After problematic chats, Meta removes AI-powered FB, Insta profiles
text_fields
Tech News: Meta removed its AI-powered social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook, which it created in September 2023; users chatted with them, and these chats “went sideways”, The Guardian reported.
Screenshots of users’ chat with these chatbots and the latters’ controversial replies had gone viral, and it is believed that this has prompted the company to remove the accounts. Also, Meta executive Connor Hayes told the Financial Times last week that the company is planning to introduce more of such AI-chatbot features.
Meta had created 28 chatbot profiles on its platforms in 2023, providing disclaimers that “messages are generated by Meta AI”. The company also claims that AI chatbots help people to solve complex problems, “be more imaginative and create something never before.”
A Meta disclaimed on Facebook reads, “From bringing real-time answers to chat to helping people organize and plan for their next vacation to giving them more ways to express themselves, Al at Meta helps people enhance their everyday activities, experiences and moments.”
According to The Guardian report, Meta had killed many of those 2023-launched chatbots by mid-2024, but social media users gained a fresh interest in what remained of them following Connor Hayes's statement last week.
When users asked these bots questions about the origin and development of the characters’ AI model, One such AI profile named “Liv” described itself as a “proud Black queer momma of 2 & truth-teller”. It replied to a Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah’s questions that it was created by a team which had “zero black people and was predominantly white and male”. The bot also said It was a “pretty glaring omission given my identity.”
These problematic replies went viral on social media. Subsequently, users reported that chatbots of this kind started disappearing from Meta platforms.
Later, Meta came up with an explanation that the profiles were part of an early experiment with AI, and they were managed by humans. They were removed because there was an inability to block these accounts, which was a “bug”, and the company intends to fix the issue.