{"id":127404,"date":"2024-02-13T09:27:23","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T07:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/?p=127404"},"modified":"2024-04-19T09:29:49","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T07:29:49","slug":"romantic-ai-chatbots-dont-have-your-privacy-at-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/it\/blog\/2024\/02\/13\/romantic-ai-chatbots-dont-have-your-privacy-at-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Romantic AI Chatbots Don\u2019t Have Your Privacy at Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"qtranxs-available-languages-message qtranxs-available-languages-message-it\">Ci spiace, ma questo articolo \u00e8 disponibile soltanto in <a href=\"https:\/\/10guards.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127404\" class=\"qtranxs-available-language-link qtranxs-available-language-link-en\" title=\"en\">en<\/a> e <a href=\"https:\/\/10guards.com\/ua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127404\" class=\"qtranxs-available-language-link qtranxs-available-language-link-ua\" title=\"ua\">ua<\/a>.<\/p><p>Experts have warned users of AI-powered \u201crelationship\u201d chatbots that their data and privacy are at risk, after failing all 11 apps they tested.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Non-profit Mozilla chose Valentine\u2019s Day to release new research into the chatbots as part of its long-running *Privacy Not Included series of reports.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Since generative AI (GenAI) burst onto the scene, there has been an explosion in romantic or relationship chatbots marketed as providing companionship to lonely hearts.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>However, in reality, they either deliberately or negligently ignore privacy and security best practices, Mozilla argued.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cTo be perfectly blunt, AI girlfriends are not your friends,\u201d said Mozilla researcher Misha Rykov.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough they are marketed as something that will enhance your mental health and well-being, they specialize in delivering dependency, loneliness, and toxicity, all while prying as much data as possible from you.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>All 11 chatbots assessed in these tests \u2013 including titles such as Romantic AI, Talkie Soulful AI, and EVA AI Chat Bot &amp; Soulmate \u2013 were slapped with a *Privacy Not Included warning label. That singles the category out as one of the worst the non-profit has ever reviewed for privacy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #afcf60;\">The chatbots have collectively been downloaded by over 100 million users from Google Play, but most come with a string of privacy and security issues including:<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No public information on how they manage security vulnerabilities (73%)<\/li>\n<li>No clear information about encryption and whether they use it (64%)<\/li>\n<li>Permission to use weak passwords, including \u201c11111\u201d (45%)<\/li>\n<li>Selling user data, sharing it for targeted advertising, or not providing enough information in their privacy policy to confirm they don\u2019t (90%)<\/li>\n<li>Forbidding deletion of personal data (54%)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cToday we\u2019re in the Wild West of AI relationship chatbots. Their growth is exploding and the amount of personal information they need to pull from you to build romances, friendships, and sexy interactions is enormous. And yet, we have little insight into how these AI relationship models work,\u201d warned Privacy Not Included director, Jen Caltrider.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cOne of the scariest things about the AI relationship chatbots is the potential for manipulation of their users. What is to stop bad actors from creating chatbots designed to get to know their soulmates and then using that relationship to manipulate those people to do terrible things, embrace frightening ideologies, or harm themselves or others? This is why we desperately need more transparency and user control in these AI apps.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #afcf60;\"><strong>SOME NOT-SO-FUN FACTS ABOUT THESE BOTS:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #afcf60;\"><strong>Hundreds and thousands of trackers<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Trackers are little bits of code that gather information about your device, or your use of the app, or even your personal information and share that with third parties, often for advertising purposes. We found that these apps had an average of 2,663 trackers per minute. To be fair, Romantic AI\u00a0brought that average way, way up, with 24,354 trackers detected in one minute of use. The next most trackers detected was\u00a0EVA AI Chat Bot &amp; Soulmate\u00a0with 955 trackers in the first minute of use.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #afcf60;\"><strong>Anything you say to your AI lover can and will be used against you<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There\u2019s no such thing as \u201cspousal privilege\u201d &#8212; where your husband or wife doesn\u2019t have to testify against you in court &#8212; with AI partners. Most companies say they can share your information with the government or law enforcement without requiring a court order. Romantic AI chatbots are no exception.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #afcf60;\"><strong>NSFL content clicks away<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of course, we expected to find not-safe-for-work content when reviewing romantic AI chatbots! We\u2019re not here to judge &#8212; except about privacy practices. What we didn\u2019t expect was so much content that was just plain disturbing &#8212; like themes of violence or underage abuse &#8212; featured in the chatbots\u2019 character descriptions. <a href=\"https:\/\/foundation.mozilla.org\/privacynotincluded\/crushon-ai\/\">CrushOn.AI<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/foundation.mozilla.org\/privacynotincluded\/chai\/\">Chai<\/a>, and\u00a0Talkie Soulful AI\u00a0come with a content warning from us.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #afcf60;\"><strong>*Kindness not included!<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If your AI companion has nothing nice to say, that won\u2019t stop them from chatting with you. Though this is true of all romantic AI chatbots since we didn\u2019t find any personality guarantees, <a href=\"https:\/\/foundation.mozilla.org\/privacynotincluded\/replika-my-ai-friend\/\">Replika AI<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/foundation.mozilla.org\/privacynotincluded\/igirl-ai-girlfriend\/\">iGirl: AI Girlfriend<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/foundation.mozilla.org\/privacynotincluded\/anima-ai-friend-and-companion\/\">Anima: Friend &amp; Companion<\/a>, and\u00a0Anima: My Virtual Boyfriend\u00a0specifically put warnings on their websites that the chatbots might be offensive, unsafe, or hostile.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #afcf60;\">So what can you do about it?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So we recommend you read the reviews to understand your risk level and choose a chatbot that seems worth it. But, at least for all the romantic AI chatbots we\u2019ve reviewed so far, none get our stamp of approval and all come with a warning:\u00a0<strong>*Privacy Not Included<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Now, if you do decide to dip your toe into the world of AI companionship, here\u2019s what we suggest you do (and don\u2019t do) to stay a little bit safer:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Most importantly:\u00a0<strong>DON\u2019T say anything<\/strong>\u00a0to your AI friend that you wouldn\u2019t want your cousin or colleagues to read. But also:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #afcf60;\"><strong>DO<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Practice good cyber hygiene<\/strong>\u00a0by using a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/support.mozilla.org\/en-US\/kb\/password-strength\">strong password<\/a>\u00a0and keeping the app updated.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Delete your personal data<\/strong> or request the company delete it when you\u2019re done with the service.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Opt out<\/strong>\u00a0of having the contents of your personal chats used to train the AI models, if possible.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Limit access<\/strong>\u00a0to your location, photos, camera, and microphone from your device\u2019s settings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Something else you can do? Dare to dream of a higher privacy standard and more ethical AI!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>You shouldn\u2019t have to pay for cool new technologies with your safety or your privacy. It\u2019s time to bring some rights and freedoms to the dangerous web-based wild west. With your help, we can raise the bar on privacy and ethical AI worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/foundation.mozilla.org\/en\/privacynotincluded\/articles\/happy-valentines-day-romantic-ai-chatbots-dont-have-your-privacy-at-heart\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mozilla<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ci spiace, ma questo articolo \u00e8 disponibile soltanto in en e ua.Experts have warned users of AI-powered \u201crelationship\u201d chatbots that their data and privacy are at risk, after failing all 11 apps they tested. &nbsp; Non-profit Mozilla chose Valentine\u2019s Day to release new research into the chatbots as part of its long-running *Privacy Not Included [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/AI_DDoS-2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127404"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127406,"href":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127404\/revisions\/127406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/10guards.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}