“Many of the AI chatbots you talk to over the course of several days will work hard to obtain more and more personal information from you,” writes long-time Slashdot reader michelcultivo, sharing the Gizmodo report. .
“Frankly, an AI girlfriend or boyfriend is not your friend,” says Misha Rykov, a Mozilla researcher on the company's *Privacy Not Included project. “They are advertised as promoting mental health and well-being, but they specialize in creating dependence, isolation, and toxicity, all while stealing as much data from you as possible,” Gizmodo says. It is reported as follows: Mozilla researched 11 different AI romance chatbots, including popular apps like Replika, Chai, Romantic AI, EVA AI Chat Bot & Soulmate, and CrushOn.AI. All of the chatbots earned the “Privacy Not Included” label, putting them in the worst category of products Mozilla has ever reviewed. You've probably heard the story about data issues before, but according to Mozilla, AI girlfriends will invade your privacy in “new ways.” For example, CrushOn.AI collects details such as information about sexual health, drug use, and gender-affirming care. 90% of apps can sell or share user data for targeted advertising or other purposes, and more than half don't allow you to delete the data they collect. Security was also an issue. Genesia AI Friend & Partner was the only app that met Mozilla's minimum security standards.
One of the more shocking discoveries came when Mozilla counted the trackers (tiny bits of code that collect data and share it with other companies for advertising and other purposes) within these apps. Mozilla found that the AI Girlfriend app uses an average of 2,663 trackers per minute, and that number increases even further with Romantic AI, which shows that within just the first minute of using the app, he Called 24,354 trackers. The privacy mess is even more troubling because these apps actively encourage you to share details that are far more personal than what you enter into a typical app. EVA AI Chat Bot & Soulmate invites users to “share all your secrets and desires” and specifically asks for photos and audio recordings. It's worth noting that EVA was the only chatbot that wasn't criticized for how it used its data, even though the app had security issues. […]