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What Meta got right with Muse

138 points · 189 comments · young_mete

  1. tokepi · · focus · HN ↗
    A different view: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neuromatch.social&#x2F;@jonny&#x2F;117325417843030902" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neuromatch.social&#x2F;@jonny&#x2F;117325417843030902

    &gt; you better believe the other thing it&#x27;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.

    1. simoncion · · focus · HN ↗
      A quick note for folks who are going to go &quot;duhhh, so what?&quot; after reading that thread:

      That investigation is still ongoing, and that subthread doesn&#x27;t contain all the information from it. You should pop up to that -er- blog&#x27;s top level, scroll back until you find the start of the investigation, and then start reading. Yeah, it&#x27;s a huge pain in the ass, but this is -AFAICT- the guy&#x27;s personal notepad, rather than some place where formal reports usually go. If someone walked over, picked up my personal notepad at $DAYJOB, and complained about how they couldn&#x27;t make sense of it, I&#x27;d tell them to fuck right off, yanno?

    2. mkarrmann · · focus · HN ↗
      There&#x27;s no &quot;prompt injection&quot; 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&#x27;s even being implied by that quote. (Yes, it tries to help you shop. And? Or is the critique just that OP doesn&#x27;t like the prose in that markdown file?)

      Disclaimer: I work at Meta, not on Muse

      1. suttontom · · focus · HN ↗
        What&#x27;s being implied is that your nefarious company is building another product that exists solely to suck up people&#x27;s attention and time in order to build a profile of them to sell them garbage that they don&#x27;t need and use their personal data to manipulate them.

        I don&#x27;t know how anyone can use Muse. It&#x27;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.

        1. mkarrmann · · focus · HN ↗
          &gt; What&#x27;s being implied is that your nefarious company is building another product that exists solely to suck up people&#x27;s attention and time inorder to build a profile to sell them garbage that they don&#x27;t need and use their personal data to manipulate them.

          You&#x27;re free to speculate that Meta is lying about what it will or won&#x27;t use the data for. I won&#x27;t argue over that. That&#x27;s an important topic and I&#x27;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&#x27;s all I&#x27;m getting at.

          1. foltik · · focus · HN ↗
            We all know exactly what it’s for, don’t pretend you don’t.
            1. mkarrmann · · focus · HN ↗
              I understand what is being implied. I&#x27;m saying that the provided example is poor evidence of what&#x27;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&#x27;s ads or RecSys systems.

              You can believe Meta does bad things without thinking everything Meta does is an example of said bad things

              1. foltik · · focus · HN ↗
                So we should judge each piece of evidence in a vacuum?

                Facebook has broken its promises about user data many times before. I don&#x27;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.

                1. pixelatedindex · · focus · HN ↗
                  &gt; So we should judge each piece of evidence in a vacuum?

                  I mean… little drops of water make the ocean, so if the complaint is with the drop then yes. Doesn’t mean the ocean is poisoned by some of these droplets though.

                  Two things can be true at the same time - Facebook as a whole is untrustable but you can use Muse Glimmer from them without giving them this data.

                2. mkarrmann · · focus · HN ↗
                  &gt; So we should judge each piece of evidence in a vacuum?

                  You&#x27;re free to believe whatever you want about Meta. But no, you shouldn&#x27;t point to non-evidence, interpret it through the lens of your prior beliefs, and then claim that it&#x27;s actually evidence supporting your beliefs.

                  &gt; 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&#x27;s what that specific quote I was referencing was referring to. I already responded to the supposed prompt injection&#x2F;security concerns above.

                  1. iugtmkbdfil834 · · focus · HN ↗
                    &lt;&lt; you shouldn&#x27;t point to non-evidence, interpret it through the lens of your prior beliefs, and then claim that it&#x27;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.

          2. suttontom · · focus · HN ↗
            The comment you&#x27;re responding to has two sentences separated by a period. You can use that as an indication that the two issues being pointed out are, in fact, separate things. Do you understand now?
            1. mkarrmann · · focus · HN ↗
              NGL I understand the above comment, but I&#x27;m not sure what you&#x27;re implying. So I guess no I don&#x27;t understand
      2. simoncion · · focus · HN ↗
        &gt; Meta has confirmed this it intended behavior.

        Ayyy! You&#x27;re one of the folks I wrote my comment [0] for!

        [0] &lt;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=49953429">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=49953429&gt;

        1. mkarrmann · · focus · HN ↗
          Totally fair if that&#x27;s just a public stratch pad (which happens to make several specific, unsubstantiated claims). Not hating on that guy.

          But if someone posts the thread with no other context than &quot;check this out&quot;, then it seems appropriate explain this missing context.

          And for the record, I did scroll back read through what he&#x27;s saying as you suggested. The broader context is exactly what makes it clear he&#x27;s just a bit confused about what he&#x27;s &quot;uncovered&quot;. (Obvious caveat: I haven&#x27;t read through everything this guy has written, I could be missing something)

          1. simoncion · · focus · HN ↗
            &gt; I did scroll back read through what he&#x27;s saying as you suggested. ... Obvious caveat: I haven&#x27;t read through everything this guy has written...

            Did you also scroll forward to read what he wrote after the stuff in the thread that was linked to? This tool is pretty obviously designed -whether intentionally or not- to enable the exfiltration of a ton of sensitive data to untrusted third parties while leaving its intended user none the wiser.

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