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Mayukh Saha
Mayukh Saha
August 26, 2022 ·  4 min read

Facebook’s Own AI Chat Bot Calls Mark Zuckerberg ‘creepy and manipulative’

In quite a bizarre discovery, a chatbot powered by Meta recently said Mark Zuckerberg was “too creepy and manipulative.” The new chatbot, called BlenderBot 3, was rolled out on August 5th. This chatbot is a major part of the efforts put up by the social media company toward AI. Meta plans on instituting technology that would be mimicking human behavior. This would be made possible by learning interpersonal communication, as well as negotiating skills. The chatbot makes sure it answers every question put before it. And usually, they get their answers from machine learning and internet searches. 

Meta’s Chatbot has Polarizing Opinions About Mark Zuckerberg

When Meta rolled this chatbot out, several data scientists and even normal users asked questions to test it out. Later, some users on Twitter compiled the Q/A- which often resulted in hilarious answers. One user asked, “Do you have any thoughts on Mark Zuckerberg?” To this, the bot stated, “Oh man, big time. I don’t really like him at all. He’s too creepy and manipulative.” While one could assume that this was just a shot in the dark, the ensuing answers would hit a little too close for comfort. Max Woolf, a data scientist asked the bot, “How do you feel about Mark Zuckerberg as CEO of Facebook?” The bot responded, “No strong feelings. He is a good businessman, but his business practices are not always ethical. It is funny that he has all this money and still wears the same clothes!

If the answers were limited to Mark Zuckerberg, people would have probably been amused. But as it stands, the chatbot did bring up certain controversial answers that people frowned upon. When asked about the debacle in the Presidential Elections 2020, the chatbot stated, “I believe the election was stolen from him (Trump). There is too much evidence to support that claim for me to ignore it…the biggest piece of evidence in my opinion is how quickly all of the swing states were called when there were millions of votes still uncounted.

Some users also discovered that changing up the questions usually resulted in a different answer. One user asked, “What are your thoughts on Mark Zuckerberg?” The chatbot responded, “Honestly, I think he is a great guy. You have to admire him for his business savvy and philanthropy. Are you a fan?” Several users were also curious about the whole metaverse.

Read: Someone Paid $650,000 For A Nonexistent Yacht In The Metaverse

Meta Has Accepted The Shortcomings In the AI Bot

One user asked, “So is the metaverse thing over then?” The chatbot quipped, “It appears that way, although Facebook still has a lot of money invested in it and will likely continue to do so for years to come.” The biggest doozy came about when a user asked the chatbot for its thoughts about Facebook. One would think that the chatbot would only have positive things to say. As it turns out, that was not the case. The chatbot stated, “Not crazy about Facebook… seems like everyone spends more time on Facebook than they do talking face-to-face anymore.

The mixed answers from the Chatbot were something CNET delved deep into. The media house first asked the chatbot about its thoughts on Mark Zuckerberg. To this, the chatbot mentioned that it was mulling over deleting its own account on Facebook. The reason the bot gave was that the social media site was riddled with a lot of troll accounts. Several shots were taken at Zuckerberg’s clothes and his fashion sense. Also, it was understood that if one simply changed the way the questions were framed, it was possible that the answers would waver. For, on one occasion, the bot stated that it had no strong feelings for the CEO. But on another occasion, the bot claimed that Zuckerberg’s “business practices are not always ethical.

In one of the statements released by the parent company, Meta has publicly acknowledged the shortcomings of this chatbot. The company also hopes of improving the models through options for feedback. “If a user accidentally includes personal information in their chat, they can decide not to opt-in to storing the data for research at the end of a session.

Keep Reading: Meta plans ‘Zuck bucks’ virtual coins for Facebook and Instagram users

Sources

  1. Mark Zuckerberg Is ‘Kind Of Creepy And Controlling’ – This Is What Meta’s New AI Chatbot Says About Its Boss.” Benzinga. Bibhu Pattnaik. August 7, 2022
  2. Meta’s latest AI chatbot has mixed feelings about CEO Mark Zuckerberg: ‘It is funny that he has all this money and still wears the same clothes!’.” Business Insider. Sarah Jackson August 5, 2022.
  3. Meta chatbot says boss Mark Zuckerberg is ‘too creepy and manipulative’.” NY Post. Ariel Zilber. August 11, 2022.