Lee Luda chatbot

Lee Luda, a Facebook Messenger-based chatbot being marketed as a potential virtual starlet, has been spraying users with offensive, disriminatory and homophobic comments about women, lesbians, black, disabled and trans people.

Developed by south Korean web firm Scatter Lab to mimic a 20-year old female university student, Lee Luda was trained using over 10 billion KakaoTalk messages from two other apps developed by the same company, notably Science of Love, which analyses the level of affection in conversations between young partners.

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.

Scatter Lab CEO Kim Jong-yoon had initially defended Lee Luda, saying the bot would take time to learn and mature, before finally shutting it down.