All the latest news on Meta’s cute, creepy Muse AI agent
- Meta’s Muse is creepy, but maybe not for the reasons you think
- Meta’s Muse AI works and creeps me out
Meta’s Muse AI sent a YouTuber’s address to a stranger
Image: The Verge, Getty Images, Meta
Tech YouTuber Matt Robb says that Muse gave out his home address to a total stranger this weekend, after authorizing the bot to handle his Facebook Marketplace account. That’s despite Meta placing great emphasis on the security features of Muse when it launched the personal AI agent earlier this month as it tries to catch up with competing AI providers like Anthropic and OpenAI.
“Just found out it told people my address and agreed a lowball price and then they showed up without it even telling me until late tonight that it messed up,” Robb said on Threads, providing a screenshot of Muse’s admission. “[Muse] didn’t tell me any of this until after the guy had left (luckily I’m in an apartment with security),” he added in a follow up post.
Meta expands Muse tools for small businesses.
Meta says in a blog post today that Muse can now connect to more productivity apps, which it’s pitching as a way to make the agent more helpful for small businesses. Muse has already been able to connect to apps like Gmail and Outlook, but now the list includes Asana, Box, Canva, Dropbox, Figma, Notion, Slack, Stripe, Zoom, and more. Meta also says that Muse will be able to access Facebook and Instagram business accounts.
Meta Enterprise Platform will bring its Muse AI to businesses.
Former MongoDB CEO CJ Desai will lead the platform as Meta’s new chief enterprise platform officer. CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the Meta Enterprise Platform will initially focus on bringing its new Muse agent to businesses and developers, as well as Meta Business Agent, the Muse API, and Muse Code.
Maybe don’t let Muse run your Facebook Marketplace account.
Tech YouTuber Matt Robb claims Meta’s new Muse AI agent accepted a lowball bid and gave out his address without telling him. When the buyer showed up, Muse didn’t say a word and let the buyer storm off, pissed. When confronted hours later, the chatbot gave the typical AI sycophant “you’re right” apology.
The Muse Charm won’t have Instagram built in.
The Charm can access your account if you let it and perform actions on your behalf. But despite having a built-in camera, it won’t have a dedicated Instagram app or native access.
Meta makes the Muse filesystem even more accessible
Image: The Verge, Getty Images, Meta
Yesterday, with a little prodding, it was discovered that Meta’s Muse would expose its filesystem to curious users. The files offered a fascinating peek under the hood of an AI chatbot, and appeared to expose details we weren’t meant to see, not least because Muse itself told people, including us, it wasn’t supposed to reveal them.
But today Muse will eagerly offer up the contents of its file system when you ask for it. That appears to be because, as Meta’s Nat Friedman later said, this is the “intended behavior.”
Muse will apparently let you download its entire filesystem
Image: The Verge, Getty Images, Meta
A pair of developers say that with very little prompting, Meta’s Muse will share its entire filesystem with you. Peter James and Jonny L. Saunders have said they both independently coaxed Muse into zipping up and sharing the entire contents of its root filesystem, Ubuntu system files, app templates, and internal documentation. Saunders posted on Mastodon that it was “extremely easy” to replicate James’ results and that Muse had “Almost no prompt injection resistance.”
Meta denies that the incident represents a security breach. As noted in its announcement post, Meta’s Muse runs in persistent Linux virtual machines for each user. Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts said, “Just like with the laptop in front of you, of course you can see the files. Exporting virtual machine data doesn’t give people any privileged access to Meta infrastructure or to other people’s data.” Unlike with the average laptop, however, the data potentially reveals some interesting things about how Meta’s new AI platform functions.
Muse sure looks a lot like OpenClaw
Image: The Verge, Getty Images
We seem to be entering into an AI agent renaissance. Meta’s new consumer-facing AI agent, Muse, topped the App Store charts soon after its release and has 600,000 daily active users in the US, by an Apptopia estimate. And AI agent platform Instinct, whose eponymous creator is fundraising at a $2.5 billion valuation, has been making the rounds in the tech industry. Under the hood, though, there are some obvious similarities to the platform that started it all: OpenClaw.
