Muse is Meta's latest attempt to get as much of your data as possible.
Think twice before downloading Meta Muse, the tech giant’s latest personal AI agent. Using it allows Meta to access your online accounts and worrying amounts of personal data.
On September 8th, Meta introduced Muse, what it describes as, “The World’s first personal AI agent built for everyone”. Muse, which is currently available for Meta users in the US and Canada, is a personal AI agent designed to answer questions, do work, and run tasks. For example, it can help with emailing, creating shopping lists, opening browsers and signing into accounts, and booking trips. Muse is designed to be used in an interactive way, users can have a conversation with it either in the native Muse app or directly in WhatsApp.
Related: Videos surface online of women being filmed with Meta Smart Glasses without their consent.
Meta Muse is capable of doing a lot, so it’s understandable that Meta users - still unaware of how their data is handled by Meta - would sign up, grant access, and let the interactive AI agent perform tasks on their behalf. But there are numerous risks you need to be aware of.
Granting AI agents access to your accounts
When using an AI agent, it doesn’t matter which one, you need to grant the AI access to your accounts. While you can choose how much access the agent has and what it connects to, if you want to let it ‘Handle it all’ you will have to allow it to access many apps and services.
Before you do this, think about it carefully:
- If you want the AI to write emails for you, you need to let it access your mailbox, which contains a lot of personal data.
- If you want it to purchase items on your behalf, you need to give it access to your banking details.
- If you want it to reply to WhatsApps for you, you need to let it access your messages between friends and family.
These are just a few examples of what using and trusting an AI agent entails. It might sound convenient to let AI run tasks and make decisions for you, but you have to consider the excessive reach the semi-autonomous AI will have.
Users are not realizing what permissions they give it
Matt.j.robb shared his experience of Muse handling his FaceBook Marketplace which led to it sending a buyer his home address. He thought the AI had done this without his permission, but as it turns out, he didn’t realize what permissions he was granting it. Threads Screenshot: Threads.
Even though Meta says that you have to review and approve the AI’s actions before it can complete the task, like sending an email or making a purchase, users are not realizing how much permission they’ve granted the AI.
A Muse user shared on Threads that he allowed Muse to handle his Facebook Marketplace, Muse gave out his home address to a buyer on FaceBook Marketplace, and later that night the buyer pitched at his house to collect the item. Initially, he thought that Muse had done this without his permission, but as it turns out, he had clicked ‘Allow Always’ instead of ‘Allow Once’ and assumed that Muse would still send him approvals to accept offers, but it didn’t. Instead, it granted the AI permission to send messages on his behalf, and this included extremely personal details like his home address.
To trust or not to trust Meta - it’s a no from me!
A Reddit user shares their thoughts on people allowing Meta’s Muse to deeply integrate into their accounts given its long history of user data scandals. Screenshot: Reddit.
With the release of Muse, Meta is pushing hard to let users know that it really cares about its users’ privacy… as it says, “It comes with strong privacy and security built in, keeping you in control”. Yes, Meta has implemented privacy and security features like one-time card numbers generated when you purchase items online to protect your real card, and a secure credential store for your passwords that the agent can’t read, which is good, but just because it’s introducing privacy and security measures, you still need to ask yourself if you can trust Meta to have such reach into your personal sphere.
Meta’s business model is based on collecting your data
Meta’s business model is based on collecting user data, processing it, and selling it to third-parties who then advertise on its platforms. This is why it offers its products for free. Now, with the race for Big Tech to develop and train their AI models, there’s only more reason Meta needs user data.
So even though it says, “your conversations are not shared with Meta’s ad systems,” and it allows you to disable letting your interactions with Muse be used to develop and improve its AI, you never know when or how it’s policies will change in the future.
Think about it: When you signed up for Facebook in 2010, you never thought that 10 years later Meta would use all your publicly available posts to train its AI, but it did.
Learning from Meta’s history
Meta, the company behind the world’s biggest social media platforms Facebook, and Instagram, and the instant messenger WhatsApp, has faced a lot of public scrutiny and backlash over the years as its scandals come to light.
For example, one of the biggest was the Cambridge Analytica Scandal where it was revealed that 50 million Facebook users had their data harvested for Cambridge Analytica, or more recently, Meta paid an $18 billion settlement for offering addictive apps to teenagers.
Not to mention, just last year Meta was found guilty of illegally collecting the intimate health data of Flo period-tracking app users!
And these are just a few of the lawsuits and scandals its faced.
AI assistants come at a cost
At the end of the day, you need to look at what the Muse can do for you vs. what it means for your privacy. Knowing that Meta has been found guilty of many unethical practices, and the fact that it profits from your data, it would be silly not to question if you can entrust the tech giant with access to every aspect of your digital life.
Lastly: If you’re tired of Big Tech’s race developing the most advanced AI models, the unnecessary features like Meta AI in WhatsApp, and don’t want to let Meta continue to profit off your data, why not make a switch?
