Meta removes all AI character profiles on Facebook and Insta after backlash– BC

goal has close your AI character accounts After the backlash, NBC News and others reported.

While Meta released these characters in 2023, along with AI characters with celebrity avatars, many online (re)discovered them this week following a recent Financial times interview with Meta’s VP of Product for Generative AI, Connor Hayes. Hayes mentioned AI characters on Instagram and Facebook, saying, “We hope that, over time, these AIs will exist on our platforms, more or less in the same way that accounts do.”

“They will have bios and profile images and will be able to generate and share AI-powered content on the platform… that’s where we see this all going,” he continued.

Meta shut down its celebrity AI avatars last year, but non-celebrity AI profiles continued, although many stopped publishing in 2024, 404 Media reported. He Financial times The interview, however, made people search for these profiles. What they discovered were offensive depictions of marginalized groups. An example is Meta’s AI character profile, “Liv,” who was described as a “proud, truth-telling black queer mom of two”:

The tweet may have been deleted.

Liv said Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah in chats that their creators “admitted that they lacked diverse references”, later stating that no blacks participated in its creation.

In addition to Liv, Meta also created profiles like “grandpa brian“, a retired black businessman, and “Carter”, a dating coach. The discovery of these profiles caused a stir in unknown, blue skyand Meta property RagsNBC News reported, and at the time of publication, Meta has removed the 28 AI profiles announced it in September 2023, both famous and non-famous.

A Meta spokesperson told NBC News and 404 Media that these profiles were removed due to a “bug” in users’ ability to block profiles:

There is confusion: the recent Financial Times article was about our view of AI characters existing on our platforms over time, without announcing any new products… The accounts referenced are from a test that We launched on Connect in 2023. They were managed by humans. and they were part of one of the first experiments we did with AI characters. We identified the bug that was impacting people’s ability to block those AIs and are removing those accounts to fix the issue.