OpenAI's iMessage plugin draws privacy backlash

OpenAI on Thursday added an Apple Messages plugin that lets ChatGPT search a user’s texts on a Mac, draft replies and send messages through the Messages app. The launch quickly stirred debate over whether AI should be handling personal conversations at all. The feature is available through ChatGPT Work and Codex on the desktop, according to the reports. OpenAI said it must be explicitly installed and enabled, and that ChatGPT only reads a text message when the user prompts it. The company also said the plugin is off by default, and suggested that permissions be granted on a per-use basis rather than as blanket access. In demonstrations, OpenAI suggested prompts such as looking for birthday messages or spam that a user might want to delete. Romain Huet, OpenAI’s head of developer experience, also described use cases such as asking who someone talks to most, what they talk about, or what they forgot to follow up on. OpenAI has been expanding its slate of features and the data it requests access to, including Computer History, an off-by-default feature that learns from actions taken in selected apps and websites. Computerworld reported that the plugin runs locally on the Mac and does not create an index of messages, even though it can search iMessage, SMS and RCS threads and surface summaries and other information from them. Coverage differed on how broadly the feature can run. Some reports described it as available in the ChatGPT desktop app for macOS, while others said it works only on Apple silicon Macs. Several reports also said it does not work in regular ChatGPT chats, but only inside the desktop workflows where the plugin is enabled. Reaction online was sharp. Some users said they would never speak to someone who let AI text on their behalf, while others called the feature a game changer or said it could help them find things in the black hole of iMessage.