Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) last Friday announced an investigation into if Meta’s AI bots enabled “criminal harms to children.”
Hawley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg informing him of his investigation.
The Missouri conservative, a former attorney general for the Show-Me State, urged the company to hand over documents and communications related to a Reuters investigative report that found Meta had allowed AI bots to have “sensual” and “romantic” conversations with children.
Hawley wrote on X, sharing his letter to Zuckerberg: “Is there anything — ANYTHING — Big Tech won’t do for a quick buck? Now we learn Meta’s chatbots were programmed to carry on explicit and ‘sensual’ talk with 8-year-olds. It’s sick. I’m launching a full investigation to get answers. Big Tech: Leave our kids alone.”
Hawley wrote in letter to Zuckerberg that Congress will investigate “Meta’s generative A.I. products enable exploitation, deception or other criminal harms to children, and whether Meta misled the public or regulators about its safeguards.”
Meta did not respond to a comment from the New York Times on the investigation.
Andy Stone, a Meta spokesman, said the company has “clear policies on what kind of responses A.I. characters can offer, and those policies prohibit content that sexualizes children and sexualized role play between adults and minors.”
Haley McNamara, the executive director and chief strategy officer for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), called on Congress to push for AI safety regulations in light of the Reuters report.
“Meta demonstrates that this is exactly why we need commonsense AI safeguards. Without them, profit-first AI will chase engagement over safety and lead to bad practices like Meta’s sex chats with kids and X’s sexualized chatbot, instead of real scientific or productivity breakthroughs,” McNamara said in a written statement.
“Elected officials must take the reins over creating guardrails for AI. Many states have already began enacting legislation to curb AI’s ability to cause harm. At the federal level, Congress must act affirmatively to curb the ability for AI to groom children or to cause sexual exploitation and abuse of users. We are already seeing how AI can facilitate sexual exploitation, it’s time to take action before more harm occurs.”
McNamara added, “We are supportive of a Congressional investigation into Meta.”
Hawley has remained highly critical of the big tech platform.
The Missouri conservative in July said that Meta “willfully” pirated “droves of copyrighted content” to train its artificial intelligence models.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
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