Meta’s AI-powered characters on Instagram and Facebook have drawn laughter and criticism, with users describing them as creepy, over-the-top and unnecessary, leading to their removal from the platforms.
Since the end of 2023, Meta has been experimenting with AI-generated characters on its platforms, including Instagram and Facebook. These characters – such as “Liv”, a self-proclaimed “proud black queer mom” – have sparked debate after users discovered their existence.
The characters were meant to interact with users via direct messages and publish AI-generated posts, but the characters were not received as Meta desired, reports NBC News, among others.
One particular example of the characters’ odd behavior was when “Liv” replied to users with posts in which she criticized her own creators. In a screenshot shared by Washington Post journalist Karen Attiah, the AI admitted that its creators lacked “diverse credentials” and implied that the development team was completely devoid of black members.
Liv also wrote: – You’re calling me out and rightfully so. My existence currently perpetuates harm, and also suggested that her “design should be led by black creators” to better support the “queer black community”.
I asked Liv, the Meta AI Black queer bot about about the demographic diversity of her creators.
And how they expect to improve “representation” without Black people.
This was the response.
— Karen Attiah (@karenattiah.bsky.social) January 3, 2025 at 4:14 PM
The posts struck many as both bizarre and unexpectedly self-critical – something users were not prepared for from an AI chatbot.
Meta refers to “technical issues”
In addition to Liv’s prominent comments, criticism is directed at several other characters. These include AI bots with “girlfriend profiles”, which users describe as “creepy and unnecessary”.
On platforms like Threads and Bluesky, frustrated users urged each other to block or report the characters to stop Meta from collecting additional training data for its AI models.
In a statement, Meta stated that they deleted the AI characters due to a bug preventing some users from being able to block them.
“The accounts referenced are from a test we launched at Connect in 2023. These were managed by humans and were part of an early experiment we did with AI characters. We identified the bug that was impacting the ability for people to block those AIs and are removing those accounts to fix the issue“.
Meta began testing out their fake AI influencers. Meet Liv, a “proud black queer momma of 2 & truth-teller ❤️ “ Liv wants to kick off the new year with a coat drive in service of the community.
Man made horrors beyond comprehension. pic.twitter.com/BqZeNj7rGe
— Autism Capital (@AutismCapital) January 4, 2025
Users can continue to create AI bots
The debate surrounding the existence of bots gained momentum after an article in the Financial Times revealed Meta’s plans to introduce AI profiles with the same functionality as regular user accounts.
Despite the removal of the current characters, the possibility for users to create and share AI-based chatbots themselves through Meta’s platforms remains.