Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

WhatsApp Now Summarizes Your Unread Messages Using AI

Never trusted What's App and never used it or installed it.

When one installs one of these apps, how many seconds after installation before all of your sensitive information is enroute to their servers?
 
I'm not even remotely interested in having something or someone else summarize my communications. Not WhatsApp nor iMessage. No. I plan to avoid this kind of backhanded intrusion into my privacy, eventually enabled by constantly changing "privacy policies" no one reads or understands.
 
  • Like
Reactions: artifex
surferfb said:
I think the use case is more group chats. Like when I come out of a 30 minute meeting to see 75+ unread messages (glares at wife and sister-in-law in “family” group thread).

Edit: @Godspeed8230 beat me to it.
Click to expand...
Ah, that does make more sense. I’ve quickly left any family group threads.
They already think of me as socially awkward and I’m happy to reinforce that view.
If AI had to summarize the ones they tried to add me to it would just say “Nothing to see here” 🤭
 
  • Like
Reactions: gusmula and surferfb
The problem with this (apart from having to believe that Meta won't do anything with the now-unencrypted messages) is that AI just isn't good enough yet.

So one would get the AI summary and then have to read the messages anyway just to make sure the AI hadn't screwed up.
 
switz said:
Never trusted What's App and never used it or installed it.

When one installs one of these apps, how many seconds after installation before all of your sensitive information is enroute to their servers?
Click to expand...
In Mexico, it’s the standard way to text or leave voice messages. Everyone with whom I do business (medical professionals, contractors) uses it exclusively.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gusmula
Meta AI finally went live in my WhatsApp yesterday and I'm really annoyed by that small circle in the bottom right of my window. It's terrible UX in my opinion. Not to mention the fact that I don't trust Meta and their AI and promises of not being able to access our data. I'm going to double down on migrating away from using this product.
 
If you have end to end encryption turned on, how does it summarize?
 
fatTribble said:
Do people really get text messages so long that they require a summary?
I would never want to summarize anything that a friend sent to me.
So I’m really missing the point.
Click to expand...
I could see it *Maybe* being useful if you are in a group chat and didn't get to check your messages for a while (say you were away, at work, no service, etc.) to try and get caught up quickly (although I doubt the summaries would be in-depth enough to make sense. Other than that, I agree with you.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fatTribble
Why? Who the **** needs this? What are you whats-upping with Tolstoy or Tolkien? How long are these messages??
 
jsavvy said:
If you have end to end encryption turned on, how does it summarize?
Click to expand...
On device I suppose.

The app still needs to decrypt your messages to show them to you. Meta may not have access to your messages on their server, but the app wouldn't function if the messages wouldn't be readable on device.
 
cicalinarrot said:
...do you realize your messages are already in their servers
Click to expand...
...but encrypted. With end-to-end encryption (as advertised by many messagning services), the server operators simply do not have the ability to decrypt those messages.

Even if someone hacks their servers and intercepts the encrypted messages they can't decrypt them without the private key on the recipient's phone.

However they spin this feature, it can not work with e2e encryption - the unencrypted messages have to be decrypted on the server to be analysed. The linked papers are just really talking about security protocols that ensure that - pinky promise - can't be accessed by Meta. Just the, er... Meta-written AI software that does the summaries...

cicalinarrot said:
and you already blindly trust their claims about encryption, right?
Click to expand...
Sure, you can never be 100% certain, but the question is, what is more likely?

(A) A messaging service offering end-to-end encryption is flat-out and maliciously committing fraud and is knowingly using a backdoored system to read your messages - and run a very high risk of being found out via. analysis of the client software.

(B) A messaging service offering not-really-e2e but, hey, shiny AI features!!! suddenly has an "aw, snap!" moment and finds out that the supposedly safe container containing the unencrypted messages isn't has a leak...

Thing is, e2e is the gold standard for secure communication even through an untrusted channel - that's the whole point. Anything else - where something in the middle has the ability to decrypt the messages - is fundamentally less secure. For the carrier, too, using e2e is the best way to resist demands from authorities.

