If the news that Meta’s AI was coming for your private WhatsApp chats wasn’t bad enough, the company is currently working on AI-powered message summaries, spotted (as usual) by WABetaInfo. Rather than deal with Aunt Marge directly, you can just have WhatsApp’s AI summaries give you the goods. What’s to stop you from tasking ChatGPT to simply reply to her, too? Because that worked out so well for these guys.
In conclusion, no thanks
Even if the threat of a network outage isn’t likely for regular folk, WhatsApp’s test raises some moral quandaries. We’d sooner have a close friend or family member read the message we’ve put effort and thought into, rather than have some AI chatbot regurgitate back to them, oftentimes losing the tone of the message in the first place. And we assume the feeling is mutual for, well, everyone.
Regardless of our feelings, that isn’t slowing down WhatsApp’s quest to shove AI into every nook and cranny of the messenger. First spotted in the WhatsApp beta for Android 2.25.18.18 update, beta testers are already experiencing what the messenger calls ‘Private Processing’. Fortunately, users will have the choice to leave this feature toggled off.
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Should you decide to turn it on, you’ll notice a new dedicated summary button will appear once a certain number of unread messages appear on your device. This goes for both regular private chats as well as group chats, where we could see people giving the feature a proper workout. WABetaInfo also notes that there are hints to a ‘Writing Help’ feature also in development, though beta testers do not yet have access to this.
WhatsApp calls it Private Processing to try and ease the minds of the security conscious, with WhatsApp ensuring that your messages can’t be read elsewhere, even though it all happens off-device. Whether you can take Meta at its word… we’ll leave that bit up to you.
