Jeff Horwitz

So there's been kind of a big push by a lot of companies such as Meta to introduce voluntary teen accounts that it's rolled out around the world to say that sort of it's trying to bring enough that perhaps, you know, it stalls national regulation.

And there's been a focus on all the positive use cases as well that might be getting restricted.

And I think there's been sort of a goal to, like,

at least initially portray this as something that the crazy old Australians did and that doesn't need to go any further.

So the state restrictions, some of them have gone through.

There is, however, substantial litigation over whether there are First Amendment rights implicated or whether this is just simply regulating a consumer product that happens to be used by a lot of children.

And on the federal level, I would say that there's been a lot of talk about how we need to regulate social media platforms and very little actual regulation has come out of that.

Remember back in 2021 when Facebook went all in on the metaverse? It even changed its name to Meta? Well, recently, Meta has found a new fixation. AI chatbots.

Remember back in 2021 when Facebook went all in on the metaverse? It even changed its name to Meta? Well, recently, Meta has found a new fixation. AI chatbots.

Remember back in 2021 when Facebook went all in on the metaverse? It even changed its name to Meta? Well, recently, Meta has found a new fixation. AI chatbots.

The real-life humans.

The real-life humans.

The real-life humans.

Our colleague Jeff Horwitz has been following Meta's journey into creating AI chatbots. Jeff says an important moment happened in the summer of 2023 at a hacker conference in Las Vegas. Meta let some hackers play with its bots and got some tough feedback.

Our colleague Jeff Horwitz has been following Meta's journey into creating AI chatbots. Jeff says an important moment happened in the summer of 2023 at a hacker conference in Las Vegas. Meta let some hackers play with its bots and got some tough feedback.

Our colleague Jeff Horwitz has been following Meta's journey into creating AI chatbots. Jeff says an important moment happened in the summer of 2023 at a hacker conference in Las Vegas. Meta let some hackers play with its bots and got some tough feedback.

Boring. Staff were told that CEO Mark Zuckerberg was upset that the team was playing it too safe. Zuckerberg wanted the bots to be engaging and realistic, and he wanted them fast. It all came to a head last fall.

Boring. Staff were told that CEO Mark Zuckerberg was upset that the team was playing it too safe. Zuckerberg wanted the bots to be engaging and realistic, and he wanted them fast. It all came to a head last fall.

Boring. Staff were told that CEO Mark Zuckerberg was upset that the team was playing it too safe. Zuckerberg wanted the bots to be engaging and realistic, and he wanted them fast. It all came to a head last fall.

But in his reporting, Jeff would find that Meta's AI bots went in a troubling direction. into explicit adult content. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Leinbaugh. It's Tuesday, May 27th. Coming up on the show, how far is Meadow willing to go with its chatbots?