AI-Powered Romantic Chatbots Are a Privacy Nightmare
AnonTechie writes:
They collect massive amounts of data with little disclosure about its use.
You shouldn't trust any answers a chatbot sends you. And you probably shouldn't trust it with your personal information either. That's especially true for "AI girlfriends" or "AI boyfriends," according to new research.
An analysis of 11 so-called romance and companion chatbots, published on Wednesday by the Mozilla Foundation, has found a litany of security and privacy concerns with the bots. Collectively, the apps, which have been downloaded more than 100 million times on Android devices, gather huge amounts of people's data; use trackers that send information to Google, Facebook, and companies in Russia and China; allow users to use weak passwords; and lack transparency about their ownership and the AI models that power them.
Since OpenAI unleashed ChatGPT on the world in November 2022, developers have raced to deploy large language models and create chatbots that people can interact with and pay to subscribe to. The Mozilla research provides a glimpse into how this gold rush may have neglected people's privacy, and into tensions between emerging technologies and how they gather and use data. It also indicates how people's chat messages could be abused by hackers.
[...] For AI girlfriends and their ilk, Caltrider says people should be cautious about using romantic chatbots and adopt best security practices. This includes using strong passwords, not signing in to the apps using Facebook or Google, deleting data, and opting out of data collection where it's offered. "Limit the personal information you share as much as possible-not giving up names, locations, ages," Caltrider says, adding that with some of these services, it may not be enough. "Even doing those things might not keep you as safe as you would like to be."
This story originally appeared on wired.com
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