We are once again asking: who asked for this?
Summary Judgment
WhatsApp is now offering AI summaries of text threads for those too lazy to read through their messages themselves.
In a press release, the Meta-owned messaging app framed the new AI summarizing function as an optional feature that can help busy users keep up with their texts.
“We’ve all been there — rushing between meetings, catching up after a flight without Wi-Fi, or simply having too many chats to catch up on,” the WhatsApp press release reads. “Sometimes, you just need to quickly catch up on your messages.”
Because what says “I care” like breezing through an AI-generated summary of the family groupchat?
Timeline Cleanse
According to the statement, the new message summarizing feature will use Meta’s so-called “private processing” technology that purportedly lets the AI “generate a response without Meta or WhatsApp ever seeing your messages or the private summaries.” Other people in your chats won’t be able to see the summaries either, the company says.
Though WhatsApp claims that users will the summarizing feature is optional and “off by default,” WhatsApp’s track record is a bit dodgy: as the BBC reported back in April, WhatsApp peeved its users after they discovered that the blue “Meta AI” button at the bottom right corner of chats, which was supposed to be “optional only,” could not be removed.
Soon after that backlash, WhatsApp confirmed to Forbes that users can indeed disable the AI functionality — but they have to do so chat-by-chat, and the irksome button itself would remain.
More on unwanted AI: Microsoft Is Having an Incredibly Embarrassing Problem With Its AI
