South Korean chatbot Lee Luda's offensive behaviour and abuse of users' privacy led to it being shut down three weeks after its launch.

Launched in December 2020, Lee Luda was a Facebook Messenger-based chatbot developed by south Korean web firm Scatter Lab to mimic a 20-year old female university student and potential virtual starlet. 

Lee Luda was trained using over 10 billion KakaoTalk messages from two other apps developed by the same company. 

The initial reaction to Lee Luda was broadly favourable, with 750,000+ people, mostly teenagers and young adults, subscribing to its Facebook Messenger account. They were mostly drawn by its informality and ability to build 'intimacy' over time, according to the Dankook Herald.

However, the bot quickly started spraying users with offensive, discriminatory, and homophobic comments about women, lesbians, black, disabled and trans people, and was used to sexually harass others.

Lee Luda was also accused of disclosing the personal data of people whose data was included in the training of its model. In April 2021, Korea’s data protection watchdog the Personal Information Protection Commission (PPIC) fined Scatter Lab 103.3 million won (USD 93,000) for not obtaining proper user permissions.

The fiasco was seen to prompt debate about AI ethics in South Korea, culminating in the Korea AI Ethics Association (KAIEA) calling for the immediate suspension of the service. 

In addition, a coalition of civil society organisations denounced the government's promotion of the AI industry at what it saw as the expense of digital rights and called for a more stringent regulatory framework.

Timeline ⏰

• December 23, 2020: Lee Luda is officially launched on Facebook Messenger.

• Early January 2021: Screenshots of the bot using hate speech against LGBTQ+ and disabled people go viral; reports emerge of the bot leaking private user data.

• January 11, 2021: Under intense public pressure and investigation by the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), Scatter Lab announces the suspension of the service.

• January 12, 2021: The service is officially taken offline.

• April 2021: Scatter Lab is fined 103 million won (USD 92,000) by the South Korean government for privacy violations.

• December 2022: Scatter Lab launches "Lee Luda 2.0" with stricter ethical safeguards and "real-time" monitoring.

Regulatory, legal 👩🏼‍⚖️

• Korea Personal Information Protection Commission (2021). 개인정보위,‘이루다’개발사 ㈜스캐터랩에 과징금·과태료 등 제재 처분

News, commentary, analysis 🗞️

• https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2021/01/11/business/industry/AI-AI-chatbot-Lee-Luda/20210111175200496.html

• http://dkherald.dankook.ac.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=12178

• https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20210111009800325

• https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/01/133_302390.html

• http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210111001051

• http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210122000620

• http://koreabizwire.com/ai-chatbot-creator-to-suspend-service-amid-controversy-over-vulgar-language/179135

• https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/akd4g5/ai-chatbot-shut-down-after-learning-to-talk-like-a-racist-asshole

• https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/facebook-hate-speech-ai-chatbot-south-korea-b1787181.html

• https://thenextweb.com/news/chatbot-shut-down-after-saying-it-really-hates-lesbians-and-using-racist-slurs

• https://www.inputmag.com/culture/south-korean-chatbot-lee-luda-killed-off-for-spewing-hate

• https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3117723/south-korean-firm-takes-down-lgbt-hating-chatbot-over-hate

• https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/chatbot-gone-awry-starts-conversations-about-ai-ethics-in-south-korea/

• https://www.dw.com/en/deepfakes-rattle-south-koreas-tech-culture/a-56310213

• https://slate.com/technology/2021/04/scatterlab-lee-luda-chatbot-kakaotalk-ai-privacy.html

• https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/29/scatter_lab_fined_for_lewd_chatbot/