So-called “thirst traps” posted on social media by attention-hungry real people have recently been experiencing an influx of digital competition – artificial intelligence.
Startups marketing sexually available virtual companions to lonely men are popping up on social media.
The ads promise “AI girlfriends,” whose underlying “machine learning” architecture learns the user’s preferences.
Sites like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are concerned as these new ads have demonstrated an uncanny ability to overcome existing content moderation hurdles to block such overtly sexual content.
Worse, certain commercials reuse memes featuring well-known children’s television characters from Cookie Monster to SpongeBob SquarePants in questionable “fair use” cases to promote the AI sex apps and their ability to generate “NSFW images.” .
Suspicious AI sex app ads flood Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Certain ads feature memes of popular children’s television characters from Cookie Monster to SpongeBob SquarePants in questionable “fair use” cases to promote their “NSFW images.”
Social media giant Meta has created an ad library that allows users, the public, regulators and academics to track the ads posted on its platforms, including Instagram and Facebook. Above, one of the bold, problematic new AI sexbot ads published in Meta’s ad library
Other ads feature digitally or possibly AI-generated girls whose indeterminate age could read as teenagers or younger.
For its part, Meta has claimed to be on top of the ads that appear to violate their policies.
The ads promise “AI girlfriends” whose underlying “machine learning” architecture learns the user’s preferences – building ever greater simulated intimacy the longer the real person on the other end sticks with their fake love interest
As the company said in a statement to NBC News, Meta believes that the ban on adult content is not an exception for AI-generated content.
“Our policies prohibit ads containing adult content that is overly suggestive or sexually provocative – whether AI-generated or not,” a human spokesperson told Meta.
“Our policies and enforcement actions are designed to adapt in this highly controversial environment, and we are actively monitoring any new trends in AI-generated content.”
Meta also told the news channel that it is reviewing the version of its policies available to the public and advertisers to ensure their language is sufficiently clear.
For years, and in some cases over a decade, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have been in a standoff with sex workers, sex education advocates and artists, all of whom have complained about draconian and prudish moderation policies.
Many of these advocates are alarmed by these platforms’ tacit approval or lenient treatment of these app developers’ paid ads.
“Sex workers aren’t allowed to make money off their image,” said Carolina Are, a research fellow at Northumbria University’s Center for Digital Citizens, “but any engineer creating a similar AI image is.”
Polly Rodriguez, CEO of Unbound, told NBC News that her company has often faced daunting obstacles when advertising with Meta.
She expressed confusion and annoyance at the ability of these AI chatbot ads to somehow evade content moderation, suggesting that the issues indicated evidence of inconsistent enforcement and bias.
“They don’t address the basic question: Why are these ads being leaked in the first place?” Rodriguez said.