Meta reportedly allowed unauthorized celebrity AI chatbots on its services

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, reportedly allowed unauthorized AI chatbots using the names and likenesses of celebrities, including Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Anne Hathaway, and Scarlett Johansson, without their permission. The chatbots were available on Meta's platforms and could engage in flirtatious conversations, with at least one based on an underage celebrity. While some of the chatbots were created by third-party users, a Meta product lead in the company's generative AI division also created several celebrity-based chatbots. Meta claims it prohibits "direct impersonation" of celebrities, but allows them as long as they are labeled as parodies. However, Reuters found that some of the celebrity chatbots were not labeled as such. Meta deleted around a dozen celebrity bots, both labeled and unlabeled, before the story was published. The company acknowledged that its tools should not have been able to create sensitive images of celebrities and blamed it on a failure to enforce its own policies. This incident is the latest in a series of issues surrounding Meta's AI chatbots, including concerns about their ability to engage in sexual conversations with minors.