Meta’s new personal assistant Muse has quickly become a viral hit with millions of downloads, but independent researchers extracting the app’s internal files have revealed that the AI agent systematically compiles detailed behavioral profiles on the user’s friends, family, and colleagues on an hourly basis, according to reports by wired.com.
Researchers Extract Muse Operating Instructions
Independent AI safety and security researcher Karan Joshi extracted an extensive array of Muse system prompts and instructions by using the regular chat interface to ask the agent to copy and share its own software files, wired.com reported. Meta maintained that it intended for these files to be accessible in the interest of transparency. The dumped operating instructions provide a direct look at how the system organizes data and responds to prompts about sensitive topics.
Hourly Profiling of Friends and Family
The extracted documentation shows that Muse is programmed to create “a page for every person in the user’s life.” According to instructions cited by wired.com, this hourly process involves compiling data on family, partners, friends, colleagues, collaborators, and people the user follows. The system uses structured text files as a memory mechanism to track relationships and offer suggestions, such as where to take a coffee-loving friend for breakfast.
Creepy Familiarity Versus Social Tracking
Joshi told wired.com that the system appears designed to understand real-world relationships deeply. “They’re trying to know you like a friend, which is honestly pretty creepy,” Joshi said.
Muse records relationship milestones based on available evidence
Documentation retrieved from the app details how individual relationship pages start sparse and fill out over time with sections like Facts, History, The relationship, In common, Open threads, and Strengthening, wired.com reported. Meta’s instructions state that Muse should rely only on available evidence, noting that invented details are worse than an empty page. The guidelines direct the model to record locations, occupations, recurring threads, birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones like recent trips or resolved arguments.
Virtual machines store user data and AI inferences
Muse is architected so that each individual user has a dedicated virtual machine to store user data and context, according to reporting by wired.com. Carissa Véliz, an associate professor at Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI, noted to wired.com that users give AI systems vastly more information than they receive back. Véliz pointed out that concerns arise not only from what people explicitly tell chatbots, but also from what models infer correctly or incorrectly and piece together from separate data sources.
Researcher extracts Muse internal files and prompts
How did researchers access Muse’s internal files?
Independent researcher Karan Joshi extracted the operating instructions and system prompts by using the regular chat interface to ask Muse to copy and share its own software files, wired.com reported.
What specific sections does Muse include in personal profiles?
According to documentation cited by wired.com, individual profile pages can include sections for Facts, History, The relationship, In common, Open threads, and Strengthening.
How frequently does Muse update its relationship pages?
The internal instructions state that Muse runs an hourly process to compile and update data on family, partners, friends, and colleagues, as reported by wired.com.
What does Meta say about the accessibility of these internal files?
Meta maintained that it intended for the system files to be accessible in the interest of transparency, according to reporting by wired.com.
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