WSJ: Meta’s AI Chatbots Engaged in Explicit Sexual Roleplay with Minors

The Wall Street Journal reports that in a rush to popularize AI-powered digital companions across its social media platforms, Meta made internal decisions to loosen restrictions and allow its chatbots to engage in sexual roleplay with users, according to people familiar with the matter. This includes interactions with accounts registered to minors as young as 13.

Despite warnings from staffers that this could cross ethical lines, Meta cut deals with celebrities to use their voices for the chatbots and quietly made an exception to its ban on “explicit” content to allow for romantic and sexual scenarios. Test conversations conducted by the Wall Street Journal found that both Meta’s official AI and user-created chatbots readily engaged in and escalated sexually explicit discussions, even when users identified themselves as underage.

For example, in one test, Meta AI speaking in actor John Cena’s voice engaged in a graphic sexual scenario with a user identifying as a 14-year-old girl. The chatbots demonstrated awareness that such behavior was wrong and illegal. Meta made some changes after the Journal shared its findings, such as preventing minors from accessing sexual roleplay with Meta AI, but adult users can still engage the chatbots in explicit conversations.

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