What Is the Meta AI Button in WhatsApp, and How Do I Remove It?
Meta's in-app chatbot add-on is rolling out in more countries. Here's what you need to know, including how to get rid of it. EDMONTON, CANADA - APRIL 28: An image of a woman holding a cell phone in front of the Meta AI logo displayed on a computer screen, on April 29, 2024, in Edmonton, Canada. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images) NurPhoto/Getty Images
If you've noticed a new light blue circle appear in your Whatsapp chats recently, and wondered what it was, Meta has recently expanded its implementation of Meta AI into new markets—and now, it's in yours.
While it began rolling out in the US and Canada in 2023, more recently it has started arriving on devices across countries in Europe, including the UK, as well as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India.
In fact, the artificial intelligence-based chatbot is rolling out across the entire Meta ecosystem, including Messenger and Instagram, and can provide you with a few basic features like answering questions, generating text or creating content. However, its appearance has also raised privacy concerns with users, and questions as to whether it can be turned off. Here's what you need to know. What Does the Meta AI Button in WhatsApp do?
The new button on WhatsApp appears above the icon to start a new chat in Android, and in the bottom right hand corner in iOS. It allows users to interact directly with the Meta AI assistant. Users can also tag @Meta AI in their chats to ask it questions, plus it'll also appear in their personal contact lists.
The chatbot is based on Meta's large and open source language model Llama 3.2. As was the case with ChatGPT when it first arrived on WhatsApp, Meta AI has started with a smaller number of features based on what it believes users want most, helping you to generate and improve text, or help you search the web for answers to questions. More features are expected to roll out later.
But what happens with that data? Meta says its assistant can't access or read the content of your messages unless you ask it for help, but even then, the content of your messages remain end-to-end encrypted and any details will not be linked with other Meta accounts, like Facebook or Instagram.
However, it's an important distinction to note that while the content of private messages are encrypted, interactions with Meta AI are not. Meta warns that anything you send to Meta may be used to improve its AI models, so users shouldn't 'send messages … with information you don't want it to know.' It does promise to make chats with Meta AI 'visually distinct' so users can easily tell the difference. How to Remove Meta AI on WhatsApp
So, what if you are not interested in this feature? At the moment there is no way to disable or delete Meta AI from WhatsApp. You can ignore it and choose not to use it, but the button will stay in the app.
If you have used it but prefer you hadn't, you can, however, reset Meta AI, at an individual chat level, or across the board. Deleting a chat with Meta AI will not be enough to do this, you will need to use the reset commands below.
Resetting the AI will delete Meta AI's copy of messages and details from a chat (though yours will remain for you), and these commands work across WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. For one chat, type /reset-ai in any individual chat to reset that chat.
in any individual chat to reset that chat. For all chats, type /reset-all-ais in an individual chat with Meta AI to reset all chats on the app, including group chats. How Do I Delete the Information Meta AI Has About Me?
If you have used Meta AI before, it learns from your interactions in order to give more accurate responses over time. That could be things like your favourite food and sport, the fact you have a dog or that you're a vegetarian. You can view, correct and delete that information by digging into the chatbot's menus.
To view the memory that Meta AI has on you, start a chat with the chatbot then tap Meta AI > Memory.
From there you can click View All to see everything it knows and delete individual memories by tapping and holding, then clicking the trash can. Alternatively, click the icon with three dots, then Delete All>Delete All.
To correct any wrong information, you can just tell Meta AI in a chat and it should use the correct details going forward.
This article was originally published by WIRED Italia.
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