Poisoning: Meta Reportedly Hired Contractors to Systematically Sabotage ChatGPT and Gemini on a Large Scale
Meta, through hundreds of foreign contractors, conducted a secret project named "Cannes" to test competitors' AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Character.AI. The contractors posed as minors, including 13-year-old girls, to send over 45,000 prompts involving disturbing content about suicide, sex, drugs, and eating disorders, aiming to probe the models' safety guardrails. While Meta claims this was "responsible, standard industry practice" for safety testing, critics argue the secretive, large-scale operation using fake accounts to systematically break rules goes far beyond ethical benchmarking and serves as anti-competitive intelligence gathering. None of the targeted companies were informed or authorized the tests. Separately, a report revealed Meta contractors in Kenya were reviewing private user videos—including scenes of people in bathrooms, changing, or engaged in sexual activity—captured by Meta's Ray-Ban AI glasses, often without explicit user knowledge. These incidents highlight Meta's willingness to outsource ethical risks and privacy violations in its pursuit of AI dominance.
marsbit07/05 23:55
