Meta’s Muse Is Adults-Only. Why Does It Look Like a Kids’ Toy?
Meta’s Muse Is Adults-Only. Why Does It Look Like a Kids’ Toy?
Meta 的 Muse 仅限成人使用，为什么它看起来像个儿童玩具？
Meta’s Muse mascot is named Jolly. It’s an adorable, cuddly representation of Meta’s AI agent that you can dress however you want—like a doll. At the company’s recent Meta Connect event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s furry Muse donned a toga and laurel wreath. In Instagram ads I saw for Muse, the mascot wore exercise gear and boasted about helping with my fitness goals. Later this year, Meta plans to sell a Tamagotchi-style device for your Muse character. It’s all very kawaii-coded.
Meta 的 Muse 吉祥物名叫 Jolly。它是一个可爱、毛茸茸的 Meta AI 智能体形象，你可以像给玩偶换装一样随心所欲地打扮它。在公司最近举办的 Meta Connect 大会上，首席执行官马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）的毛绒 Muse 穿上了托加长袍，戴上了月桂花环。我在 Instagram 上看到的 Muse 广告中，这个吉祥物穿着运动装备，吹嘘着能帮我实现健身目标。今年晚些时候，Meta 计划为你的 Muse 角色销售一款类似“拓麻歌子”（Tamagotchi）的设备。这一切都充满了“卡哇伊”（kawaii）风格。
Although Muse’s ability to complete digital tasks rocketed it to the top of the app charts, its Labubu-adjacent mascot latched this agent onto the cultural zeitgeist. Alexandr Wang, Meta’s chief AI officer, recently posted nonstop memes of Jolly, sometimes in suggestive situations. What remains perplexing to me is why a product for adults—Muse is restricted to those 18 and over—looks just like a well-designed children’s toy.
尽管 Muse 完成数字任务的能力使其迅速登上了应用排行榜榜首，但其类似 Labubu 的吉祥物设计让这个智能体成功打入了文化潮流。Meta 的首席 AI 官亚历山大·王（Alexandr Wang）最近不断发布 Jolly 的表情包，有时甚至是在一些带有暗示性的场景中。让我感到困惑的是，为什么一款面向成人的产品（Muse 仅限 18 岁及以上用户使用）看起来却像是一个设计精良的儿童玩具。
“This is a story in search of a story,” Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts tells WIRED. “People want to be able to create their own avatar with personality and unique style, because it’s fun and brings them joy. We require everyone using the Muse app to provide their date of birth, we block people we detect may be under 18 from creating an account, and we do additional checks to help ensure people who say they’re adults are actually over 18.”
“这是一个为了找故事而编造的故事，”Meta 发言人丹尼尔·罗伯茨（Daniel Roberts）告诉《连线》（WIRED）杂志。“人们希望能够创建具有个性和独特风格的个人化身，因为这很有趣，能给他们带来快乐。我们要求所有使用 Muse 应用的用户提供出生日期，我们会阻止检测到可能未满 18 岁的人创建账户，并进行额外检查，以确保自称是成年人的用户确实已年满 18 岁。”
Mona Sarantakos, vice president of Product Management at Meta Superintelligence Labs, describes the design process for Muse as leaning into “delightful” elements and meant to feel less awkward than chatting with “a corporate logo or entity,” in a blog post she co-authored around Muse’s release.
Meta 超级智能实验室（Meta Superintelligence Labs）产品管理副总裁莫娜·萨兰塔科斯（Mona Sarantakos）在 Muse 发布时参与撰写的一篇博客文章中描述道，Muse 的设计过程倾向于采用“令人愉悦”的元素，旨在让用户感觉比与“企业标志或实体”聊天更自然、不尴尬。
Youth advocates are already pushing back against Meta’s Muse mascot. “Oh my God, it looks like a Teletubby,” says Josh Golin, an executive director at Fairplay, a nonprofit that previously lobbied against Meta’s targeting of children. “It’s so clearly a character that would appeal to very young children,” he says. “People who study children’s media understand that those rounded shapes particularly appeal to kids in the preschool age.”
青少年权益倡导者已经开始抵制 Meta 的 Muse 吉祥物。“天哪，它看起来就像个天线宝宝，”非营利组织 Fairplay 的执行董事乔什·戈林（Josh Golin）说，该组织此前曾游说反对 Meta 针对儿童的营销行为。“这显然是一个会吸引幼儿的角色，”他说，“研究儿童媒体的人都明白，那些圆润的形状对学龄前儿童特别有吸引力。”
Jolly’s appeal is not limited to those in diapers. The adorable aesthetic of Muse’s mascot also draws me in, a 32-year-old man living in San Francisco. The branding may disarm people of all ages, especially since the backlash against Meta and generative AI continues to resonate with many Americans.
