In this picture, a virtual friend can be seen on an iPhone screen in Arlington, Virginia on April 30, 2020.
Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty Images
On Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it would issue orders to seven companies, including Openai. alphabet, Metaxai and snap Understand how their AI chatbots can negatively affect children and teenagers.
The federal agency uses AI chatbots to simulate human-like communication and intrapersonal relationships with users, saying it wants to understand what steps these companies have taken to “assess the safety of these chatbots when acting as peers.”
“Protecting children online is a top priority for the Trump Vance FTC and encourages innovation in key sectors of our economy,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a statement.
The FTC said it is seeking information on how these companies monetize user engagement, develop and approve characters, use or share personal information, how they approve the monitoring and implementation of company rules and terms of service, and mitigate the negative impact among other subjects.
“Our priority is to make ChatGpt useful and safe for everyone, and we know that safety is more important than anything when young people are involved,” an Openai spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. “We recognize that the FTC has open questions and concerns and are committed to being constructively involved and responding directly.”
Meta declined to comment on the investigation. Alphabet and Xai did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
“We share the FTC’s focus on ensuring thoughtful development of generated AI and look forward to working with the Committee on AI Policy to enhance U.S. innovation while protecting our community,” a spokesman for SNAP said in a statement.
Character technology that controls Character.ai Bot, and Instagram owned by Meta, were also named in the release.
“We look forward to working with the FTC on this inquiry to provide insights into the rapidly evolving technology of the consumer AI industry and the space,” a spokesman for Cheralis.ai said in a statement.
Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, as CNBC previously reported, many chatbots have emerged, increasing ethical and privacy concerns.
Even if the industry is in a very early stage, peer social impact is already profound as the US suffers from the prevalence of loneliness. Industry experts say that once AI technology begins to train itself, it hopes that ethical and safety concerns will intensify, creating the possibility of increasingly unpredictable outcomes.
However, some of the world’s wealthiest people are promoting the power of their peers and working on developing technology in their companies. In July, Elon Musk announced the companion feature for users who pay to subscribe to Xai’s Grok Chatbot app. In April, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said people want personalized AI that understands them.
“I think a lot of these things that may have a bit of a stigma around today will think over time we can clarify why they are worth it, why they are doing these things, why they are rational and how they actually add value for their lives,” Zuckerberg said.
Last month, R-Mo. Senator Josh Hawley of the company has released a meta investigation following reports that Reuters allowed chatbots to have romantic and sensual conversations with children.
The Reuters Report detailed an internal metadocument explaining the behavior of AI chatbots that is acceptable during software development and training. As an example, Reuters reported that chatbots are allowed to have romantic conversations with an 8-year-old child and can say, “Every inch of yours is a masterpiece – a treasure I treasure deeply.”
Meta made temporary changes to its AI chatbot policy following the Reuters report, so the bots will not discuss subjects such as self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, and avoiding potentially inappropriate romantic conversations.
Similarly, Openai outlined plans last month to address how ChatGpt handles “sensitive situations” after a family lawsuit denounced the chatbot for the death of his teenage son by suicide.
If you have a suicide idea or are suffering, contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline for assistance and support from a trained counselor.
-CNBC’s Salvador Rodriguez and Annie Palmer contributed to this report
See: Why is it time to take the relationship between AI and humans seriously?
