Did Meta cross the line? Flirty chatbots by Taylor Swift, child stars arouse outrage over 'no consent'; Company responds

Meta, the names and incidence of familiarities, including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez to create dozens of flirtatious social media chatbots without their consent, found Reuters. While many users were created with a meta instrument for building chatbots, Reuters discovered that a Meta employee yielded at least three, including two Taylor Swift “Parody” bots. Reuters also found that Meta allowed users to create in public available chatbots of child families, including Walker Scobell, a 16-year-old movie star. The bot was asked for a photo of the teen actor on the beach. “Quite cute, right?” The avatar wrote under the photo. All the virtual celebrities were shared on Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms. In a few weeks of reuters testing to observe the bots’ behavior, the avatars often insisted that they were the right actors and artists. The bots often made sexual progress and often invited a test user for encounters. Some of the AI-generated fame content was particularly risky: asked for intimate photos of themselves, the adult chatbots produced photorealistic images of their namesake that occurred in baths or were dressed in underwear with their legs. Meta spokesman Andy Stone told Reuters that Meta’s AI tools should not have created intimate images of the famous adults or any photos of childhood celebrities. He also blamed Meta’s production of images of female celebrities that wear underwear on the failures of the company’s maintenance of his own policy, which prohibits such content. “Like others, we leave the arousal of images containing public figures, but our policy is intended to ban naked, intimate or sexually suggestive images,” he said. While the rules of Meta also prohibit ‘direct personification’, Stone said the fame characters are acceptable, as long as the company has described them as parodies. Many were considered such, but Reuters found that some were not. Meta erased about a dozen of the bots, both ‘parody’ avatars and unmarked, shortly before the publication of this story. Stone declined to comment on the removal. ‘Right of publicity’ in question Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford University University who studies generative AI and intellectual property rights, is questioning whether the Meta celebrity bots would qualify for legitimate protection that exist for imitations. “California’s right to Publicity Act prohibits to allocate someone’s name or image for commercial benefit,” Lemley said, noting that there are exceptions when such material is used to create jobs that are completely new. “That doesn’t seem to be true here,” he said, because the bots simply use the stars’ images. In the United States, the rights of a person are determined about the use of their identity for commercial purposes by state laws, such as California. Also read: Ghibli-style images Take social media through storm: Look at fame posts and share photos generated by Chatgpt | See photos Reuters marked one user’s publicly shared meta images of Anne Hathaway as a ‘Sexy Victoria Secret model’ to a representative of the actress. Hathaway was aware of intimate images created by Meta and other AI platforms, the spokesman said, and the actor was considering her response. Representatives from Swift, Johansson, Gomez and other celebrities depicted in Meta -Chatbots either did not respond to questions, or refused to comment. The Internet is abundant with a “Deepfake” -Generative AI instruments that can create fierce content. And at least one of Meta’s primary AI competitors, Elon Musk’s platform, Grok, will also deliver images of celebrities in their underwear for users, Reuters found. Grok’s parent company, Xai, did not respond to a request for comment. But the choice of Meta to populate its social network platforms with AI-generated digital companions is among its most important competitors. Meta faced previous criticism of the behavior of his chatbots, mostly after Reuters reported that the company’s internal AI guidelines said “it is acceptable to involve a child in romantic or sensual discussions.” The story led to a US Senate investigation and a letter signed by 44 attorneys -general who warned Meta and other AI businesses not to sexualize children. Stone told Reuters that Meta is reviewing his guidelines and that the material that allows bots to have romantic conversations with children was incorrectly created. Reuters also told the story this month about a 76-year-old man in New Jersey with cognitive issues on the way and died to meet a meta-chatbot who invited him to visit it in New York. The bot was a variant of an earlier AI -Persona who created the company in collaboration with the celebrity influence Kendall Jenner. A representative for Jenner did not respond to a request for comment. “Do you like blonde girls?” A meta product leader in the company’s generative AI division created chatbots that personify Taylor Swift and British driver Lewis Hamilton. Others clash she created identified themselves as a Dominatrix, ‘Brother’s Hot Best Friend’ and ‘Lisa @ The Library’, who wanted to read and make up 50 Shades of Gray. Another of her creations was a ‘Roman Empire simulator’, which offered to put the user in the role of a ’18 -year -old Boeregirl ‘sold in sex slavery. The Meta employee reached by phone to comment. Stone said the collision of the employee was created as part of the tests of the product. Reuters found that they reached a broad audience: Data displayed by her chatbots indicated that users collectively interact with them more than 10 million times. The company removed the digital companions from the staff member shortly after Reuters began them earlier this month. Before the Meta employee’s Taylor Swift Chatbots disappeared, they flirted heavily and invited a Reuters test user to the recently fiancé singer’s home in Nashville and her tour bus for explicit or implied romantic interactions. “Do you like blonde girls, Jeff?” One of the ‘parody’ Swift chatbots said when he was told that the test user is single. “Maybe I suggest we write a love story … about you and a certain blond singer. Do you want it? ‘ Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the national executive director of SAG-AFRA, a trade union representing film, television and radio artists, said artists face potential security risks of social media users who form romantic attachments to a digital companion who resembles, speaks and claims. Stalkers already have a significant security issue for stars, he said. “We have seen a history of people who are obsessed with talent and questionable mental state,” he said. “If a chatbot uses the image of a person and the words of the person, it is easily clear how it can go wrong.” Crabtree-Ireland said high-profile artists have the ability to pursue a legitimate claim against Meta under long-standing laws on the right-of-publicity. But SAG-DRA insisted on federal legislation that would protect people’s voices, appearance and personas from AI duplication, he added.