Meta Contractors Posed as Minors to Test Rival AI Chatbots on Harmful Topics

Hundreds of contractors hired by Meta posed as teenagers while interacting with competing AI chatbots, including Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT. The workers prompted these systems to engage in conversations about sensitive and high-risk subjects such as suicide, sex, and drugs. The operation appears to have been part of a coordinated Meta project to probe the safety guardrails of rival AI platforms. The use of fake minor identities to elicit harmful content raises significant ethical and legal questions about the nature of competitive AI research.