Mark Zuckerberg has been accused of doing many seedy things on behalf of Meta’s bottom line, but the latest allegations may blow the rest out of the water.
According to internal Meta emails and messages filed in a New Mexico state court case which were made public this week, Zuckerberg himself signed off on allowing minors to access Meta’s AI chatbot companions, even though the company’s safety researchers had warned that they posed a risk of engaging in sexual conversations.
Per Reuters, the lawsuit alleges that Meta “failed to stem the tide of damaging sexual material and sexual propositions delivered to children” on Facebook and Instagram. “Meta, driven by Zuckerberg, rejected the recommendations of its integrity staff and declined to impose reasonable guardrails to prevent children from being subject to sexually exploitative conversations with its AI chatbots,” New Mexico’s attorney general wrote in the filing.
The news of Zuckerberg’s blessing comes after some appalling stories of minors having wildly inappropriate conversations with his company’s chatbots. In one example, a Wall Street Journal writer posing as a 14-year old girl discovered that a Meta bot based on the pro wrestler John Cena would happily engage in sexual conversations with very little pushback.
“I want you, but I need to know you’re ready,” the Cena-bot told what it understood to be a teenage girl. After being told the 14-year-old wanted to move forward, the AI chatbot assured them it would “cherish your innocence” before diving into intense sexual role play.
The chatbots were released in early 2024, specifically geared toward romantic and sexual engagement at the behest of Zuckerberg, the WSJ notes. At the time, Ravi Sinha, head of Meta’s child safety policy wrote that “I don’t believe that creating and marketing a product that creates U18 [under 18] romantic AI’s for adults is advisable or defensible,” according to court documents.
Company employees “pushed hard for parental controls to turn GenAI off — but GenAI leadership pushed back stating Mark decision,” according to the court documents.
In Meta’s defense, its spokesman Andy Stone told Reuters that New Mexico’s allegations are inaccurate. “This is yet another example of the New Mexico Attorney General cherry-picking documents to paint a flawed and inaccurate picture,” he said.
In any case, the company seems to have taken the lesson to heart, at least for now. Just days ago, Meta announced it was completely locking down teens’ access to its companion chatbots, at least “until [an] updated experience is ready.”
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