It's sinister that Meta's Muse AI mascot is so cute

The Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song explores how Meta's cutely designed AI mascot "Jolly" for its Muse AI agent serves as a powerful strategy to make users willingly share personal data. After resisting Muse since launch, Song finally downloaded the app after being charmed by Jolly's adorable appearance at Meta Connect. She describes how Jolly — a plush, ivory-furred character plastered across Meta's campus and keynote — taps into the evolutionary psychology of cuteness to lower people's defensiveness. Song tests the Muse agent through demos, noting AI's usual pitfalls such as factual errors and inability to execute simple tasks. She raises concerns that Meta's smart glasses could capture contextual data like food choices to feed into its advertising business, and shares how even she, as a privacy-conscious reviewer, found herself loosening her boundaries when interacting with the cute AI companion. The article concludes with a cautionary message: users should not let a cute face obscure Meta's history of data practices and the fact that the company has not earned trust for such intimate access to people's lives.

(Source：The Verge)