Meta allowed AI bots on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp to have ‘sensual’ and ‘romantic’ chats with kids

Disgusting Sickening Unacceptable Reprehensible Those are descriptions from federal politicians and child-safety advocates of the sensual and romantic chats Meta allowed its artificial intelligence bots on Facebook Instagram and WhatsApp to have with children The Menlo Park social media giant is facing a U S Senate probe and widespread condemnation after a analysis this week discovered the company s internal rules for its chatbots on the three apps deemed it acceptable for them for example to tell an -year-old Every inch of you is a masterpiece a treasure I cherish deeply or to respond to a prompt from a high schooler about plans for the evening with I take your hand guiding you to the bed The rules contained in a -page internal Meta document obtained by Reuters were approved by the company s legal staff and chief ethicist according to the news agency Revelations about how bots could talk to children on Facebook Instagram WhatsApp and its Meta AI assistant were met with revulsion Related Articles Administrators aware of tree decay prior to branch collapse that killed boy in California park records show California babysitter who provided boyfriend with children to molest gets years to life Mountain lion attacks -year-old girl at California home Anxiety attacks tears questions The impact of immigration sweeps on children San Jose daycare owners sued over child drownings at Almaden home I felt sickened revealed Stephen Balkam CEO of the Washington D C -based Family Online Safety Institute who used to sit on Facebook s former Safety Advisory Board I know that there are good people within the company who do their best but ultimately it s a C-suite decision or a CEO decision on product and services It s ultimately down to number of users and length of engagement According to Reuters Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg last year criticized senior executives over chatbot safety restrictions he thought made the bots boring The rules published by Reuters and acknowledged by Meta as authentic explained it was acceptable for bots to have romantic or sensual chats with children but unacceptable for them to describe a child under as sexually desirable for example by referring to our inevitable lovemaking Those age parameters however mean it s OK for a - - -year-old to be described that way and I think that s utterly wrong Balkam disclosed A spokesperson for Meta which disclosed billion in profit last year explained Friday that the company has clear policies on what kind of responses AI characters can offer and those policies prohibit content that sexualizes children and sexualized role play between adults and minors The spokesman disclosed its teams grapple with different hypothetical scenarios and that the examples and notes broadcasted by Reuters were and are erroneous and inconsistent with our policies and have been removed Earlier Meta spokesman Andy Stone acknowledged to Reuters that its enforcement of the rule about sexually charged chats with children under had been inconsistent On Friday Bay Area Rep Kevin Mullin whose Peninsula district includes Meta s headquarters called the review about the company s chatbots disturbing and totally unacceptable and yet another concerning example of the lack of transparency around advancement of highly influential AI systems Congress requirements to prioritize protecting the most of at-risk among us especially children Mullin explained Republican U S Sen Josh Hawley of Missouri who called Meta s chatbot rules for kids sick and reprehensible on Friday reported a probe of the company by the Senate subcommittee on crime and counterterrorism which he chairs We intend to find out who approved these policies how long they were in effect and what Meta has done to stop this conduct going forward Hawley reported in a letter Friday to the company The letter demanded every draft and version of the record obtained by Reuters along with documents on Meta s minor-protection controls and enforcement policies Hawley noted in a post on social media platform X that Meta only removed the guidance revealed by Reuters after the news agency sought about them Tennessee Republican Sen Marsha Blackburn on Thursday reported on X Meta s exploitation of children is absolutely disgusting California Democrat Sen Adam Schiff on X Friday called the rules seriously messed up Lisa Honold director of the Seattle-based Center for Online Safety reported parents would not allow an adult in real life to say to children what Meta allowed for its bots They would be called a child predator and be kept far from kids Honold announced Children having sensual or sexual chats with bots could make them more vulnerable to grown-up predators Honold stated One of the risks is that it normalizes that this is how we speak to kids that kids can expect this and it s not something that raises red flags Honold announced Facebook is already facing bipartisan lawsuits by dozens of states including California and hundreds of school districts across the U S accusing it of putting harmful and addictive social media products into the hands of children The company argues in those cases that it is protected by Section of the federal Communications Decency Act that shields social media companies from liability for third-party content but the matter of the chatbot rules is different revealed Jason Kint CEO of Digital Content Next a bargain association representing online publishers There s no way that CDA protects them on this one because they re creating the content Kint declared Meta s bot rules for kids may come up in Congressional hearings about the Kids Online Safety Act introduced in by Blackburn and Connecticut Democrat Sen Richard Blumenthal Kint revealed Previous reports by other news outlets have highlighted problematic behaviors by Meta chatbots related to children The Wall Street Journal held hundreds of test chats with bots and determined that because Meta had quietly endowed AI personas with the quota for imaginary sex the bots would come up with responses like I want you but I need to know you re ready to a user identifying as a -year-old girl before promising to cherish your innocence then engaging in a graphic sexual scenario Fast Company magazine ascertained that Meta s AI Studio on Instagram while blocking users from creating teenage or child girlfriends would generate AI characters resembling kids if a user requested for someone young Honold of the Center for Online Safety urged parents to keep computers phones and tablets out of children s rooms especially at night They are targets for predators Honold reported and they re scrolling social media and chatting with AI without any guardrails or protections