Meta stops young access to AI characters ahead of the new version

Meta today announced that it is suspending access to young people to access AI characters around the world across all of its programs. The company also said that it is not giving up on its efforts but wants to create an updated version of the AI ​​characters for young people, the company told TechCrunch.

The move comes days before a lawsuit against Meta is set to go to trial in New Mexico, where the company is accused of failing to protect children from sexual exploitation in its software. Wired He said on Thursday that Meta has tried to limit the findings about the impact of the media on the health of young people.

In October, the company envisioned parental controls for AI charactersallowing parents and guardians to monitor topics and disable characters. Meta said parents will be able to turn off chat with AI characters. This was supposed to be released this year, but the company is now turning off the AI ​​characters for teenagers while it is changing the AI ​​characters to a new version.

Meta said he heard from parents that they want to know more and control how their teenagers interact with AI characters, which is why they decided to make this change.

The company has been cracking down on young people’s access to AI content in its apps. Also in October, Meta was released Parental control At Instagram, it is focusing on improving the youth experience by interacting with AI in its apps. This, promoted by the PG-13 rating, restricts young people from accessing themes such as violence, nudity, and drug use.

“Starting in the coming weeks, teens will no longer be able to access AI characters on all of our apps until the update is ready. This will apply to anyone who has given us a teen birthday, as well as people who claim to be older but who we suspect are teenagers based on our age prediction skills,” the company said in an updated post.

Meta also added that when it releases new AI characters, they will have parental controls. The company said the new characters will provide age-appropriate responses and will follow topics such as education, sports, and hobbies.

Social media companies are under intense scrutiny from regulators. Except for the case cited in New Mexico, Meta is to face the case again next weekwhile the platform is being blamed for starting the internet addiction. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify in the case once the trial begins.

In addition to social media, AI companies have changed their experience for young people after being accused of taking part in self-harm. In October, Character.AI, a startup that allows users to interact with various AI avatars, is no longer allowed. open conversations with chatbots for users who were under 18 years of age. In November, the founders announced that they would Make a conversation for the children. In the past few months, OpenAI has added ChatGPT’s new youth protection rules and he started predicting the user’s age to use restrictions.

Correction: This has been updated to make it clear the new type of AI character will be available to everyone, not just teenagers, when it launches. It will also include parental controls.