Meta on Friday, Jan. 23, informed that it is halting teens’ access to its artificial intelligence (AI) characters worldwide across all its apps.
In a blog post, the owner of WhatsApp and Instagram said that this will start in the “coming weeks” and teenagers will no longer be allowed to access its AI characters “until the updated experience is ready”
“Starting in the coming weeks, teens will no longer be able to access AI characters across our apps until the updated experience is ready. This will apply to anyone who has given us a teen birthday, as well as people who claim to be adults but who we suspect are teens based on our age prediction technology,” read the post from Meta.
The new version of AI characters for teens will have built-in parental controls once it is made available. It stated that the new characters will provide age-appropriate responses, sticking to topics like education, sport, and hobbies.
As per The Associated Press, teens will continue to have access to Meta’s AI assistant, but not the characters. This comes the week before Meta, along with Google’s YouTube and TikTok, is expected to stand trial in Los Angeles over the apps’ possible harm to children. A case against Meta is also scheduled to go to trial in New Mexico, wherein the company has been accused of not making an effort to protect children from sexual exploitation on its apps, according to TechCrunch.
In October last year, Meta previewed parental controls that allowed parents and guardians to disable their teens’ private chats with AI characters. While these features were expected to release this year, the company has now decided to turn off AI characters altogether for teens as it updates them to a newer version.
Meta informed that it heard from parents, who sought more insights and control over their children’s interaction with AI characters. This is why the company decided to make these changes.
According to Reuters, Meta said that its AI experiences for teens will be guided by the PG-13 movie rating system, as the company wants to prevent minors from getting access to inappropriate content. US regulators are scrutinising AI companies for the potential negative impacts of chatbots.
In recent times, other companies have also banned teens from gaining access to AI chatbots over growing concerns about the effects of AI conversations on them. Character.AI announced its ban in October last year. The startup allows users to chat with various AI avatars. Also, OpenAI has added new teen safety rules for ChatGPT.
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