversations in real time based on the character’s personality.
“Advances in AI allow us to create different AI personas to assist us get various things done,” Zuckerberg told developers in attendance on the annual Connect conference in Menlo Park, Calif. last week.
“This isn’t just going to be about answering queries. That is about entertainment and about helping you do things to attach with the people around you.”
Brady — who reportedly was paid some $55 million by disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried for doing a complete of 60 hours of labor to be a pitchman for fallen cryptocurrency platform FTX — is assigned the role of Bru, a “wisecracking sports debater.”
Two other sports stars, retired basketball great star Dwyane Wade, took on the role of “Victor,” an exercise coach, while tennis ace Naomi Osaka played the role of Tamika the “Manger Master” who’s out to “prove it’s cool to geek out.”
Max is played by real life chef Roy Choi while Snoop Dogg, who’s seen wearing a red-collared cape, portrayed a “Dungeon Master” who encourages user to “get medieval.”
Paris Hilton is Amber, a “forensic specialist” who solves crimes.
D’Amelio, who was a competitive dancer before she shot to social media stardom and amassed some 150 million followers on TikTok, portrayed a dancer generally known as Coco.
Meta hopes that adding the likes of D’Amelio and YouTube star MrBeast will attract a younger audience that has shunned Facebook and migrated to chief rival TikTok.
Artificial intelligence is central to that vision.
Over the summer, Meta released the following generation of its AI large language model and made the technology, generally known as Llama 2, free for research and industrial use.
Meta said it’s working on adding voice to the bots, that are currently available only in text-based chat form.