What Meta got right with Muse
metedata.substack.com154 points by young_mete 5 days ago
154 points by young_mete 5 days ago
A different view: https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/117325417843030902
> you better believe the other thing it's supposed to do aside from build a picture of your friends and loved ones is to figure out what makes you love to shop. This is actually some of the most nauseating prompt text i have ever read.
There's no "prompt injection" like the OP claims. You can just ask Muse for all the info for its dedicated VM, and Muse will tell you. Meta has confirmed this it intended behavior.
And idk what's even being implied by that quote. (Yes, it tries to help you shop. And? Or is the critique just that OP doesn't like the prose in that markdown file?)
Disclaimer: I work at Meta, not on Muse
What's being implied is that your nefarious company is building another product that exists solely to suck up people's attention and time in order to build a profile of them to sell them garbage that they don't need and use their personal data to manipulate them.
I don't know how anyone can use Muse. It's like taking everything that Facebook has had to guess and infer about you over the years using various analytics and instead just dumping it directly into a chat bot and giving the company everything it wants. Zuckerberg and his soulless C-suite must be licking their lips.
> What's being implied is that your nefarious company is building another product that exists solely to suck up people's attention and time inorder to build a profile to sell them garbage that they don't need and use their personal data to manipulate them.
You're free to speculate that Meta is lying about what it will or won't use the data for. I won't argue over that. That's an important topic and I'm not gonna persuade anyone via an HN comment. Skepticism is fine
But the example linked to in the above comment is not evidence of that at all. A skill explaining how to format purchase history in markdown format is not evidence of hidden motivations.
In general the entire thread is nothing-burger, and that's all I'm getting at.
Nothing meta has done is good, or even adjacent to neutral. You work for the evil corporations and defend it…
We all know exactly what it’s for, don’t pretend you don’t.
I understand what is being implied. I'm saying that the provided example is poor evidence of what's being implied.
We all know Meta can already track things like certain purchases. A skill file telling AI how to format purchase history in markdown format is not going to help any of Meta's ads or RecSys systems.
You can believe Meta does bad things without thinking everything Meta does is an example of said bad things
So we should judge each piece of evidence in a vacuum?
Facebook has broken its promises about user data many times before. I don't buy anything they say about Muse, and nobody in their right mind should. Unless they’re getting paid to, of course.
Aside, if “a skill file organizing purchase history in markdown format” is the only thing you took away from that thread, you might want to take a closer look.
> So we should judge each piece of evidence in a vacuum?
You're free to believe whatever you want about Meta. But no, you shouldn't point to non-evidence, interpret it through the lens of your prior beliefs, and then claim that it's actually evidence supporting your beliefs.
> Aside, if “a skill file organizing purchase history in markdown format” is the only thing you took away from that thread, you might want to take a closer look.
That's what that specific quote I was referencing was referring to. I already responded to the supposed prompt injection/security concerns above.
<< you shouldn't point to non-evidence, interpret it through the lens of your prior beliefs, and then claim that it's actually evidence supporting your beliefs
Not parent, but it is worth responding to as it applies. Not prior beliefs. From prior actions. Unless you are only now becoming aware of the existing ecosystem, there is almost no way in which you can buy into that ecosystem without expecting hard rug pull. And the beauty is, everyone gets to make a choice, but they best do it is with eyes wide open and the understanding of the deal for it will be changing soon.