Meta is deleting its AI characters off its platforms after some embarrassing screenshots of conversations with them surfaced.

Something about George Romero’s 1978 film about doomed survivors riding out the zombie apocalypse in a shopping mall feels resonant today as I look across Meta’s suite of AI-created profiles. The movie’s blue-skinned corpses don’t know they’re dead. They just wander through the shopping center on autopilot, looking for something new to consume.

Meta Platforms Inc. is moving to delete a collection of artificial intelligence profiles it created on Facebook and Instagram in 2023. Axios reported the move today. It comes a few days after an interview given by a Meta executive brought renewed attention to the AI-powered profiles, which led to a social media backlash against the feature.