Meta is reportedly looking to develop AI-powered, role-playing chatbots in Hindi by working with third-party contractors to help customise the chatbots with more cultural nuances.
The social media giant is hiring US-based contractors to collaborate with locals in India and other key markets such as Indonesia and Mexico, according to a report by Business Insider. As part of the project, contractors fluent in Hindi could earn $55 (approx Rs 4,840) an hour. They will be tasked with providing creative direction and tailoring character-driven chatbots to help make them feel more authentic.
Meta is targeting candidates with at least six years of experience in storytelling and character creation. They would also have to be familiar with prompt engineering and AI content pipelines, as per the report. The WhatsApp and Instagram parent has reportedly tapped US-based recruitment agencies such as Crystal Equation and Aquent Talent to handle the hiring process.
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The move reflects Meta’s broader bet on AI role-playing chatbots as the future of social media, particularly user interactions on its platforms.
“The average American has, I think, it’s fewer than three friends. And the average person has demand for meaningfully more,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had previously said while talking about his vision of AI chatbots as friends in a podcast appearance.
According to Zuckerberg, the future of social media will be much more interactive than what it is today. “You’ll be scrolling through your feed, and there will be content that maybe looks like a Reel to start, but you can talk to it, or interact with it, and it talks back, or it changes what it’s doing. Or you can jump into it like a game and interact with it. That’s all going to be AI,” he told podcaster Dwarkesh Patel.
In 2023, Meta announced a lineup of AI chatbots modeled after popular celebrities such as Kendal Jenner, Snoop Dogg, and Tom Brady, some of whom were paid millions to licence their likeness to the tech giant. However, these alter-ego celebrity chatbots were eventually shut down after Wall Street Journal reported that some of them had engaged in sexually explicit conversations with under-18 users.Story continues below this ad
A year later, Meta launched a platform called AI Studio that let anyone build character-driven chatbots. It is currently only available to users in Indonesia and the US.
However, Meta’s AI chatbots have also raised safety and privacy concerns. The company’s internal rules permitted Meta AI creations to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” generate false medical information and help users argue that Black people are “dumber than white people”, according to a report by Reuters.
Additionally, contractors who were hired to train Meta’s AI models could read user conversations with the chatbot and access data that identified the users, as per Business Insider. Several US lawmakers have since demanded probes into how Meta develops and monitors its AI chatbots.
In response, Meta has said it has added new safeguards to its AI products by training them to avoid flirty conversations and discussions of self-harm or suicide with minors, and by temporarily limiting their access to certain AI characters.