There's also the question of whether the AI is "learning" from your messages and could leak details to other users...

adrianlondon said:
So one would get the AI summary and then have to read the messages anyway just to make sure the AI hadn't screwed up.
Click to expand...
Yup. My main objection .

jsavvy said:
If you have end to end encryption turned on, how does it summarize?
Click to expand...
By turning off end-to-end encryption and letting the server decrypt the messages. In some sort of secure software environment that can't possibly be read by unauthorised persons, honest. So that's alright then /s.

d686546s said:
On device I suppose.
Click to expand...

Nope. On the server. If you follow a couple of links from the original article to see the description of "Private Processing".
 
How to know if Whatsapp chat history is being backup? Is it a setting in iCloud or the app has its own backup solution?
 
Last edited:
tomtad said:
Feels like Meta is really going for the kill with iMessage now. Anyone know how iMessage market share is holding up in the US which seems to be the last hold out?
Click to expand...
I would switch to smoke signals before I’d use anything from Meta
 
d686546s said:
On device I suppose.

The app still needs to decrypt your messages to show them to you. Meta may not have access to your messages on their server, but the app wouldn't function if the messages wouldn't be readable on device.
Click to expand...

theluggage said:
By turning off end-to-end encryption and letting the server decrypt the messages. In some sort of secure software environment that can't possibly be read by unauthorised persons, honest. So that's alright then /s.
Click to expand...
Essentially Meta gets to read your messages? Let’s sign up for that!
 
Could be useful but still not efficient enough. For group chat discussions, I expect AI to also provide indices of consensus, political correctness, and objectivity.

And Apple: You could raise your AI profile by making iMessage the first messaging app to generate emoji-only summaries 😎
 
I think Whatsapp could improve in a few areas.

To start, Whatsapp still requires a phone number which is annoying. It would be nice to see them do email+password login and editable usernames. (like slack, ms teams, google chat, discord, etc)

Secondly, it would be nice to see the edit button made available forever, like slack, ms teams, google chat, discord, etc...we should control our digital footprint. People who claim that "15 minutes is good" - what do they think about slack, teams, google chat, and discord allowing unlimited editing. I don't think WhatsApp should be going for a "everything we type is set in stone type of platform". I think it should be a bit more casual and allow forever edits - not saying that's what people *should* do - but the fact that it's allowed makes for a more comfortable chat platform.

Another thing WhatsApp could use is better support for multiple devices. Currently you get one primary device and 3 additional linked devices. If you sign in to a new device without making it a *linked devices*, it automatically signs you out of your primary device and you may lose a bunch of data.

I think they should give users the option to let users choose what kind of system they want. I think many would prefer a more robust multiple devices system where we could login to many more devices than just the few that they currently allow.

Also, Maybe when you attempt to sign in, and you're already signed in to a primary device, they could warn you that you're going to lose the data that's not backed up on your existing primary device.

Another thought is 2 primary devices. It's good we can link a few devices to our 1 primary device, and I can understand some security benefits of not just allowing *unlimited* primary devices. However, I think *2* primary devices could be a good happy medium that still balances functionality with security. This way, we could login to *1* extra device *without* having to *link it* to the *1* primary device. This would give us 2 primary devices, with 4 linked means 8 devices total, I think is good. Still not unlimited for better security, but one extra primary device would enhance functionality/accessibility.

I think the ability to signup with email and password is good. Better multiple device support. Editable usernames so we don't have to share our phone number. There's so much spam out there today, we should be able to converse with people without sharing our phone number. The edit button needs to be expanded to allow editing forever. It's the principle of the matter. All other major chat platforms have it. The linked devices function is too limited and needs to allow more devices. Backup and storage should be available on the WhatsApp cloud/server instead of requiring backup and restore everytime.
 
theluggage said:
Nope. On the server. If you follow a couple of links from the original article to see the description of "Private Processing".
Click to expand...

Thanks, that does seem fairly questionable. They of course claim that no one would ever have access to this and I'm in no position to really assess their technical papers, but decrypting server-side would give me pause nonetheless.
 
d686546s said:
Thanks, that does seem fairly questionable. They of course claim that no one would ever have access to this and I'm in no position to really assess their technical papers, but decrypting server-side would give me pause nonetheless.
Click to expand...
You don't need a technical assessment and don't really need to read past the bit that says the summary-generating takes place on their servers - their protocols may be very, very secure indeed, but if any software hosted by Meta can access the text of your messages then it is not as secure as end-to-end encryption.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back