Jolly 的吸引力并不局限于穿尿布的孩子。Muse 吉祥物可爱的美学风格也吸引了我——一个住在旧金山的 32 岁男性。这种品牌形象可能会让各个年龄段的人放下戒备，尤其是考虑到针对 Meta 和生成式 AI 的抵制情绪仍在许多美国人中产生共鸣。
“These types of cute factors can make the product seem warm and less threatening,” says Julian De Freitas, an associate professor of marketing at Harvard who focuses on AI companions. “There’s a high bar that they have to overcome here, because attitudes toward Meta are quite negative after the social addiction rulings.” In August, Meta settled claims regarding social media addiction, agreeing to add restrictive features for teens on Instagram and Facebook as well as paying out up to $16.7 billion.
“这些可爱的因素可以让产品看起来更温暖、更少威胁感，”哈佛大学专注于 AI 伴侣的营销学副教授朱利安·德·弗雷塔斯（Julian De Freitas）表示。“他们在这里必须克服很高的门槛，因为在社交媒体成瘾裁决之后，人们对 Meta 的态度相当负面。”今年 8 月，Meta 就有关社交媒体成瘾的指控达成和解，同意在 Instagram 和 Facebook 上为青少年增加限制性功能，并支付高达 167 亿美元的赔偿。
Some experts I spoke with were less convinced this design was meant to appeal to children, comparing Muse’s mascot to Japan’s long history of broadly relying on adorable characters to market technology. Meta’s approach is not unique either. From the annoying chirping of Microsoft’s Clippy to the more recent red-shelled OpenClaw lobster, AI assistants often revolve around anthropomorphized characters.
我采访的一些专家并不认为这种设计是为了吸引儿童，他们将 Muse 的吉祥物与日本长期以来广泛利用可爱角色来营销技术的历史进行了比较。Meta 的做法也并非独一无二。从微软 Clippy 那令人烦躁的提示音，到最近红壳的 OpenClaw 龙虾，AI 助手往往围绕着拟人化的角色展开。
No matter your age, a cuddly creature representing an AI tool can be disarming, even to the point where you might forget about privacy concerns. For example, Meta trains its AI models on your Muse interactions unless you opt out.
无论你多大年纪，一个代表 AI 工具的可爱生物都可能让你放下戒备，甚至让你忘记隐私问题。例如，除非你选择退出，否则 Meta 会利用你与 Muse 的互动来训练其 AI 模型。
“Design features like being cute and frictionless, or tapping into nostalgia for devices that didn’t constantly surveil and intervene in our lives, are sly ways to make people drop their guard, stop asking critical questions, and slip into being passive users,” says Jathan Sadowski, an associate professor with the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at Australia’s Monash University. “Agents like Muse are trying to convince us they’re just a cute little guy who lives in your pocket, and definitely not an always-open portal into the servers of a major surveillance company.” Research suggests that adopting AI agents could make you more passive.
“像可爱、无摩擦（操作）这样的设计特征，或者利用人们对那些不会时刻监视和干预我们生活的设备的怀旧感，都是让人们放下戒备、停止提出批判性问题并沦为被动用户的狡猾手段，”澳大利亚莫纳什大学新兴技术研究实验室副教授贾坦·萨多夫斯基（Jathan Sadowski）说。“像 Muse 这样的智能体试图让我们相信，它们只是住在你口袋里的可爱小家伙，绝对不是通往大型监控公司服务器的常开门户。”研究表明，采用 AI 智能体可能会让你变得更加被动。
Meta says it will release a “confidential” version of its virtual machine that helps power Muse later in 2026. This option could “cryptographically and verifiably prevent” Meta from accessing a user’s data.
Meta 表示，将在 2026 年晚些时候发布其支持 Muse 运行的虚拟机的“机密”版本。该选项可以“通过加密和可验证的方式防止”Meta 访问用户数据。
Even so, a level of risk remains when adults decide to trust an AI agent, going beyond potential privacy concerns. Ryan Calo, a professor at the University of Washington and faculty cofounder of its Tech Policy Lab, compares using agents to hiring a tour guide when you’re on vacation. You’re relying on them as the intermediary between you and the experience, without necessarily knowing who they are getting kickbacks from and which restaurant the group is visiting only because the guide and the owners are friends.
即便如此，当成年人决定信任 AI 智能体时，风险依然存在，且超出了潜在的隐私担忧。华盛顿大学教授、该校科技政策实验室联合创始人瑞安·卡洛（Ryan Calo）将使用智能体比作度假时聘请导游。你依赖他们作为你与体验之间的中介，却未必知道他们从谁那里拿了回扣，或者团队去某家餐厅仅仅是因为导游和老板是朋友。
As the holidays roll around soon and Meta launches Muse Charm, its Tamagotchi-like device, youth advocates are remaining on red alert.
随着假期临近，Meta 即将推出其类似“拓麻歌子”的设备 Muse Charm，青少年权益倡导者们依然保持高度警惕。
“This really feels like a completely inappropriate attempt by Meta to get young kids hooked on Muse,” Golin says. “This is something that families should say no to, and I think it’s something that regulators should take a hard look at.”
“这感觉确实是 Meta 一种完全不恰当的尝试，旨在让年幼的孩子沉迷于 Muse，”戈林说。“这是家庭应该拒绝的事情，我认为监管机构也应该对此进行严格审查。”