A mother from Utah experienced a shocking incident when Meta AI began revealing sensitive details about her young daughters, including their names and birth dates, and even attempted to identify their family’s location. She was particularly alarmed when a photo she believed she had deleted resurfaced.
Kalie Robins described the situation starting after she posted a seemingly harmless video of herself singing with one of her daughters in the car.
Once the clip was shared on Facebook, Meta AI prompted a question about the child in the backseat: “Who’s the child passenger?”
“Why is that even a suggested question regarding a minor?” Robins said in a video recounting the experience on Instagram.
Upon clicking the prompt, Robins stated that Meta AI began pulling together information regarding both of her children, sourcing material from years-old family posts.
“It started gathering separate information for each of my kids: their names, birth details, pictures, and videos,” she explained.
Included in the retrieved content was a baby photo that her mother had posted years prior, according to Robins’ account.
Moreover, Robins discovered that Meta AI had also presented another picture that she thought she had permanently deleted.
“I deleted this picture years ago,” Robins remarked. “I can’t claim to fully understand how this all works, but I know that this image hasn’t been on my page for a long time.”
Additionally, Meta AI suggested that Robins inquire, “Where does Kalie Robins live?”
After clicking that suggestion, the AI sifted through both old and new posts linking her to different residences, displaying the message, “Pinpointing Kalie Robins’ location,” according to her.
“It pieced together my information to reveal where I live,” Robins stated.
“There was no mention of a location in that reel. I didn’t intend for Facebook to create a profile of my family. I merely shared a video of me singing with my child.”
Meta later acknowledged to a media outlet that its AI can access a user’s own content and public data online. They admitted that the feature had “missed the mark” in how it posed questions to Robins.
“We designed this function to assist users in gathering more context on topics or posts that interest them,” Meta noted in its statement.
“When someone interacts with a prompt, the response is based on information they already have access to.”
“However, we missed the mark because the feature shouldn’t have prompted users with such questions, and we’ve corrected this issue,” the company clarified.
Screenshots shared by Robins showed Meta AI compiling her daughters’ ages from family birthday posts and birth announcements and also revealing specifics about one child’s birth weight.
Robins explained that the AI highlighted details about her daughters’ interests, like their favorite beaches and books, and even made assumptions about their school grades based on their ages.
“It just kept on going, and that knot in my stomach grew bigger and deeper,” she conveyed.
“I felt this dread.”
The Post has reached out for comments from Meta.
