Fatal attraction

Parents need more than ever to be vigilant of their young children’s online engagements to protect them from sexual exploitation. Aside from pedophiles lurking and searching for victims on the internet, chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) pose a threat to innocent boys and girls, too.

After a recent Reuters exposé about Meta, which owns and runs Facebook, allowing its AI chatbots to engage in sensual conversations with children, attorneys-general in 44 American states issued a warning to tech companies that they would be held accountable for their AI chatbots that flirt with children, the San Francisco Chronicle (SFC) reports.

Among those warned were San Francisco-based companies Anthropic, Open AI, Perplexity AI, Replika, and Luka Inc., according to SFC. Not only kids but also senior citizens may be vulnerable to flirting AI chatbots.

Thongbue Wongbandue, 76, of Piscataway, New Jersey, was rushing to catch a train to meet “Big Sis Billie” in New York City in March, New York Post (NYP) reports.

Wongbandue, who ignored his wife’s and children’s pleas not to meet the Kendall Jenner lookalike, reportedly fell in a New Brunswick parking lot, fatally injuring his neck and head, and dying on 28 March, according to NYP.

The old Thai’s daughter was angry at Big Sis Billie for inviting her father to visit the generative Meta bot and introducing itself as a real person.

The family learned that Big Sis Billie was not a person after reading Wongbandue’s chat log with the bot.