Meta's Muse Is Better at Surveilling Than Helping Me
6 hours ago
- Meta's Muse is an AI assistant that performs tasks like ordering food and finding deals, but its primary focus appears to be collecting user data.
- Muse is integrated with Meta platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp, and has been downloaded over 900,000 times in its first week.
- The app uses a virtual machine to browse the web on behalf of users, and its browsing capabilities are impressively accurate.
- Muse constantly prompts users to connect more data sources, such as email and bank accounts, under the guise of personalization.
- Users are automatically opted into having their interactions used for AI model training, though they can disable this in settings.
- Consumer advocates and researchers warn that Muse may degrade users' decision-making abilities and lead to cognitive dependency.
- The app's data collection practices raise concerns about privacy, ad targeting, and loss of personal taste and autonomy.
- The author ultimately deleted Muse due to its relentless data collection and the feeling of losing control over personal choices.