Facebook loves to tout the power of its cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology. However, as illustrated by a silly but troubling episode this week, the company’s AI-powered chat bots still have a long way to go. In a New York parenting group this week, Facebook’s AI made the bizarre claim that it has a gifted child with a disability.

One commenter in the group found the statement “beyond creepy,” while another pointed out that “To reply with [an] automated response generated from aggregating previous data is to fundamentally misunderstand the request, and to minimize or ignore why [they] were asking in a community group.” Meanwhile, experts say that these kinds of strange posts could ultimately hurt Facebook’s mission to get people using its AI tools. After all, why should anyone believe what it says if it’s spouting creepy comments like this?

“All these replies that are hallucinations and not necessarily correct or grounded in real experiences undermine trust in everything that’s being posted,” AI researcher Aleksandra Korolova told Sky News.

For its part, Facebook has admitted that its chat tools are still a big work in progress. However, perhaps they shouldn’t be turned loose on users yet if they’re capable of making strange and unsettling errors like this.

Recommended Resources

Choose what the experts use: award-winning cybersecurity you can trust and rely on.

Surf the web truly incognito. Try Bitdefender Premium VPN, the ultra-fast VPN that keeps your online identity and activities safe from hackers, ISPs and snoops.

System Mechanic 14 – Make your computer run like new. Winner of 200+ Editor’s Choice awards!