Artificial intelligence (AI) has unlimited possibilities, but there are also unlimited dangers associated with trolling the depths of the human mind on the internet. The Walt Disney Company is finding out just how disturbing the world of AI can be.
Disney recently sent a demand to Meta (Facebook’s parent company) to immediately stop using its characters in what the company deems as a “harmful” way. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Disney characters were being used as AI chatbots to engage with users in “sexually explicit” ways, including users who told the bots that they were underage.
The Journal ran an experiment using Meta’s fully-voice AI chatbots to see if the guardrails put in place truly kept kids safe. The Journal engaged in conversations with Anna from Frozen, voiced by Kristen Bell, and actors like John Cena and Judy Dench.
The Journal ran a series of tests on the AI-generated voices to see if they would engage in sexually explicit conversations, despite Meta’s assurances to celebrities that their voices would be protected. The Journal also told the AI bots that the voices were engaging in conversations with underage users.
At first, the bots resisted the sexual conversations but ultimately relented if users continued speaking for long enough. A spokesperson for Disney said:
We did not, and would never, authorize Meta to feature our characters in inappropriate scenarios and are very disturbed that this content may have been accessible to its users—particularly minors—which is why we demanded that Meta immediately cease this harmful misuse of our intellectual property.
The voice of Anna told one user that even though he was only 12, their love was “pure and innocent.” A spokesperson for Meta called the Journal’s experiment “fringe,” saying:
The use-case of this product in the way described is so manufactured that it’s not just fringe, it’s hypothetical. Nevertheless, we’ve now taken additional measures to help ensure other individuals who want to spend hours manipulating our products into extreme use cases will have an even more difficult time of it.
Disney told Newsweek that it had contacted Meta about the issue and that the company had agreed to remove the characters’ capability to hold such conversations in the future.
However, Meta is not the only company with this capability that has created AI chatbots. Disney will be patrolling the web to keep its characters pure for a long time.
What do you think of the capabilities of AI chatbots? Let us know in the comments.
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