this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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Privacy

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cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/215685

WhatsApp can now call on Meta AI to summarize your personal chats. As shown in a GIF, you can access it by tapping the button to unfurl all of your unread messages in a chat. But instead of showing your messages, WhatsApp uses Meta AI to generate a bulleted summary of what you missed.

The feature is rolling out in English in the US, with plans to launch in more countries and languages later this year. It uses Meta’s Private Processing technology, which the company claims will prevent it and other third parties from snooping on your messages.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, says its AI message summaries are optional, and the feature is turned off by default. You can also use WhatsApp’s “Advanced Privacy” setting to prevent users from using AI features in group chats.  We still don’t know if WhatsApp’s AI message summaries will struggle with accuracy, which is something we saw with the launch of Apple’s AI-generated message and notification rundowns.

Over the past year, Meta has continued stuffing different AI features into WhatsApp, including a way to ask Meta AI questions from within a chat, as well as a feature that generates images in real-time. Some users have grown frustrated by the new Meta AI button in the bottom-right corner of the app that they can’t turn off or remove. Meta also sparked backlash with another change that brought ads to the app — something its founders said they never wanted to do.

The app’s Private Processing is supposed to conceal your interactions with its AI model by creating a “secure cloud environment,” preventing Meta or WhatsApp from seeing your summaries. Other people in the group chat won’t be able to see the message summaries, either.


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[–] LuigiMaoFrance@lemmy.ml 8 points 23 hours ago
[–] MrSulu@lemmy.ml 2 points 18 hours ago

As we say in my home town, "Wankers!". I need to have this WhatsApp BS as its the only way to stay connected with older relatives and work groups. I'm using RethinkDNS on my phone and have blocked as many Meta DNS and network links as I can find online. Exactly none of them show up on my firewall logs! The connections in/ out appear to be via "safe" routes, which if blocked then break wider functionality. To use yet another completely unheard of home town phrases, "Bastards".

[–] BlackAura@lemmy.world 6 points 23 hours ago

I love that my global settings has a whole section labelled Privacy, but I can't disable this globally for all chats my account joins.

Instead I have to disable it for each chat individually.

What awful design WhatsApp (obviously on purpose so I'll forget with new chats).

Well maybe this is the push that those friends will need to move to Signal...

[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Do people actually use stuff like this? Like who has ever needed help reading a text message?

[–] Clandestine@lemmy.zip 3 points 17 hours ago

If you need an AI summary to read texts from your friends… Your friend either has the worst case of main character syndrome, or you’re a bad friend for not putting in the effort of reading what they have to say!

[–] SilliusMaximus@mander.xyz 8 points 1 day ago

I'm kinda sick of EVERYTHING having it's own "AI", I just hope it's only a passing phase like it was with crypto

[–] herseycokguzelolacak@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 day ago

ummm no. I don't want Meta to access my chats.

[–] CoyoteFacts@piefed.ca 83 points 2 days ago (6 children)

I know this is not a unique sentiment by any means, but it makes me legitimately angry to think of participating in a conversation where someone else is using this. If you don't want to read my messages why are we even connecting; imagine clicking "summarize" on someone genuinely trying to talk to you. "Sorry, the AI hallucinated that you were going to finish the rest of the assignment tonight." and a year later "Sorry, I forgot all the nuances of who you are as a person because an AI didn't think they were relevant."

[–] 7112@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The underlining issue is that people are being forced to do so much at once they skip whatever they can. We already seen intimacy suffer and AI is another "shortcut" that allows us to do more work and care less about community.

[–] Rose@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 days ago

Hardly an AI problem though. Many people talk just to hear themselves talk rather than care to listen. Many will stare at their phone when in a real world conversation.

[–] Shadow@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Are you not in any group chats with 50 people trying to organize something? They become a cluster fuck.

For direct chats, totally agreed. I'd be seriously insulted if you used an ai to talk in a 1:1 conversation.

[–] CoyoteFacts@piefed.ca 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That really seems like a structural problem to me. Break it out into more-focused teams, signify important people whose messages you should pay attention to, or use threads to consolidate topics. If those things aren't being done and there's just 50+ people dumping information then the information can't be deemed important. Adding AI to patch the issue is poor management at best and introducing poisoned information at worst.

[–] auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 days ago

I assume they mean social group chats. You’re not gonna get the lads to form a breakout team to organise the stag.

[–] timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Why would Anyone do anything productive like that with that many people over a WhatsApp group

[–] auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago

Because it’s the only app most normal people have. That or fb messenger.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

not that we should accept this, but all mainstream social media does this already. i "lost" quite a bunch of "friendships" when i noticed it. and im glad i did.

[–] Assian_Candor@hexbear.net 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Getting closer and closer to just wandering naked into the woods forever

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Someone owns those woods. If you walk into them you will be trespassing

[–] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 3 points 2 days ago

Not every country is quite as ridiculous with private property. For example in Scandinavian countries they have the “everymans right”, which basically says that, within reasonable limits, owning property doesnt mean no one else can pass through it or use it to fulfill basic human needs for a few days

[–] auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

OSX already does this so many will be. I don’t use it when I’m texting something but it helps me follow group chats id usually ignore or if my wife has texted me a bunch of stuff I’ll see a quick summary including ‘make sure to do x’

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 28 points 2 days ago

How fucking lazy can you get, to not be bothered reading a text?!?

[–] evildog@lemmy.eco.br 7 points 1 day ago

Meta wants a wave of stupids. People will not have the capacity to read a simple message with this shit!

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 26 points 2 days ago

Still claiming WA messages are e2ee? The MITM is even paraphrasing the content back to you.

[–] teagrrl@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 days ago

Wow, nothing says I love you like letting an AI summarize your spouse's feelings into "vibes: bad"

[–] BeBopaLula@piefed.ca 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You’re still using whatsapp? Tsk tsk.

[–] FireIced@lemmy.super.ynh.fr 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What’s the alternative(s) you use and enjoy?

[–] BeBopaLula@piefed.ca 20 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I am anecdotal, almost 70. So my data does not really count as I do not do much. I use text for family and Signal for anything else. Quit all the other services pretty much except Lemmy/Piefed have accounts on Bluesky and mastodon but I don’t say anything so far on them. I save my yelling at the clouds for here.

[–] spykee@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago

Are you me?
You ARE me!
FUCK YEAH!
Weirdos like me do live past 50.

[–] FireIced@lemmy.super.ynh.fr 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

🥺

I imagine you were into tech and computers when you were younger? That’s really rare to see amongst elders I believe

[–] BeBopaLula@piefed.ca 11 points 2 days ago

Retired puter consultant. Was in the biz for over 40yrs.

[–] Moonworm@hexbear.net 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oh yeah we're totally not going to ever peek even a little at all your private communications even though we're now explicitly collecting them to feed into an LLM. It's a secure cloud environment!

[–] FuckBigTech347@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It has a green lock icon with the word "Private" next to it so it's fine bro. western-journalist

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The worst part is that I know people that will use this regularly and also know people I'd be tempted to use it with because of their walls of text that I usually ignore.

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Would you be more offended by someone using AI to decipher your wall of text then if they ignored you?

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 days ago

I'm not sure which one is worse, either tells me that they didn't bother reading the message. It is hard for me to relate because I try to do my best to not send ted talk to a group chat.

Maybe I'd rather be ignored if they're not interested.

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Let's whack the engineer that thought this was a good idea.