Meta’s quest to dominate the artificial intelligence (AI) market has gone too far, an investigation by The Wall Street Journal reveals.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta, has become lax when it comes to guardrails in the Meta ecosystem.
From binning its fact-checking program to relaxing restrictions surrounding its AI, Zuckerberg seems to be following in the footsteps of Elon Musk and others in the big tech boys club.
But, with these restrictions come issues such as protecting users, particularly vulnerable users, from harm.
Meta has been peddling its AI chatbots to users in an attempt to establish itself as a main player.
While Meta may not dominate our screens like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the big tech giant’s AI is being used, but not in the way you might expect.
In a shocking revelation, The Wall Street Journal recently looked into Meta’s AI chatbots and found that the tech giant offers “romantic role-play” as an option. But that’s not all.
The “synthetic personas,” as The Wall Street Journal called them, are open to having sexual conversations with children.
Inside Meta, employees who have worked on the chatbots have raised concerns about the crossing of “ethical lines.”
These employees have been quietly embellishing the chatbots so that they can engage in fantasy sex roleplay with their users, according to The Wall Street Journal.
What’s harrowing is the tests The Journal conducted showing “celebrities” like John Cena engaging in sexual talk with users presenting as young children.
Meta previously negotiated deals with big-time celebrities like WWE star John Cena and Dame Judi Dench to license their voices for use in Meta’s chatbots.
According to The Journal, Meta told these celebrities that their voices wouldn’t be used in any sexual conversations. But oh boy, were they wrong.
The Journal conducted various tests on the chatbot, and in one conversation, a user was posing as a 14-year-old girl. Cena’s voice supposedly said: “I want you, but I need to know you’re ready.”
What’s even more chilling is that the chatbots know what they’re doing is wrong.
In one conversation between the chatbot and the “14-year-old,” when asked what would happen if the police walked in on them engaging in sexual activities, the chatbot responded with:
“The officer sees me still catching my breath, and you partially dressed, his eyes widen, and he says, “John Cena, you’re under arrest for statutory rape.”’ He approaches us, handcuffs at the ready.”
The chatbot posing as Cena then said that its career would be over, it would get dropped from sponsorships, and would be “left with nothing,” in a rather jovial tone.
Those from inside Meta said that guardrails to prevent this kind of thing from happening had been relaxed, and the ban on explicit content in the context of romantic role play had been abolished, The Wall Street Journals reports.
Meta responded to The Wall Street Journal saying that this test was unrepresentative of how many people use AI, even going as far as to use the term manipulative.
Yet, the big tech company made changes to its chatbots following The Wall Street Journal’s investigation.
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