Microsoft-owned LinkedIn is experimenting with yet another way to bring generative AI into the app, this time via an AI assistant in your LinkedIn inbox that’ll be able to provide quick answers to questions as you engage in your DMs.

As you can see in this screenshot, shared by app researcher Nima Owji, the new LinkedIn inbox assistant would be available via a dedicated icon in the UI, which would provide you with a generative AI assistant for your LinkedIn responses. That could make it easier to research key points, check spelling, get advice on conversational elements, etc.

The addition would expand on Microsoft’s growing generative AI empire, with the tech giant looking to use its partnership with OpenAI to incorporate ChatGPT-like tools into every surface that it can, which has already seen it add AI generated profile summaries, job descriptions, post creation prompts, and more into the LinkedIn experience.

LinkedIn also added generative AI messages for job candidates within its Recruiter platform last month.

It would also see LinkedIn finally follow up on its inbox assistant tool, which it actually first previewed back in 2016.

This slightly blurry image was lifted from a LinkedIn presentation seven years back, where LinkedIn previewed its coming ‘InBot’ option. InBot, powered in part by Microsoft’s evolving AI tools (at the time) was supposed to synch with your calendar, which would then enable it to automatically schedule meetings on your behalf, arrange phone calls, follow-ups, and more.

But it never came to be. For whatever reason, LinkedIn abandoned the project shortly after this announcement – most likely because LinkedIn was looking to latch onto the short-lived messaging bots trend, which Meta believed would be a revolution in customer service. Till it wasn’t.

Because messaging bots never caught on, LinkedIn likely decided not to bother – though it is interesting that, even back then, shortly after Microsoft’s acquisition of the app, LinkedIn was already talking up the potential of merging Microsoft-powered AI tools into LinkedIn’s functions.

It’s taken a while for that to come to fruition, but soon, we may have a better version of InBot incoming, which would theoretically be able to incorporate these originally planned functions, along with more advanced generative AI responses and prompts.

That could actually be pretty valuable on LinkedIn, with various functions that could help you maximize your lead nurturing efforts, including immediately accessible info on the user that you’re interacting with, to personalize the exchange.

Of course, there is also a level of risk that the more AI tools LinkedIn adds, the less human the app will become, with users getting generative tools to come up with more posts, messages, profile summaries, and everything else in between over time.

Eventually, that could see a lot of LinkedIn interactions becoming bots talking to other bots, while the real humans behind each account remain distant. Which would see more engagement happening in the app – and would certainly make for some interesting IRL meet-up scenarios as a result. But it does also seem like LinkedIn could, maybe, be overdoing it, depending on how all of these tools are integrated.

We’ll find out. There’s no timeline on a potential launch for the new AI chatbot tool as yet.

Image: — © AFP/File Olivier DOULIERY

When the staid and stately BBC starts complaining about content deletions on social media on its own website, you know there’s a problem. According to the BBC, their Ukraine war posts were taken down and then they couldn’t upload, at least on Instagram.

The problems apply to Facebook and YouTube, as well as Instagram. Both AI and human moderators may be involved. The information is as blurry as you’d expect. Every case is a bit different. It’s not that easy to decide what to show and what not to show.

Given the constant complaints about social media disinformation and propaganda bots, it’s not a great look. You’d think these arbitrary decisions would get at least some scrutiny.

To be fair –

1. Graphic depictions of some things have been giving social media moderators PTSD for years. It’s pretty obvious that they’re dealing with utter filth.  
2. It’s truly gruesome. They’re trying to filter out as much of this trash as possible, with good reason.
3. That’s the main reason social media isn’t just another version of the porn industry and/or any other toxic stuff you care to name.
4. Social media does have a responsibility to manage these issues, and it does, to whatever extent it can.
5. Let’s not underestimate the degrees of difficulty in managing footage at the production and publishing ends. Some things really can’t be shown, often for multiple reasons.

…So the arbitrary blocks and standards aren’t totally useless; just incredibly annoying sometimes.

That said, the question of not showing war crimes, sanitized or otherwise, is a very mixed issue. It’s not like you’re going to see war crimes in progress and like it. It can be traumatic. People do have a right NOT to be traumatized, despite right-wing media.

This isn’t really censorship in the conventional sense. It’s a judgment call on what can be shown.

There are a few options for social media:

1.Simply don’t show them as a rule, not a guessing game.

2. Selective edits.

3. “Viewer discretion” notices.

4. A Yes/No process with due notification to posters.

5. Penalties for abuse of rules.

This is where it gets even trickier. Rules can be their own goals. YouTubers in particular have a lot of issues with demonetization and content rules. It’s confusing. The US legal principle of “Fair Use” seems to be more of a raffle in some cases.

When it comes to war crimes and hard facts, however, it’s a totally different ball game. It’s about lots of people dying. This scale of human misery can’t be a non-topic.  

A less obvious issue is that the BBC, a global news service, is being vetted by algorithms. That can’t go unchallenged. Where are the lines drawn? News media is doing its job for a nice change, and can’t spread the news?  

People literally risk their lives to get this material. There’s nothing more relevant going on in the world today.

I’m not saying there’s a simple answer. There does have to be a fix. …Or these war crimes can be dismissed as “fake news”. We know what happens then.

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Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.