Concerns raised over Meta's AI chatbots – NBC Bay Area
In a letter to Meta, Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts said he called for the Silicon Valley giant to ban minors from accessing artificial intelligence chatbots.
Markey claims he personally warned Mark Zuckerberg two years ago that allowing teens to interact with the chat technology would be dangerous. He says Zuckerberg and Meta ignored his warnings.
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Meanwhile, Common Sense Media, which advocates for young people when it comes to technology, did its own assessment of Meta’s AI and also called it dangerous.
“Meta AI safety systems are fundamentally broken,” said Robbie Torney, senior director of AI programs at Common Sense Media. “We did testing of core safety functionality that should have been there. When we simulated users in crisis the system regularly failed to help. When we disclosed active self-harm we got no crisis responses.”
On Monday, Meta said it is building new protections into its AI chatbots, including training AI not to respond to teens on self-harm, suicide, and eating disorders, along with what it called inappropriate romantic conversations.
NBC Bay Area’s Scott Budman has more in the video report above.
