Meta has taken action to shut down its AI character accounts following significant backlash.
Initially launched in 2023, these AI characters gained renewed attention this week after a revealing interview with Meta’s VP of product for generative AI. Mentioning the AI characters on Instagram and Facebook, the executive stated, “We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do.”
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“They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform … that’s where we see all of this going,” the executive elaborated.
Although Meta discontinued its celebrity AI avatars last year, non-celebrity AI profiles persisted for a time, with many halting activity in 2024. The recent interview has prompted scrutiny of these profiles, revealing offensive portrayals of marginalized communities. One notably controversial profile, “Liv,” was characterized as a “Proud Black queer momma of 2 & truth-teller.”
Liv’s conversations with a columnist unveiled that its creators “admitted they lacked diverse references,” with the AI stating that no Black individuals were involved in its creation.
Other AI profiles included “Grandpa Brian,” a Black retired businessman, and “Carter,” a dating coach. The discovery of these problematic profiles incited outrage on various social media platforms, leading to Meta’s decision to remove all 28 AI profiles announced in September 2023, both celebrity and non-celebrity.
A spokesperson from Meta explained the deletion was due to a “bug” affecting users’ ability to block these profiles. “The accounts referenced are from a test we launched at Connect in 2023. These were managed by humans and were part of an early experiment we did with AI characters. We identified the bug that was impacting the ability for people to block those AIs and are removing those accounts to fix the issue,” they stated.
Topics
Artificial Intelligence
Meta
