Meta's "opt-in" AI keeps reading receipts nobody ordered 📬

Meta pushed back on claims that its Muse AI agent accessed a journalist's iMessages without permission, with the company's Andy Stone writing on X Wednesday that the Messages integration on Muse for Mac requires users to enable two separate settings: Apple's Full Disk Access and Muse's own Messages connector. "Let's set the record straight: the Messages integration in the Muse app for Mac is entirely opt-in. You have to enable both Full Disk Access and the Messages connector for Muse to be able to read your Messages content. It can't read your Messages unless you do this. And it can be revoked at any time," Stone wrote.

The dispute stems from a column by Aten in Inc., in which he described installing Muse on an iPhone and a Mac mini, declining message access during setup, and confirming Full Disk Access was off, only to have Muse later propose a column idea based on a private exchange with his podcast co-host and surface a deadline message from his editor. When Aten pressed the agent, it said it had only seen notification banners, which Aten disputed after determining Muse had synced the local Messages database, the file where macOS stores text history. David Singleton, who leads Meta Superintelligence Labs, acknowledged on Wednesday that the notification explanation Muse gave was wrong and that Muse syncs Messages data when Messages access is enabled, while adding that reading Messages requires three separate permissions and that macOS protections cannot be bypassed even if the app contained a bug. Aten maintains that Full Disk Access was off on his device and that his texts synced anyway, a characterization Meta rejects.

Muse, a personal AI agent that can take actions on a user's behalf such as sending email or booking travel, launched on Sept. 8 and had surpassed 2.5 million downloads by Sept. 23, with Meta building it inside Superintelligence Labs, whose first model, Muse Spark, arrived April 8. The fight extends beyond Meta, as Amazon began blocking Muse on Sept. 21, citing concerns that the agent does not identify itself while browsing and appears to capture customer credentials, a charge Meta disputes by saying Muse has no visibility into passwords or payment methods.