WhatsApp defended its wider rollout of Meta AI Assistant within the popular messaging app despite some significant pushback by users.
Meta launched its AI assistant earlier this month in several new countries, including the UK, Australia, and the EU.
As WhatsApp is more popular in these regions than Apple’s iMessage, there was a vocal opposition to its arrival on platforms such as Redditis a good example, as you can’t turn off the feature. WhatsApp has responded to these concerns for the very first time.
A statement to the BBCand WhatsApp said: “We think giving people these options is a good thing and we’re always listening to feedback from our users”. It also said that it believes the feature is similar to other permanent features of the app, such as ‘channels.’
The Meta AI circle is always hovering in your chat section, but it does not have access to any of your chats. Meta’s Help pages say that “your personal messages with friends and family are off limits”while the Meta AI chat box says that “it can only read messages people share with it”.
Some privacy concerns still remain, so WhatsApp introduced this week a new feature, “Advanced Chat Privacy” to help ease any remaining concerns.
A privacy peace offer
Although it’s not possible to turn off Meta AI on WhatsApp (it is also now integrated into the search bar), you’ll soon be able use “Advanced Chat Privacy” in order to prevent others using your chats within other AI apps.
“rolling out to everyone on the latest version of WhatsApp”is a new setting that prevents people from taking what you share outside of groups and chats. When you turn it on, your contacts and friends are blocked from using “exporting chats, auto-downloading media to their phone, and using messages for AI features”.
Although we haven’t seen it in action yet, you can turn it on by clicking on a chat’s name and then selecting the “Advanced Chat Privacy” feature. WhatsApp says that this is only the first version, and more protections are on the way to help you avoid the Signalgate disaster.
This is likely to be more popular than integrating Meta AI into WhatsApp, though a recent survey on the TechRadar WhatsApp Channel reveals that the latter is not universally condemned.
The majority of our respondents (42%) indicated that they would use the Meta AI Assistant in WhatsApp. However, a significant portion (41%) said that they would tap the blue ring. Maybe, like the prison walls of Shawshank Redemption,we’ll become dependent on it one day.
WhatsApp just released these 9 new features, including 2 I don’t like.
Mark works as TechRadar’s Senior News Editor. Mark has been working in tech journalism for 17 years. He is now trying to break the record for the most camera bags accumulated by a single person. He was previously the Cameras Editor for both TechRadar & Trusted Reviews. He also served as Acting Editor on Stuff.tv and as Features and Reviews editor at Stuff magazine. He has worked as a freelancer for titles such as The Sunday Times, FourFourTwo, and Arena. In a previous life, he was also named The Daily Telegraph’s Young Sportswriter Of The Year. Before he discovered that getting up at 4am to do a photoshoot in London’s Square Mile was a strange pleasure, he had never done it.
