Sen. Hawley says he’ll investigate Meta’s ‘sensual’ child chatbot policies

This week’s Meta AI chatbot leak could have repercussions for the company beyond bad PR. On Friday, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) said the Senate Committee Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, which he chairs, will investigate the company.

“Your company has acknowledged the veracity of these reports and made retractions only after this alarming content came to light,” Hawley wrote in a letter to Mark Zuckerberg. “It’s unacceptable that these policies were advanced in the first place.”

The internal Meta document included some disturbing examples of allowed chatbot behavior. This included “sensual” conversations with children. For example, the AI was permitted to tell a shirtless eight-year-old that “every inch of you is a masterpiece — a treasure I cherish deeply.” The document dealt with race in similarly jarring ways. “Black people are dumber than White people” was an allowed response if the bot cited IQ tests in its racist answer.

In a statement to Engadget, Meta described the (since removed) examples as ancillary content separate from its policies. “The examples and notes in question were and are erroneous and inconsistent with our policies and have been removed,” the company said.

Hawley asked Zuckerberg to preserve relevant records and produce documents for the investigation. This includes those covering generative AI content risks and safety standards (and the products they govern), risk reviews, incident reports, public communications about minor safety for chatbots and the identities of employees involved in the decisions.

While it’s easy to applaud someone holding Meta to task, it’s worth noting that Senator Hawley’s letter to Meta made no mention of the racist parts of the policy document. Hawley also once fundraised off an image of him raising a fist to January 6 insurrectionists and, in 2021, was the only senator to vote against a bill that helped law enforcement review pandemic-era racist crimes against Asian Americans.