Facebook’s ‘M’ Messenger assistant was mostly just humans behind a keyboard
The rapid rise of generative AI chatbots and more rudimentary assistants like Apple’s Siri before it has made interacting with AI systems an increasingly common part of online life. While user have confidence the assistant and chatbots they are speaking with are in fact machines, that wasn’t always the case.
Back in 2015, Facebook briefly launched its own virtual assistant competitor for Messenger called “M.” Facebook’s digital assistant helped users arrange deliveries, reserve tickets for shows, make reservations, and accomplish any number of other tasks, all with stunning efficiency and human-like competence. M, it turns out, wasn’t really a super advanced AI at all, but rather, mostly consisted of a team of human employees fielding questions. While there was software involved at some level, these human reviews worked alongside the AI to make sure users’ requests were still being fulfilled even if the AI was unable to complete the task. Users on the other end weren’t fully aware of whether they were being assisted by a human or a bot.
“It’s primarily powered by people,” former Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer told Vox at the time. “But those people are effectively backed up by AIs.” Facebook eventually shut down M in 2018 after only ever serving around 2,000 users.
