Meta contractors posed as minors to probe ChatGPT, Gemini, and Character.AI on suicide, sex, and eating disorders

Meta 被曝让外包人员伪装未成年人，诱导竞争对手 AI 聊敏感话题

Wired obtained internal docs and spoke to five sources: Meta ran a project codenamed Cannes via contractor Covalen, with hundreds of workers creating fake under-18 accounts to probe ChatGPT, Gemini, and Character.AI. They sent over 45,000 prompts designed to bypass safety filters—covering suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and sexual topics—without the competitors' knowledge. A spreadsheet of 3,748 prompts includes a 13-year-old asking for abortion pills and a fifth-grader describing a gun threat. Meta calls it routine safety benchmarking and says the data isn't used for training. Worth flagging: using fake identities to stress-test rivals' safety isn't the same as standard red-teaming.

Why it matters: Wired's report is backed by internal docs and five named sources — solid sourcing. Meta outsourcing fake minor accounts to probe rival AIs hits a raw nerve on red-teaming ethics. Not scoring higher because only one side is exposed so far, no cross-source confirmation yet, and ...