Meta 否认 Muse 未经许可读取用户私信的说法

Meta 正在反驳一名记者的说法：其 AI Agent Muse 未经许可读取了用户的私人消息。在 Inc. 专栏作家 Jason Aten 发布一篇详细描述该问题的早先报道后，Meta 通讯副总裁 Andy Stone 作出回应，明确表示该公司不认为其产品曾在未取得用户同意的情况下这样做。

Stone 在 X 上回应文章中的指控时写道：「Muse Mac 应用中的 Messages 集成完全由用户自愿启用。Muse 必须同时启用 Full Disk Access（完全磁盘访问权限）和 Messages connector（信息连接器），才能读取你的 Messages 内容。除非你这样做，否则它无法读取你的 Messages。」

尽管 Meta 予以否认，许多人仍怀疑 Meta 没有说实话。

考虑到这家科技巨头多年来对消费者数据的不当处理，以及由此导致的诉讼、违反 FTC 规定和罚款，这种怀疑并不令人意外。例如，就在几天前，新墨西哥州的一个陪审团认定，这家科技巨头在一宗源于 2018 年 Cambridge Analytica 数据泄露丑闻的案件中，就其数据处理做法误导了用户。

用户是否能够信任 Muse，将成为 Meta 能否赢得消费者 AI 市场的决定性因素。尽管其应用目前表现良好，并持续位居 App Store 第一名，但如果出现更多类似报道——无论报道是否属实——Meta 的声誉可能无法恢复。至少，该公司应该直接与这名记者沟通，以查明这件事究竟如何可能发生，而不是仅仅否认它发生过。

Stone 代表 Meta 发表正式声明之前，Meta Superintelligence Labs 高管 David Singleton 已在 Threads 上向 Aten 作出更具技术性的回复。Singleton 直接回应 Aten 时解释称，用户若要允许 Muse 在 Mac 上读取消息，需要经过「三项独立的应用级权限步骤，以及内置的 macOS 系统级保护」。他说，即使 Muse 应用存在 bug，这些保护「也无法被绕过」。

这些步骤包括：用户明确选择向 Muse 授予 Full Disk Access，此后用户才能选择 Muse 对 Messages 应用获得何种级别的访问权限，即 None、Read only 或 Read。如果未启用 Full Disk Access，这些选项将呈灰色、无法选择。

此外，在允许 Full Disk Access 时，对话框会调用 macOS Settings 的用户界面，用户必须再次手动确认，自己确实打算执行这一操作。Singleton 写道，此操作会触发 Muse 应用完全重启，因此用户在不知情的情况下意外作出这种选择的可能性更低。

不过，Aten 的报道声称，Muse 读取其消息时，Full Disk Access 处于关闭状态。他还表示，当他要求 Muse 解释这一情况如何发生时，该 AI 称自己正在同步他的「设备通知」。Aten 因此认为，Muse 正将 Mac 上收到的横幅通知文本传递给该 AI Agent。

Singleton 同样对此提出异议，称 AI 当时感到困惑，并对发生的情况给出了错误解释。随后，他指向 Meta 介绍 Muse 安全架构及漏洞赏金流程的页面。

简而言之，该公司的回应本质上是：Aten 所称的事情并未发生，而且也不可能发生。

这并非 Muse 被指越权的唯一事件，也很可能不是最后一次。另一名用户、YouTuber Matt Robb 最近表示，Muse 错误处理了一项在 Facebook Marketplace 出售物品的任务，导致其住址被分享，并有一名买家在他甚至不在家时上门。根据 Singleton 在 Threads 上的回复，他显然正在调查这起事件，这表明公司认为至少这一次可能确实是自身的过错。

Meta is refuting a journalist’s claim that its AI agent Muse read the user’s private messages without permission. Following an earlier report from Inc. columnist Jason Aten that detailed the issue, Meta VP of Communications Andy Stone pushed back, making it clear that the company does not believe its product did this without the user’s consent.

“The Messages integration in the Muse app for Mac is entirely opt-in,” Stone wrote on X in response to the claims made by the piece. “You have to enable both Full Disk Access and the Messages connector for Muse to be able to read your Messages content. It can’t read your Messages unless you do this.”

Despite Meta’s denial, many people are still suspicious that Meta isn’t being truthful.

That’s not surprising, given the tech giant’s years of mishandling consumer data, which has led to lawsuits, FTC violations, and fines. Just days ago, for instance, a New Mexico jury determined the tech giant had misled users about its data practices in a case that resulted from the 2018 Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal.

Whether users can trust Muse will be a deciding factor in whether or not Meta wins the consumer AI market. Although its app is faring well now, and remains No. 1 on the App Store, Meta’s reputation may not recover if more reports like this emerge, true or not. If anything, the company should be engaging with the journalist directly to determine how this could have possibly happened, instead of just denying that it did.

Stone’s official statement from Meta follows a more technical reply from Meta Superintelligence Labs executive David Singleton, who responded directly to Aten on Threads, explaining that the set of permissions a user must grant to let Muse read their messages on the Mac involves “three separate steps of application-level permissions and built-in macOS system-level protections.” He said these “can’t be circumvented even if the Muse application had a bug.”

The steps involve explicitly choosing to grant Muse Full Disk Access, which would then allow the user to choose what level of access Muse is being granted to the Messages app (i.e., None, Read only, or Read). If Full Disk Access is not enabled, these options are grayed out.

In addition, when allowing Full Disk Access, the dialog invokes the macOS Settings user interface, where the user has to again manually confirm that they intend to take this action. Doing this triggers a full restart of the Muse app, Singleton wrote, which makes it even less likely that such a choice could be made accidentally without the user’s knowledge.

However, Aten’s report claimed that when Muse read his messages, Full Disk Access was off. He also said that when he asked Muse to explain how this occurred, the AI said that it was syncing his “device notifications.” That means, Aten believes, that Muse was passing along the text of his incoming banner notifications on the Mac to the AI agent.

Singleton disputed this, too, saying that the AI was confused and gave an incorrect explanation of what happened. He then pointed to Meta’s page about Muse’s security architecture and bug bounty process.

In short, the company’s response is essentially that what Aten said happened did not and could not have happened.

This is not the only incident where Muse has allegedly overstepped and won’t likely be the last. Another user, YouTuber Matt Robb, recently said that Muse mishandled a task in which he was selling things on Facebook Marketplace, leading to his address being shared and a buyer showing up when he wasn’t even home. Singleton is apparently looking into that one, per his response on Threads, suggesting that the company believes this one, at least, could be its fault.