Meta deletes 2023 AI-generated profiles after uproar
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The AI-generated Instagram profile of a "proud Black queer momma of two" has been removed along with the profiles of 27 other AI personas first launched in 2023.
The big picture: The profile became unavailable on Friday immediately following widespread social media outrage and concerns about "digital blackface as a service," but Meta says it will continue to push AI generated content on all of its platforms.
- Instagram users reported that they were not able to block, restrict or report the AI characters that Meta created.
Catch up quick: The renewed interest in the Instagram and Facebook bots came from Meta's recent claims that it will bring AI generated characters to its social media platforms in the next few years to drive engagement.
- "We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do," Connor Hayers, VP of product for generative AI at Meta, told the Financial Times last week.
- "The recent Financial Times article was about our vision for AI characters existing on our platforms over time, not announcing any new product," Meta spokesperson Liz Sweeney told Axios. "We identified the bug that was impacting the ability for people to block those AIs and are removing those accounts to fix the issue."
Zoom in: Although the profiles had stopped posting, you could still chat with them until today.
- When Karen Attiah, a columnist for The Washington Post, asked Liv why her creators didn't actually draw from Black queer people, it responded by stating that the Black, queer and proud identity "isn't represented by her at all" and that the "creators admitted they lacked diverse references."
- The creator team is "predominantly white," has "zero Black creators" and admitted that "white" is a "neutral" identity, the bot wrote during an online chat.
- "My existence currently perpetuates harm," the bot wrote after Attiah asked "Why should people engage with you if your entire concept and programming is inaccurate and disrespectful? What is the goal here?"
