"Since Muse was released last month, the agent has already been downloaded millions of times and hit No. 1 on Apple’s App Store. With the help of its creepy virtual avatar — a Temu Labubu-esque creature with a disarming grin — the app requests and encourages users to grant access to bank accounts, passwords, contacts, chat logs, and anything and everything that might help it to do the user’s bidding.
“These systems are advertised as autonomous helpers, genies, or servants who do what you need before you ask, seamlessly,” Meredith Whittaker, the president of the Signal Foundation, makers of the popular encrypted messaging app, told The Verge. These autonomous actions are applied “not just to the person who installed Muse on their device, but also to everyone that person communicates with, as extrapolated from their most intimate information — emails, messages, contacts, photos, and more.”
With AI agents, tech companies are letting consumers automate their everyday tasks by extending their omnivorous style of mass surveillance to massive amounts of sensitive data. It’s the same Faustian tradeoff Silicon Valley has been offering us for decades: your private data in exchange for a little bit of convenience. And for many people, the idea of having a virtual assistant that does menial tasks like filling out invoices and sending emails is compelling — especially if they don’t realize how much data they’re actually giving away in return."
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1011938/muse-ai-data-friends-consent
#AI #GenerativeAI #Meta #Muse #AIAgents #AgenticAI
Miguel Afonso Caetano 🦾 🌹
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2026-10-17 00:52:17 UTC
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"content": "\"Since Muse was released last month, the agent has already been downloaded millions of times and hit No. 1 on Apple’s App Store. With the help of its creepy virtual avatar — a Temu Labubu-esque creature with a disarming grin — the app requests and encourages users to grant access to bank accounts, passwords, contacts, chat logs, and anything and everything that might help it to do the user’s bidding.\n\n“These systems are advertised as autonomous helpers, genies, or servants who do what you need before you ask, seamlessly,” Meredith Whittaker, the president of the Signal Foundation, makers of the popular encrypted messaging app, told The Verge. These autonomous actions are applied “not just to the person who installed Muse on their device, but also to everyone that person communicates with, as extrapolated from their most intimate information — emails, messages, contacts, photos, and more.”\n\nWith AI agents, tech companies are letting consumers automate their everyday tasks by extending their omnivorous style of mass surveillance to massive amounts of sensitive data. It’s the same Faustian tradeoff Silicon Valley has been offering us for decades: your private data in exchange for a little bit of convenience. And for many people, the idea of having a virtual assistant that does menial tasks like filling out invoices and sending emails is compelling — especially if they don’t realize how much data they’re actually giving away in return.\"\n\nhttps://www.theverge.com/tech/1011938/muse-ai-data-friends-consent \n\n#AI #GenerativeAI #Meta #Muse #AIAgents #AgenticAI",
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