Sen Gallego, Others Question Meta On Policies For Children Using AI

U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Arizona, along with nine other senators, wrote a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week inquiring about the company’s policies surrounding children’s interactions with its AI chatbots.

The bipartisan letter said Meta’s policies and practices for the chatbots pose “astonishing risks for children, lack transparency and allow for the proliferation of misinformation.”

According to the letter, the senators said it is “crucial” that Zuckerberg’s company doesn’t “risk cognitive, emotional or physical well being of children.” The letter stated this is important because of the prevalence of teenagers using AI chatbots.

A study from Common Sense Media cited in the letter shows that 72% of teenagers have used an AI chatbot.

Last week, Reuters reported Meta’s leadership team grew frustrated with its AI team regarding the rollout of the chatbots. Reuters said the leadership team thought the AI product managers were “moving too cautiously.” Meta’s leadership team called the safety features on the products “boring.”

The senators said they were “troubled” by the revelations in the Reuters story.

They noted that Meta’s financial incentives are to make people use AI chatbots as much as possible. But the senators said that does not minimize Meta’s moral, ethical and legal obligations when deploying new technologies, “especially for use by children.”

The letter listed things Meta AI chatbots were allowed to engage in, which included making “‘romantic or sensual advances towards children,” making statements that criticize people’s personal characteristics and generating pictures of “elderly people being kicked.”