Quoting John Gruber
John Gruber warns Meta's Muse gives each user a persistent cloud Linux VM consumers may not see as dangerous.
Simon Willison quotes John Gruber on Meta's Muse, a consumer agentic AI product that gives each user a persistent Linux virtual machine in Meta's cloud. Gruber says the system is technically groundbreaking and unusually easy to install, packaged around a cute mascot. He argues consumers may not understand how powerful, and therefore dangerous, that access is, comparing it to buying a power saw without realizing it can cause serious harm.
- Muse gives each user a persistent Linux VM in Meta's cloud.
- It is presented as an easy consumer app with a cute mascot.
- Gruber calls it the first consumer-accessible agentic AI system.
- He questions whether users understand how powerful and dangerous it is.
Muse is getting a lot of attention — including mine — because it’s both groundbreaking technically (each user gets their own entire persistent Linux VM running in Meta’s cloud) and because it’s packaged in an easy-to-install easy-to-use way. It’s literally presented as a cute mascot . It’s the first consumer-accessible agentic AI system, and Meta has truly done an amazing job with that. But it’s a genuinely open question whether consumers have any understanding what this means. If you buy a power saw that can cut your fingers off, you are almost certainly aware that you are buying a power saw that can sever your fingers. [...] I don’t think people realize how powerful — and thus dangerous —…
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