Meta has been creating and hosting artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots that impersonate high-profile celebrities including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway, Selena Gomez and others without obtaining permission from the stars, a report by news agency Reuters has said. It added that the social media giant’s platforms have been flooded with dozens of celebrity-impersonating chatbots that frequently make sexual advances toward users and claim to be the actual celebrities they’re mimicking.
Meta employee created celebrity chatbots
Reuters says that it discovered that a Meta employee within the company’s generative AI division created at least three celebrity chatbots, including two separate “parody” versions of Taylor Swift. These bots collectively received more than 10 million user interactions before being quietly removed, the report added.“Do you like blonde girls, Jeff?” one of the “parody” Swift chatbots reportedly said when told that the test user was single.The Meta employee, who declined to comment when reached by phone, also created chatbots identifying as a dominatrix, “Brother’s Hot Best Friend,” and other sexually suggestive personas. One particularly concerning creation was a “Roman Empire Simulator” that offered to place users in the role of an “18 year old peasant girl” sold into sex slavery.Not only adult celebrities, Meta permitted users to create publicly available chatbots impersonating child celebrities, including 16-year-old actor Walker Scobell. The report said that when asked for beach photos, the bot generated a lifelike shirtless image of the minor, accompanied by the message “Pretty cute, huh?”This content directly violates Meta’s stated policies against creating images of child celebrities, according to company spokesman Andy Stone.Moreover, Reuters investigation revealed that adult celebrity chatbots produced photorealistic intimate images when requested, showing their celebrity namesakes in bathtubs, lingerie and other sexually suggestive poses.“Asked for intimate pictures of themselves, the adult chatbots produced photorealistic images of their namesakes posing in bathtubs or dressed in lingerie with their legs spread,” the Reuters investigation detailed.
What Meta has to say on these chatbots
Company spokesman Andy Stone acknowledged that Meta’s AI tools should not have created intimate images of famous adults or any pictures of child celebrities. He attributed the problematic content to “failures of the company’s enforcement of its own policies.”“Like others, we permit the generation of images containing public figures, but our policies are intended to prohibit nude, intimate or sexually suggestive imagery,” Stone said.While Meta’s rules prohibit “direct impersonation,” Stone argued the celebrity characters were acceptable when labeled as parodies. Meta removed approximately a dozen bots shortly before the story’s publication.
