Meta modifies AI chatbot prompts after privacy concerns

Meta says it’s making changes to the prompts suggested by its AI chatbot after a viral video showed it digging for personal information about a woman’s young daughters, as reported earlier by Futurism. In a statement to The Verge, Meta spokesperson Dina El-Kassaby says the company “missed the mark,” adding that “the feature never should have prompted the individual with questions like that.”

Last week, Instagram user Kalie Robins posted a video explaining how Meta AI presented her with an invasive suggestion after cross-posting a clip to Facebook. The AI prompt, “Who is the child passenger?” appeared beneath a video of her and her child singing in the car. When she selected the prompt, Robins says Meta AI pieced together information about her daughters from her previous posts, as well as posts from her relatives. It suggested additional prompts asking about her children’s ages and where Robins lives with her family. Robins says Meta AI also showed photos of her daughters posted to the platform, including one she claims she deleted years ago.

Meta has built its AI assistant into Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, where it can answer questions, write posts, and generate images. In July, the company pulled a feature that allowed people to create AI deepfakes of other Instagram users after facing fierce backlash. Meta’s El-Kassaby now says it has fixed the issue causing Meta AI to suggest prompts related to personal topics.

“We created this feature to help people get more information about topics or posts that interest them,” El-Kassaby says. “When someone clicks on a prompt and uses this feature, the response it generates is based on information the user already has access to.” In this case, Meta AI may have pulled from videos where Robins named her children, according to El-Kassaby.