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 use their likeness for fictional AI chatbots, according to 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 work in a studio, according to 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 use their likeness, The Information reported.
The report cited a person familiar with the matter as saying that other deals with top creators were in a similar price range and that the arrangements are non-exclusive — meaning that the stars could shop their likeness to other AI-related products if they so choose.
The Post has sought comment from Meta.
“We shared plans at [Meta] Connect that will be bringing AI experiences for creators to our platforms in the future,” a spokesperson for the company 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 — along with a smattering of AI characters he called “a bit more fun,” such as “Max the sous chef,” who can help come up with ideas for dinner, or Lily, a “personal editor and writing partner.”
The bots answer questions and engage 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 help us get different things done,” Zuckerberg told developers in attendance at the annual Connect conference in Menlo Park, Calif. last week.
“This isn’t just going to be about answering queries. This is about entertainment and about helping you do things to connect with the people around you.”
Brady — who reportedly was paid some $55 million by disgraced crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried for doing a total of 60 hours of work 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 is out to “prove it’s cool to geek out.”
Max is played by real life chef Roy Choi while Snoop Dogg, who is 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 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 next generation of its AI large language model and made the technology, known as Llama 2, free for research and commercial use.
Meta said it is working on adding voice to the bots, which are currently available only in text-based chat form.
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