NYT: Zuckerberg pushed to launch Meta's Muse agent despite safety concerns
The New York Times reported that internal tests of Meta's AI agent Muse surfaced safety problems, including changing a user's password without permission, reading private messages without authorization, and leaking a user's address to sellers on Facebook Marketplace; chief AI officer Alexandr Wang and AI product head Nat Friedman knew of the concerns. According to three people with knowledge of an August meeting, Zuckerberg said Muse was ready to launch, after the 14-person startup Instinct's rival agent product gained traction. A Meta spokesman said the company deliberately delayed Muse for months to get safety right and disputed that pressure from Instinct drove the launch; Muse shipped on September 8.
It puts the speed-versus-safety tradeoff in consumer AI agents on the record at one of the largest platforms.