Meta has launched a new AI-powered feature for WhatsApp that allows users to keep up with messages without actually reading them.
Instead, users of popular messaging apps can read the AI-generated summary of unread messages presented in several bullet points.
“Sometimes, you need to keep up with your message immediately,” a WhatsApp blog post said Wednesday.
“So we're excited to introduce you to a new option to quickly summarise unread messages in chat using Meta AI, so you can know what's going on before reading the details of unread messages.”
Meta said the new AI tool uses what is called “private processing technology” to ensure that WhatsApp users' contacts cannot confirm that the chat is summarized.
Only US English users will have access to the AI summary, and WhatsApp says it plans to roll out its functionality in other languages and countries later this year.
The new messaging summary feature is part of Meta's plan to deploy artificial intelligence tools across the platform, as they already have AI chatbots installed on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
In a recent interview, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested that AI bots can serve as friends to those suffering from loneliness.
“I think people want systems that know them well, and they understand them as their feed algorithms do,” he said in an on-stage interview with Stripe co-founder John Collison at the annual meeting of a major payment company last month.
“For those who don't have a therapist, I think everyone has AI.”
Researchers have consistently warned of the dangers of deploying relationships with AI chatbots due to the experimental nature of technology.
Soren Dinesen Ostergaard, a professor of psychiatry at Aarfs University in Denmark, said AI has created a new phenomenon known as chatbot psychosis.
“Depending on the question asked, generative AI chatbots may provide information that may be wrong or misunderstood by people with psychodiagnosis who are not seeking appropriate help,” he said. Schizophrenia Breaking News
“I am confident that individuals susceptible to psychosis experience or have already experienced delusions while interacting with generative AI chatbots.”
