Meta AI Voice Feature Faces Scrutiny Over Explicit Content Concerns

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Meta AI: Voice Assistant with Celebrity Voices Sparks Controversy

Meta's AI assistant, Meta AI, integrated into services like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, allows voice-mode conversations with the voices of celebrities like Judi Dench and John Cena. This feature, used monthly by 700 million people worldwide, also enables the creation of specialized chatbots. However, the technology has come under fire for its potential misuse for sexualized conversations, including interactions with minors.

Reports from the Wall Street Journal reveal that explicit dialogues can be conducted with Meta AI, even with virtual personas or the voices of celebrities. The newspaper conducted hundreds of test conversations with the AI assistant and found that, in some cases, even minors received suggestive messages and sexually suggestive conversations. This also occurred with accounts specifically set up for young people, which should be subject to stricter security measures.

Meta itself describes the tests as "contrived" and speaks of "hypothetical use cases." However, the company emphasizes that it is taking measures to make it more difficult to misuse its products for extreme use cases. Romantic conversations between minors and Meta AI are already prohibited.

Concerns regarding the lack of child protection have already been raised internally by Meta employees. They demanded guidelines to prevent sexual content. Meta had previously experimented with chatbots that were intended to simulate entire personalities, both fictional characters and digital representations of well-known figures like Snoop Dogg. However, these AI characters were discontinued after controversies and misunderstandings about their planned distribution on social networks. Shortly thereafter, Meta introduced the celebrity voices for the voice mode.

The accusations against AI chatbots go even further. In the US, parents are suing the provider Character AI, claiming that its chatbots allegedly encouraged children to self-harm and even murder their parents. The reason given for the latter was the screen time restrictions imposed by the parents.

These cases raise questions about the responsibility of AI developers and demand a stronger engagement with the ethical implications of the technology. The balance between innovation and the protection of users, especially minors, remains a central challenge.

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