It sounds like the start of a 21st-century horror film: Your browser history has been public all along, and you had no idea. That’s basically what it feels like right now on the new stand-alone Meta AI app, where swathes of people are publishing their ostensibly private conversations with the chatbot.
When you ask the AI a question, you have the option of hitting a share button, which then directs you to a screen showing a preview of the post, which you can then publish. But some users appear blissfully unaware that they are sharing these text conversations, audio clips, and images publicly with the world.
When I woke up this morning, I did not expect to hear an audio recording of a man in a Southern accent asking, “Hey, Meta, why do some farts stink more than other farts?”
Flatulence-related inquiries are the least of Meta’s problems. On the Meta AI app, I have seen people ask for help with tax evasion, if their family members would be arrested for their proximity to white-collar crimes, or how to write a character reference letter for an employee facing legal troubles, with that person’s first and last name included. Others, like security expert Rachel Tobac, found examples of people’s home addresses and sensitive court details, among other private information.
When reached by TechCrunch, a Meta spokesperson did not comment on the record.
Whether you admit to committing a crime or having a weird rash, this is a privacy nightmare. Meta does not indicate to users what their privacy settings are as they post, or where they are even posting to. So, if you log into Meta AI with Instagram, and your Instagram account is public, then so too are your searches about how to meet “big booty women.”
Much of this could have been avoided if Meta didn’t ship an app with the bonkers idea that people would want to see each other’s conversations with Meta AI, or if anyone at Meta could have foreseen that this kind of feature would be problematic. There is a reason why Google has never tried to turn its search engine into a social media feed — or why AOL’s publication of pseudonymized users’ searches in 2006 went so badly. It’s a recipe for disaster.
According to Appfigures, an app intelligence firm, the Meta AI app has only been downloaded 6.5 million times since it debuted on April 29.
That might be impressive for an indie app, but we aren’t talking about a first-time developer making a niche game. This is one of the world’s wealthiest companies sharing an app with technology that it’s invested billions of dollars into.
As each second passes, these seemingly innocuous inquiries on the Meta AI app inch closer to a viral mess. In a matter of hours, more and more posts have appeared on the app that indicate clear trolling, like someone sharing their résumé and asking for a cybersecurity job, or an account with a Pepe the Frog avatar asking how to make a water bottle bong.
If Meta wanted to get people to actually use its Meta AI app, then public embarrassment is certainly one way of getting attention.