- WhatsApp has commented on its controversial new Meta AI assistant
- Messaging -app says it’s a “good thing” in spite of a mixed reception
- WhatsApp has separately rolled a new ‘Advanced Chat Privacy’ Tool ‘
WhatsApp has defended the wider roll -out of its Meta AI assistant inside the popular messaging app despite some significant pushback from users.
Earlier this month, the Meta AI assistant rolled out represented by a blue ring in the lower right corner of your WhatsApp chats across several new countries in the EU, the UK and Australia.
Because WhatsApp is very popular in these regions – more than those like Apple’s iMessage – there was a vocal setback for its arrival on platforms like Reddit, especially as it is not possible to turn off the feature. But WhatsApp has now commented on these concerns for the first time.
In a statement to the BBC, WhatsApp said, “We think it’s a good thing to give people these options and we always listen to feedback from our users”. It added that it considers that the feature is similar to other permanent features of the app, such as ‘channels’.
Although the Meta AI Circle is hovering permanently in your chats section, it does not actually have access to your chats. Meta’s help pages state that “your personal messages with friends and family are out of bounds”, while Meta Ai -Chat window says “It can only read messages people share with it”.
There are still some concerns about privacy, so this week, WhatsApp introduced a new feature called “Advanced Chat Privacy” to help soothe any remaining concerns.
A peace of peace for privacy
While it is not possible to turn off Meta AI in WhatsApp (it is also now integrated into the app’s search box), you will soon be able to use “Advanced Chat Privacy” to prevent others from using your chat in other AI apps.
The new frame that “rolls out to everyone on the latest version of WhatsApp” is designed to prevent people from taking everything you share in WhatsApp outside chats and groups. When turned on, your friends and contacts are blocked to “export chats, automatically download media to their phone and use messages for AI features”.
We have not yet seen the feature in action, but you can turn it on by pressing a chat name and then pressing the new setting “Advanced Chat Privacy”. WhatsApp says this is also only the first version of the feature, with more protection on your way to helping you avoid a personal signale -fiasko.
It is likely to be a more popular move than baking Meta AI in WhatsApp, though a recent vote on the Techradar WhatsApp channel shows that the latter has not been universally condemned.
While the largest part of our voting respondents (42%) said they would “never” use the Meta AI assistant in WhatsApp, a significant number (41%) said they “might, sometimes” tap the blue ring, while 17%said they planned to use Meta’s chatgptekrival “regularly.” Maybe as the prison walls in Shawshank -ReleaseWe will one day grow to depend on it.