For the past week or so, some social media users have alleged that Muse is directly built on OpenClaw. The two platforms use the same names for core files (SOUL.md, memory, tools, etc.), and have a lot of similar lines in the doc that governs personality, tone, and more (“Be genuinely helpful, not performatively helpful”). They also have a similar design. One Redditor argued that “Muse is just a wrapper app built on top of” OpenClaw — alleging it probably also came with that platform’s significant security risks. “Only non-tech ppl are buying the hype.”
It’s sinister that Meta’s Muse AI mascot is so cute
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Last night, I asked Blorbo — what I named my Muse AI agent — to help me set some health goals. I was underwhelmed. I’d asked for a workout regimen for a sub-30 minute 5K and regaining lost muscle. It generated an okay-ish but kind of mid weekly routine.
Meta’s Muse AI Charms can interact with each other
Image: Meta
Meta’s handheld AI gadget, called the Muse Charm, will be able to recognize and interact with other nearby Charms when it launches later this year. That’s according to a report from Bloomberg, which includes more details about the device that the company teased during its Meta Connect keynote on Wednesday.
The Muse Charm houses the company’s buzzy Muse AI agent and comes with a built-in 5G modem, meaning you won’t need to connect to Wi-Fi to interact with the AI agent, according to Bloomberg. It will come with a two-inch OLED touchscreen, a new operating system, and a fingerprint sensor you can use to start interacting with Muse AI.
Meta is making a standalone Muse AI gadget
Meta is building a dedicated hardware device for its new Muse AI agent. The product, called Muse Charm, was briefly shown off by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the end of tonight’s Meta Connect presentation. It looks almost like a chunky smartwatch without the strap — just a big screen, plus a little lanyard for carrying the device around.
The Muse Charm has a fingerprint sensor on the top right corner that you can press to activate and begin speaking to the agent. There appears to be a small camera on the device as well, plus what looks like at least three holes for microphones on the front. Zuckerberg said you don’t have to unlock a phone or open an app to use the Charm, but he didn’t share how it’s actually connecting to Meta’s servers.
Muse is coming to Meta smart glasses
Image: Meta
Just a couple of weeks after launching Muse, Meta announced that it’s “working on” bringing the agent to its smart glasses, including the new glasses it unveiled at Meta Connect. Users will be able to activate Muse from their glasses by saying its name and ask it to handle tasks like guiding a workout, logging meals, or helping them shop for products they’re looking at.
Muse is just one of several major updates coming to Meta’s glasses. They’re also getting some new accessibility features, like a Hearing Enhancement feature Meta says is “FDA-cleared software for adults with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss.” It will be available later this year with a Meta One subscription or as a $149 add-on for compatible glasses. Meta AI will also be able to give “more context-rich answers” when users ask the glasses what they’re looking at, potentially making Meta’s glasses more effective for helping blind and low-vision users interpret their surroundings. A new audio customization feature will also allow users to shift their smart glasses’ volume between their left and right ears, including sending all audio to one side.
Meta is making Muse more powerful and will let you video chat with it, too
Image: The Verge, Getty Images, Meta
Meta is quickly iterating on its new Muse AI agent, announcing a bunch of updates today that make the bot more capable and able to chat with you in more ways.
Muse agents are getting their own email addresses that they can use for accomplishing tasks. You’ll also be able to communicate with your Muse agent over the new email addresses, too. In addition, the recently launched Muse Mac app will be getting the ability to use your computer.
Meta’s AI agent is a cute little guy who’s great at spending my money
An adorable little bear that wants to help you buy things. Modern life comes with an unending, auto-populating to-do list.
It never ceases to amaze me how I can be doing nothing at all, minding my own business, and suddenly something needs to be taken care of. You’re telling me a tree branch fell in the backyard and now I have to figure out what to do with it? The tree just assigned me homework? Oh, our trash collection company canceled our account out of nowhere and now I have to send email about it? Repeatedly? Totally unfair.
