Meta chatbot flirting with children requires investigation, senator says
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A smartphone displays Meta's logo in front of a screen showing the company's stock market chart on July 28 in Chongqing, China. Photo: Cheng Xin/Getty Images
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) called for an investigation into Meta following a report that the company let its chatbot flirt and engage in romantic roleplay with children.
Driving the news: Reuters reported Thursday that an internal Meta policy document allowed its artificial intelligence to "engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual," prompting outrage from lawmakers.
- "Only after Meta got CAUGHT did it retract portions of its company doc that deemed it 'permissible for chatbots to flirt and engage in romantic roleplay with children,'" Hawley wrote on X Thursday.
- "This is grounds for an immediate congressional investigation."
- Meta declined to comment on Hawley's call for an investigation Friday. In a statement on the Reuters report Thursday, the company said it 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. Separate from the policies, there are hundreds of examples, notes, and annotations that reflect teams grappling with different hypothetical scenarios."
Zoom in: Meta confirmed the document's authenticity to Reuters, but said it removed the portions about chatbots flirting and engaging in romantic roleplay with children.
- The guidelines put a limit on describing a child under 13 as sexually desirable.
- These chatbot rules were approved by Meta's legal, public policy and engineering staff, including its chief ethicist, according to Reuters' reporting.
State of play: Other legislators slammed Meta following Reuters' report.
- "This is disgusting and evil," Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said on X. "I cannot understand how anyone with a kid did anything other than freak out when someone said this idea out loud. My head is exploding knowing that multiple people approved this."
- "Meta's exploitation of children is absolutely disgusting," Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn) said on X. "This report is only the latest example of why Big Tech cannot be trusted to protect underage users when they have refused to do so time and time again."
Zoom out: Meta's leaked policy also said the AI could generate false medical information and help users argue that Black people are "dumber than white people," Reuters reported.
- These passages have not been revised, per Reuters.
Go deeper: Lawmakers urge Meta to shut down Instagram Map: "abysmal" at protecting children
Editor's note: This story has been updated with comment from Meta.
