Meta’s Muse Is Better at Surveilling Than Helping Me

Meta 的 Muse：监控能力远胜于辅助功能

I saw Meta’s latest app, Muse, cross-promoted on another Meta-owned platform, Instagram, and decided to download the AI assistant. “Hand off everyday tasks like finding deals, booking reservations, and managing your inbox,” the pop-up read. “Muse keeps working while you get on with your day.” It’s free to use, and easily connects to other data sources, like my email and bank account. Muse’s default avatar is a beige-colored cross between an Ewok and a Labubu, with its arms outstretched, presumably to scoop up all my data.

我在 Meta 旗下的另一个平台 Instagram 上看到了 Meta 最新应用 Muse 的交叉推广，于是决定下载这个 AI 助手。弹窗写道：“将寻找优惠、预订餐厅和管理收件箱等日常任务交给我们。当你忙于其他事务时，Muse 会持续为你工作。”该应用免费使用，并能轻松连接到电子邮件和银行账户等其他数据源。Muse 的默认头像是一个米色的生物，看起来像是“伊沃克人”（Ewok）和“拉布布”（Labubu）的结合体，双臂张开，仿佛是为了把我的所有数据一网打尽。

Meta’s Muse is a mainstream version of AI agents already popular in Silicon Valley for automating personal tasks, like OpenClaw and Instinct. It’s a hit for the company: the Muse app has been downloaded over 900,000 times in its first week, according to Sensor Tower. The user experience is less like prompting a chatbot, and more like texting a friend with task requests—the AI agent acknowledges messages with a thumbs-up emoji and gets to work in the background. Muse is also available through Meta’s WhatsApp platform.

Meta 的 Muse 是硅谷目前流行的自动化个人任务 AI 代理（如 OpenClaw 和 Instinct）的大众化版本。这对该公司来说是一个巨大的成功：据 Sensor Tower 数据显示，Muse 应用在发布的第一周内下载量就超过了 90 万次。其用户体验不像是在向聊天机器人发送指令，更像是给朋友发短信交代任务——AI 代理会用点赞表情回复消息，并在后台开始工作。Muse 也可通过 Meta 的 WhatsApp 平台使用。

But after a few days with Muse, I’m convinced this AI tool is more obsessed with collecting data about me than actually getting stuff done. “Muse is the first personal AI agent built for everyone, with built-in protections and user controls that put people absolutely in charge of how they use it—any suggestion we didn’t build with that in mind from the beginning is ludicrous,” Meta spokesperson Emil Vazquez tells WIRED.

但在使用 Muse 几天后，我确信这个 AI 工具更热衷于收集我的数据，而不是真正帮我完成工作。“Muse 是首个为所有人打造的个人 AI 代理，内置了保护措施和用户控制功能，让人们能够完全掌控自己的使用方式——任何认为我们从一开始就没有考虑到这一点的说法都是荒谬的，”Meta 发言人 Emil Vazquez 对《连线》（WIRED）杂志表示。

Muse’s ability to surf the web is genuinely impressive. When you ask it to complete a task, Muse uses a “virtual machine” to browse the internet on your behalf, running searches and clicking around on different web pages. When I tested similar tools last year, like the now-defunct ChatGPT Agent, the AI’s clicks were erratic and error-filled. Muse rarely seems to get lost while browsing.

Muse 的网页浏览能力确实令人印象深刻。当你要求它完成任务时，Muse 会使用一个“虚拟机”代表你浏览互联网，进行搜索并在不同的网页上点击。去年我测试类似工具（如现已停用的 ChatGPT Agent）时，AI 的点击操作往往不稳定且充满错误。而 Muse 在浏览时似乎很少迷失方向。

For example, I asked Muse to order breakfast from a local bakery called Kahnfections. It’s a popular spot for tourists visiting San Francisco, so I requested one of the most-purchased options for pick-up. Muse visited the bakery’s website and added a biscuit sandwich with garlic aioli, cheddar cheese, egg, and bacon to my cart.

例如，我让 Muse 从一家名为 Kahnfections 的当地面包店订购早餐。这是旧金山游客常去的地方，所以我要求它订购一份最受欢迎的自取餐点。Muse 访问了该面包店的网站，并将一份配有蒜泥蛋黄酱、切达干酪、鸡蛋和培根的饼干三明治添加到了我的购物车中。

I was asked to add a credit card via the Stripe payment processor so my agent could complete the purchase. “One tweak the site forced: cheese is single-select, so I picked cheddar and left a note asking them to add Swiss too if they can,” read Muse’s explanation of the breakfast order when it asked for my final approval. Notably, Muse selected the “no tip” option. A bit rude! (I ended up walking down to the shop, ordering something random and delicious.)

我被要求通过 Stripe 支付处理器添加信用卡，以便我的代理完成购买。当 Muse 请求我最终确认时，它对早餐订单解释道：“网站强制要求：奶酪只能单选，所以我选了切达干酪，并留言询问他们是否可以额外加点瑞士奶酪。”值得注意的是，Muse 选择了“不付小费”选项。有点粗鲁！（最后我还是亲自走到店里，随便点了一些美味的食物。）

Meta relies on its sprawling kingdom of platforms to get the word out about Muse. WhatsApp and Messenger for easy onboarding and integrations; prime placement on Instagram, with a large library of Reels videos for agents to search through. But the Facebook Marketplace tie-in was where Muse impressed the most in my testing. Muse quickly found cheap, local couches for sale within my parameters and offered to message sellers to arrange pick-ups. The agent is designed to follow up with users, so Muse nudged me the next day to consider getting the couch I said was my favorite.

