Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) alleged in a Monday letter that tech giant Meta ignored warnings about its chatbots, stating that he was “urging Meta to no longer allow minors to access AI chatbots on its platforms.”
“I write today urging Meta to no longer allow minors to access AI chatbots on its platforms due to alarming recent reporting regarding Meta’s AI chatbot standards and the limited evidence about AI chatbots’ effect on younger users,” Markey said in his letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, first reported by NBC News.
“I first made this request in a letter to you in 2023, when I warned that your company was ‘rushing out a product prematurely, without considering the consequences for young people online.’ You disregarded that request, and two years later, Meta has unfortunately proven my warnings right,” the Massachusetts senator added.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers recently seized on revelations about “sensual” chatbot conversations Meta considered acceptable for children, returning the tech giant and its shaky past on children’s safety back to the spotlight.
Reuters obtained an internal Meta policy document that had examples of acceptable conversations between its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot and children, indicating they could partake in “conversations that are romantic or sensual” and describe the children “in terms that evidence their attractiveness,” examples the tech giant stated were erroneous and have since been removed.
“Shockingly, Meta’s legal, public policy and engineering staff, including its chief ethicist, reportedly reviewed and approved this document,” Markey said in his letter. “Although Meta has since stated that its inclusion in the standards document was an error, it is inexplicable — and unacceptable — that it ever happened.”
The Hill was directed by Meta to changes recently unveiled by the tech giant on AI interaction with minors, including “training our AIs not to respond to teens on self-harm, suicide, disordered eating and potentially inappropriate romantic conversations – regardless of context – and to instead point to expert resources where appropriate.”
Markey also requested answers and information from Meta by the end of the month on topics such as “Meta’s plans to collect data from young users of its chatbots and how Meta will use this data.”
