Comment by yoan9224

The dystopian part isn't that AI impersonation is possible - we've known that for years. It's that Meta proactively created an AI profile without explicit opt-in, using someone's personal photos and life events to train a simulacrum that interacts with their actual friends. This crosses a fundamental consent boundary that feels qualitatively different from "AI suggested you write this reply."

The legal framework is completely unprepared for this. Current identity theft laws require financial harm or fraud intent. But what's the legal status of an AI that impersonates you with your own data on a platform you actively use? It's not fraud in the traditional sense, but it's definitely some kind of identity violation. We need new categories: "computational identity theft," "algorithmic impersonation," something that recognizes the harm of having your digital self puppeteered by a corporate AI.

The metadata implications are worse than people realize. Even if you never post personal content, Meta can infer relationship status, location patterns, health issues, political leanings from likes, tags, and behavioral signals. An AI profile built from that could plausibly interact in your name with significant accuracy. The person being impersonated might not even know unless someone explicitly asks "wait, did you really say that?"

The immediate solution is legislation requiring explicit opt-in for any AI feature that generates content attributed to a user's identity. No defaults, no dark patterns, no "we'll enable it and let you opt out later." But the deeper problem is the power asymmetry - these companies own the platforms and the data, so they define what's acceptable. We need data portability rights and mandatory AI disclosure so users can at least migrate to platforms that don't pull this.