Mosseri: Public frustration with AI to intensify over next two years

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, stated on the Colin and Samir podcast that public frustration with artificial intelligence will worsen in the coming years. The interview focused on the platform's new widescreen and long-form video features but quickly turned to the growing cultural backlash against AI.

Mosseri noted a clear trend of increasing anxiety and anger directed at AI, particularly within creative industries. He attributed this sentiment to a fundamental fear of being left behind. “It’s not only getting worse, it’s going to continue to get worse,” Mosseri said. “I think we’re going to see more frustration and anger, some of it founded, some of it unfounded, over the next couple of years, and that’s going to make it hard for a lot of people, not just in the industry.”

He cited specific concerns raised by users and creators, including job displacement and the training of models on their content. Mosseri explained that when people speak candidly about their worries, the core issue often becomes a fear of being obsolete. “I think they’re concerned about owning their content and models getting trained on their content,” he said. “I think they’re concerned about job displacement, having AI displace whatever it is they do, if you’re a content creator or an engineer or a mathematician.”

Regarding platform policy, Mosseri said Instagram does not rank AI-generated creators differently than human creators. However, he admitted the platform likely does not rank AI content as effectively as non-AI content. “There’s a lot of great AI content out there, there’s also a lot of AI slop,” Mosseri said. “Do we rank AI content as well as we rank non-AI content? Probably not.” He added that the term “AI slop” is used too liberally.

Instagram began requiring AI accounts to label themselves in August after introducing a general label for AI accounts earlier this year. Mosseri said the platform is actively working out how to handle AI fakes, such as celebrity deepfakes, but believes banning all AI content is impractical. “I don’t think it’s practical for us to try and ban AI content from the platform,” he stated.

He emphasized that the labeling requirement is essential so users can distinguish between real and artificial content. “Now starting to require AI accounts to label themselves, because we think it’s important that people know if what they’re looking at is real or not real,” Mosseri said.

The comments come as Mosseri addresses a trend of college students booing tech CEOs at graduation ceremonies, a phenomenon he linked to the broader anger surrounding AI in the current cultural moment.