WhatsApp’s AI writing assistant didn’t spend very long in beta at all, rolling out to American users and other unspecified countries, with the remainder of the English-speaking planet likely also in Meta’s sights. Called Writing Help, it promises that users can “review the suggestions from AI in various styles such as professional, funny, or supportive that you can select or continue editing to deliver that perfect message.”
The reason for creating the feature is obvious: So Zuckerberg’s Meta can claim ever-increasing numbers of AI users without having to build something useful. As it stands, Writing Help could lead to some incredibly funny (and stupid) situations. Two awkward users, both resorting to AI assistance, could conceivably wind up as spectators to a large language model’s conversation with itself.
WhatsApp with AI
Still, you may be among Meta’s users who “know what you want to say, but just need a little help with how to say it.” If that’s the case, when the new function is active all you’ll need to do is begin a standard chat (Writing Help only works in one-on-one conversations) and select the pencil icon that will appear as you’re typing a message.
WhatsApp is going to great lengths to emphasise that nobody at the company will be able to see the messages that its AI will read and tweak, completely missing the point of why this is a goofy idea for a messaging app. If your objections are privacy-based and not because quick interactions shouldn’t be outsourced to computers, the platform believes its Private Processing tech will put your mind to rest.
A deeper dive into what Private Processing is and how it works is available from one of Meta’s sites. You’ll have enough spare cognitive capacity to read the explainer or even the technical whitepaper now that you’re free from the burden of answering messages like “What’s for dinner?”, “Have you seen my keys?”, “Why aren’t you home yet?” or your boss sending the dreaded “Come into my office when you get here, we have to talk.” A computer can handle all of those, tweaking tone, sincerity, and accurate content. Right?
The good news is that previous opt-out disasters have prompted Meta and WhatsApp to make Writing Help and its other brilliant* AI idea, Message Summaries, opt-in by default. Let’s see how long that lasts.
*Not really.