Meta 依靠其庞大的平台帝国来推广 Muse。WhatsApp 和 Messenger 用于便捷的入门和集成；Instagram 提供了黄金展示位，并拥有海量的 Reels 视频库供代理搜索。但在我的测试中，与 Facebook Marketplace 的联动最令我印象深刻。Muse 迅速根据我的参数找到了当地便宜的待售沙发，并主动提出联系卖家安排自取。该代理被设计为会跟进用户，因此第二天 Muse 还提醒我考虑购买我曾表示最喜欢的那款沙发。

Muse stores details about your interactions and preferences in a “Memory” document found by tapping the avatar in the top middle of the screen. “Your curated long-term memory: durable facts, preferences, and commitments,” the description in Muse reads. While you can send a chat request for Muse to wipe memory data and you can manually edit the file, Meta doesn’t currently offer a toggle to turn off the memory feature altogether.

Muse 会将你的互动细节和偏好存储在“记忆”（Memory）文档中，点击屏幕正上方的头像即可找到。Muse 中的描述写道：“你精心整理的长期记忆：持久的事实、偏好和承诺。”虽然你可以发送聊天请求让 Muse 清除记忆数据，也可以手动编辑该文件，但 Meta 目前并未提供完全关闭记忆功能的开关。

Data Collector

数据收集器

Under the app’s “ideas” tab, Meta’s Muse constantly reminded me to connect more information to the agent. The day after I said I wanted help saving money for a fancy vacation, Muse offered to “wire your savings tracker to your real balance” if I just tapped a few buttons and linked the data from my checking and savings accounts. “Then the weekly summaries and drift alerts work off real numbers instead of hand-entered estimates,” it said.

在应用的“想法”（ideas）标签下，Meta 的 Muse 不断提醒我向该代理连接更多信息。在我表示想存钱去度假的第二天，Muse 就提议：“只要点击几下按钮，关联你的支票和储蓄账户数据，就能将你的储蓄追踪器与真实余额挂钩。”它说：“这样每周的总结和偏差提醒就能基于真实数字，而不是手动输入的估算值。”

This experience, where Muse offered further personalization in exchange for more data, was emblematic of my overall impression of the app. “Folks don’t recognize that when you talk to an AI, you are talking to the company hosting the AI,” says Rory Mir, director of open access at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “These chat windows—that we’re used to being connections between us and another person—are really just us directly putting information into Meta servers about ourselves.”

这种以更多数据换取进一步个性化服务的体验，是我对该应用整体印象的缩影。“人们没有意识到，当你与 AI 对话时，你实际上是在与托管该 AI 的公司对话，”电子前沿基金会（EFF）开放获取总监 Rory Mir 表示。“这些聊天窗口——我们习惯于将其视为人与人之间的连接——实际上只是我们直接将关于自己的信息输入到 Meta 的服务器中。”

Every suggested interaction with Muse started to feel like a guise for me to upload more data about myself for Meta to see. Its “idea” was to let Muse scan my whole inbox and flag must-read messages. Its “idea” was to snap a pic of important documents for Muse to fill out and file. Its “idea” was to photograph my meals for Muse to estimate the food’s calories. “Tell me when your passport and license expire,” another one read. Great idea, Muse.

与 Muse 的每一次互动建议，都开始让我觉得这只是诱导我上传更多个人数据给 Meta 看的幌子。它的“想法”是让 Muse 扫描我的整个收件箱并标记必读邮件；它的“想法”是拍摄重要文件让 Muse 填写并归档；它的“想法”是拍摄我的餐食让 Muse 估算卡路里。“告诉我你的护照和驾照什么时候过期，”另一条建议写道。真是个好主意，Muse。

Muse users are automatically opted in to having their interactions with the agent used for AI model training. Meta says this data is “sanitized” to remove identifying information before AI training, though it’s unclear how the process works. The data collection may include what Muse uses as context when accessing the data sources you have connected, like an email inbox or bank account. You can turn off this data collection in the settings for the Muse app, under Data controls. Disable the toggle that says Help improve our AI models.

Muse 用户会被自动默认加入“将与代理的互动用于 AI 模型训练”的计划中。Meta 表示，这些数据在 AI 训练前会经过“脱敏”处理以删除身份识别信息，但该过程的具体运作方式尚不明确。数据收集可能包括 Muse 在访问你已连接的数据源（如电子邮件收件箱或银行账户）时所使用的上下文信息。你可以在 Muse 应用的“数据控制”（Data controls）设置中关闭此数据收集功能，只需禁用“帮助改进我们的 AI 模型”（Help improve our AI models）开关即可。

Consumer advocates see Meta forcing Muse users to opt out of AI data training as a major red flag. “This tells me they have not learned from past mistakes and undermines their argument that you should trust Muse with all your information even further,” says Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

消费者权益倡导者认为，Meta 强迫 Muse 用户手动退出 AI 数据训练是一个严重的危险信号。“这表明他们并没有从过去的错误中吸取教训，并进一步削弱了他们关于‘你应该信任 Muse 并提供所有信息’的论点，”电子隐私信息中心（EPIC）高级法律顾问 Calli Schroeder 表示。