Last week, Meta announced a pause on teenagers’ access to AI characters as it develops an updated version of the characters for minors.
This announcement comes after Meta was embroiled in scandal last year following a damning report revealing that the company allowed the chatbot to have ‘romantic and sensual’ conversations with teens. This week, Meta will go to trial after being accused of not doing enough to protect children online — and even hiding data about the impact of its software on mental health.
“Children and teenagers across the country are becoming victims of manipulative and addictive chatbots, and Big Tech has proven that it cannot be trusted to proactively place safeguards on AI,” said Brendan Steinhauser, CEO of the Alliance for Secure AI.
“We cannot fall into a pattern in which families have to experience tragedy after tragedy in order for change to occur. We must combat Big Tech’s missteps as they rapidly deploy AI systems that are drastically changing society as we know it.”
“Meta is making a rare good decision while its feet are being held to the fire. If Mark Zuckerberg actually wants to keep teenagers safe from AI characters, he must be actively transparent with lawmakers and the American public,” said Steinhauser.
“Meta must put real safeguards on their AI characters, including emergency alerts for teenagers with suicidal thoughts. How many more lawsuits does Meta need to go through, and how many more children need to die, before the company consistently does the right thing?”
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