Instagram is the latest platform to make users fix their own recommendation algorithms (via AI chatbot, of course)

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A major social media platform is using an AI chatbot to make users manage the quality of its recommendation algorithm themselves.

First X, then YouTube, now Instagram. Mark Zuckerberg is pushing his company hard on generative AI (to the shareholder-spooking tune of $72 billion in capital expenditures), and the latest tool to emerge from that push is something called “Your Algorithm.”

Instagram describes Your Algorithm as “a new way to control your Instagram experience.” It’s rolling out first to Reels, and will appear as a tappable icon in the upper right-hand corner of users’ apps. Tap the icon, and a panel will show you your top interests and–here’s the crucial part–let you “tune your preferences” by “typ[ing] in the topics you want to see more or less of.”

Reels will then adjust your personal recommendation algorithm based on your input.

“Instagram has always been a place to dive deep into your interests and connect with friends,” the platform said in a blog post. “As your interests evolve over time, we want to give you more meaningful ways to control what you see on Instagram, starting with Reels. Using AI, you can now more easily view and personalize the topics that shape your Reels, making recommendations feel even more tailored to you.”

This tool sounds just like X and YouTube’s, right down to the chatbot aspect. X’s tool will use Grok, and YouTube’s will use Veo 3. Meta’s will presumably be powered by its own inventively named Meta AI.

Giving people more control over what they see on social media is a good thing, and considering how skeptical users (and creators) have been about recommendation algorithms doing what they’re supposed to, we’re not surprised that’s one of the first public-facing areas where platforms are implementing DIY AI.

But it is concerning that instead of addressing users’ concerns about their feeds being rife with AI slop, faceless garbage, and content unrelated to their interests by making structural changes to their algorithms, platforms are outsourcing that effort to users.

We’ve been told now for years that generative AI is the future. OK, sure. So that future is this: If you want decent content recommendations on social media platforms, you have to do it yourself. And if you don’t want to use xAI, Google, and Meta’s proprietary chatbots? Then any bad recommendations you get are your fault.