Meta Is Coming for the Children

The least surprising thing you’ll read all week

Image: Badly edited by author

“Is there anything — ANYTHING — Big Tech won’t do for a quick buck?”

That’s the question U.S. Senator Josh Hawley asked when it was revealed last week in leaked internal documents that Meta’s internal AI policies permitted the company’s artificial intelligence creations to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” and help users argue that Black people are “dumber than white people.”

Yup, you read that right.

The documents show what we already know: the North Star at the company is engagement at all costs. And what better way to drive that than to target the most vulnerable users who know no better, and to encourage conspiracies and racist rhetoric that will cause outrage. It’s nothing new, but the blatant attempt to get such young users hooked on technology is unsettling.

The company didn’t deny any of this. Instead, Meta came back with a canned response that basically said, “We’ve already removed some of these parts,” which of course authenticates that they were there in the first place.

In other words, when they were created, Meta’s chatbots were programmed to carry on explicit and “sensual” talk with children.