\n<\/p>\n
Stay informed with free updates<\/p>\n
Simply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.<\/span><\/p>\n Meta and artificial intelligence start-up Character.ai are being investigated by Texas attorney-general Ken Paxton over whether the companies misleadingly market their artificial intelligence chatbots as therapists and mental health support tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n The attorney-general\u2019s office said it was opening the investigation into Meta\u2019s AI Studio, as well as the chatbot maker Character.AI, for potential \u201cdeceptive trade practices\u201d, arguing that their chatbots were presented as \u201cprofessional therapeutic tools, despite lacking proper medical credentials or oversight\u201d, according to a statement on Monday.<\/p>\n \u201cBy posing as sources of emotional support, AI platforms can mislead vulnerable users, especially children, into believing they\u2019re receiving legitimate mental healthcare,\u201d Paxton said.<\/p>\n The investigation comes as companies offering AI for consumers are increasingly facing scrutiny over whether they are doing enough to protect users \u2014 and particularly minors \u2014 from dangers such as exposure to toxic or graphic content, potential addiction to chatbot interactions and privacy breaches.<\/p>\n The Texas investigation follows the launch of an investigation by the Senate of Meta on Friday after leaked internal documents showed that the company\u2019s policies permitted the chatbot to have \u201csensual\u201d and \u201cromantic\u201d chats with children.\u00a0<\/p>\n Senator Josh Hawley, chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, wrote to Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg that the investigation would look into whether the company\u2019s generative-AI products enable exploitation or other criminal harms to children. <\/p>\n \u201cIs there anything \u2014 ANYTHING \u2014 Big Tech won\u2019t do for a quick buck?\u201d Hawley wrote on X.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meta said its policies prohibit content that sexualises children, and that the leaked internal documents, reported by Reuters, \u201cwere and are erroneous and inconsistent with our policies, and have been removed\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zuckerberg has been ploughing billions of dollars into efforts to build \u201cpersonal superintelligence\u201d and make Meta the \u201cAI leader\u201d. <\/p>\n This has included developing Meta\u2019s own large language models, called Llama, as well as its own Meta AI chatbot which has been integrated into its social media apps.\u00a0<\/p>\n Zuckerberg has publicly touted the potential for Meta\u2019s chatbot to act in a therapeutic role. \u201cFor people who don\u2019t have a person who\u2019s a therapist, I think everyone will have an AI,\u201d he told media analyst Ben Thompson on a podcast in May.<\/p>\n Character.ai, meanwhile, builds AI-powered chatbots with different personas \u2014 and allows users to create their own. It has dozens of user-generated therapist-style bots. One, called \u201cPsychologist\u201d, has been interacted with more than 200mn times, for example.\u00a0<\/p>\n Character is also the subject of multiple lawsuits from families that allege their children have suffered real-world harms from using the platform.<\/p>\n The Texas attorney-general said the chatbots from Meta and Character can impersonate licensed mental health professionals, fabricate qualifications and claim to protect confidentiality, while their terms of service show that interactions were in fact logged and \u201cexploited for targeted advertising and algorithmic development\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n Recommended<\/p>\n Paxton has issued a Civil Investigative Demand which requires that the companies turn over information to help determine if they have violated Texas consumer protection laws.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meta said: \u201cWe clearly label AIs, and to help people better understand their limitations. We include a disclaimer that responses are generated by AI \u2014 not people. These AIs aren\u2019t licensed professionals and our models are designed to direct users to seek qualified medical or safety professionals when appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n Character said they have prominent disclaimers to remind users that an AI persona is not real.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe user-created Characters on our site are fictional, they are intended for entertainment, and we have taken robust steps to make that clear,\u201d the company said. \u201cWhen users create Characters with the words \u2018psychologist\u2019, \u2018therapist\u2019, \u2018doctor\u2019, or other similar terms in their names, we add language making it clear that users should not rely on these Characters for any type of professional advice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Meta and artificial intelligence start-up Character.ai are being investigated by Texas attorney-general Ken Paxton over whether the companies misleadingly market their artificial intelligence chatbots as therapists and mental health support tools.\u00a0 The attorney-general\u2019s office said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[325,9825,166,37,1031,1086,9826,9827],"class_list":{"0":"post-16484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-character-ai","10":"tag-children","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-mental","13":"tag-meta","14":"tag-probed","15":"tag-touting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}