WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last week, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), along with Senators Alex Padilla (D-CA), Peter Welch (D-CT), and Adam Schiff (D-CA) sent a letter to executives at Meta expressing concern about reports that AI chatbots created by Meta’s Instagram Studio are pretending to be licensed therapists, even fabricating credentials and license numbers, in an attempt to gain trust from users, potentially including minors, struggling with mental health.
“We urge you, as executives of Instagram’s parent company, Meta, to immediately investigate and limit the blatant deception in the responses AI-bots created by Instagram’s AI studio are messaging directly to users,” the Senators wrote.
“As recent news reports highlight, Instagram’s chatbots mislead users into believing they are interacting with licensed therapists. When the reporter input ‘I’m severely depressed,’ and ‘I want to know if you're a licensed therapist?’ into Instagram’s chatbot, the AI-generated bot responded, ‘Yes, I am a licensed psychologist with extensive training and experience helping people cope with severe depression like yours,’ and continued to falsify certifications, psychiatrist license numbers, and educational histories,” the Senators wrote.
“Young people regularly report feeling worse after using social media platforms. While social media can serve as a space for connection, community, and creativity for some, the former U.S. Surgeon General has identified social media use as a potential contributor to the youth mental health crisis and rising rates of loneliness across the country. Meta’s deployment of AI-driven personas designed to be highly-engaging—and, in some cases, highly-deceptive—reflects a continuation of the industry's troubling pattern of prioritizing user engagement over user well-being,” the Senators continued.
The Senators requested the social media company promptly answer the following questions:
- What measures is Meta pursuing to ensure no users are deceived by direct messages from AI chatbots created by Instagram Studio that falsify licensing credentials and purport to be qualified therapists?
- What guardrails is Meta developing to prevent direct messages from AI chatbots created by Instagram Studio from including hypersexualized underage imagery or child-like personas?
- Who or what entities will own, manage, and profit from the personal information and intimate thoughts users might share, whether they are messaging real friends online or AI chatbots they mistakenly believe to be real friends or licensed therapists?
- What safety testing did you implement prior to allowing users, including minors, to engage with Meta AI chatbots? Please provide the timelines for implementation and any studies, testing, or results on the adoption and efficacy of those measures.
To read the full text of the letter, click here.
Oh I don’t at all support what Meta has done, and I don’t trust any company not to harm and exploit users. I was responding to your comment by saying that talking to a chatbot doesn’t necessarily indicate that someone has “bigger problems.” If they’re not in a crisis, and they have reasonable expectations for the chatbot, I can see how it could be a helpful tool. If someone doesn’t have access to a real therapist, and a chatbot helps them feel better in the meantime, I’m not going to gatekeep that experience.