@ Meta AI, can you please just stop?
By Kiko Arcenas | posted 18/10/2024
Meta AI aims to be a helpful assistant and is in the search bar to assist with your questions. You can’t disable it from this experience.
I’ve had enough of Meta AI.
It’s all over my Messenger conversations and chat groups, and to be honest, it’s starting to creep me out. What was once a platform to chat with family and friends is now a space that feels more controlled by an entity that I didn’t even invite.
It feels like every time I open a chat, there’s another useless AI prompt, as if I need one more distraction in my day. It’s like an invisible mosquito you can’t swat away — always buzzing around, and no matter how hard you try to avoid it, there it is again, interrupting the flow.
And before you say it, no, there’s no deactivation option. Believe me, I’ve tried.
I am not asking for an AI-free life — I’m no digital hermit — all I’m asking for is a little more control, a little more choice. I want my old Messenger back, the one without an AI sitting in the corner, quietly observing and learning more than it should.
It’s not just the annoyance of an AI popping in where it’s not wanted; it’s the uneasy feeling that something — or someone — is watching, reading, learning. I get it. Tech companies like Meta thrive on innovation, pushing out new features to make things “better” for us. But what happens when that constant stream of updates starts to feel invasive?
What happens when it’s no longer just a tool to make life easier, but something that’s infringing on your sense of safety? I never asked for AI to be a part of my social interactions, and yet, here it is. And the worse part is, I can’t even remove it!
My anxiety ramps up when I think about what’s actually happening behind the scenes. Is Meta AI silently learning from my conversations, and integrating our information into its responses to other users? Sure, they’ll say it’s anonymized or used to improve the platform, but what does that even mean? At what cost?
And you can’t blame me for overthinking. With all the data breaches happening around the world, how can I believe this is safe? Every week, there’s news of some company being hacked or user data getting leaked. So why would I feel confident that my chats are any more secure?
It’s ironic, really. We sign up for these platforms because they give us a sense of connection. But with every AI intrusion, I feel more disconnected from my own privacy.
I’m not asking for an AI-free life — I’m no digital hermit — all I’m asking for is a little more control, a little more choice. I want my old Messenger back, the one without an AI sitting in the corner, quietly observing and learning more than it should.
It’s one thing to feel annoyed; it’s another to feel unsafe. And right now, I’m feeling both. So yeah, Meta AI: can you just… not?
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