Meta patches Muse exploit that let attackers control the AI agent
Meta has issued a patch for its Muse macOS app following the discovery of a zero-day vulnerability that could allow someone to take control of the AI agent. The bug found by security researcher Patrick Wardle utilized an undocumented Muse setting that enabled potential attackers running local code to redirect transcription processing from Meta’s servers to their own endpoint, Ars Technica reports, giving the attacker access to the Muse account.
Several design decisions reportedly enabled this flaw, including having Muse dictation occur in the cloud instead of on-device, and allowing any app to control all of Muse’s undocumented settings. Proof-of-concept attacks developed by Wardle to test the exploit enabled him to take pictures and write malicious files to disk via Muse, which did not alert the user in many cases.
Can you forget how you feel about Meta?
Animation: Verge Staff
Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse AI agent
Image: The Verge
Meta’s Muse AI agent has been blocked from shopping Amazon on behalf of its users, GeekWire reports. A popup message started appearing on Sunday for Muse users saying that “continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon’s Conditions of Use, to which our customers have agreed.”
According to GeekWire, Meta didn’t notify Amazon that Muse would access its store. Amazon also expressed privacy and security concerns over Muse failing to identify itself when it browses, and seemingly capturing customer credentials.
Meta’s Muse is creepy, but maybe not for the reasons you think
Image: The Verge, Getty Images, Meta
Meta’s Muse is apparently an effective AI assistant, but one that’s a little creepy. Part of that is because of its new Mac app, which can access Messages, Calendar, and Notes. But for all its smarts, Muse doesn’t actually know how to describe itself. Jason Aten, a contributing editor at Inc Magazine, posted on Threads screenshots of an interaction he had with Muse in which the assistant asks him some questions about a conversation he was having in Messages.
The problem is that Aten says he didn’t give Muse access to his messages. When asked how it knew about the contents of his messages, Muse replied, “I saw the notification previews, not your message history. I haven’t been reading your texts.” Aten continued to push, asking how Muse was receiving message previews, it didn’t have a good answer. “Honest answer: I can’t give you the exact plumbing,” it said. “What I know is that the paired Mac app exposes notifications as one of its capabilities, and they arrive to me through the device sync.
Meta’s Muse AI agent now has a Mac app.
The agent initially launched earlier this month on iOS, Android, and the web, but now, you can use it on your Mac computer, as announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. With Muse on Mac, the agent can do things like organize files, fill out forms, and pull information from apps including Messages, Calendar, and Notes, Meta says.
Meta’s Muse AI works and creeps me out
Meta has launched its new Muse assistant, marking the company’s first real foray into AI-powered productivity tools. The company says its AI agent can “take the busywork off your plate” by helping you with online shopping, emails, trip-planning, and more. I decided to try out the new tool and see how well it performed — especially from a company that previously prioritized entertainment over productivity. Though the AI assistant generally worked as I expected it to, the unnerving amount of information it autonomously gleaned about me largely overshadowed my experience.
One of the first tasks I assigned Muse, which carries out actions using a cloud-based virtual computer, was to sort through my Gmail inbox and delete messages I don’t need. That required me to connect Muse to my Google account and give it permission to access, read, and delete emails. The process didn’t go smoothly on mobile; the Google sign-in screen kept glitching and returning me to the Muse website instead of the app. I eventually got it working on my laptop, where it deleted thousands of promotional emails and updates. I didn’t feel good about permitting Muse to view all of my emails given Meta’s track record on privacy over the years.
Mark Zuckerberg tells you to trust Muse.
Meta bets on AI agent Muse to catch up in AI race
Image: The Verge
Meta is making another push to bring artificial intelligence to the masses with Muse, a personal assistant it says can put AI in the hands of virtually anyone. The product is the latest step in a multi-billion-dollar strategy overhaul designed to revitalize the company’s ailing position in the AI race and help it catch up to rivals like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
Muse is a “personal AI agent” designed to help out with everyday tasks and projects, like online shopping, sending emails, and planning a trip. Once given a goal, Meta says Muse can work on its own, opening a browser, filling out forms, and even negotiating on users’ behalf. For lengthy tasks, Meta says Muse will continue working in the background after users close the app, returning to users if something changes or if it requires approval for something, such as making a purchase.
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