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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Robert Booth UK technology editor

‘It’s terrifying’: WhatsApp AI helper mistakenly shares user’s number

WhatsApp Meta James Gray TransPennine Express Mark Zuckerberg OpenAI
WhatsApp logo on a mobile phone screen.
Meta said its AI may return inaccurate outputs, and that it was working to make its models better. Photograph: Thomas Fuller/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock

The Meta chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, called it “the most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use”. But Barry Smethurst, 41, a record shop worker trying to travel by rail from Saddleworth to Manchester Piccadilly, did not agree.

Waiting on the platform for a morning train that was nowhere to be seen, he asked Meta’s WhatsApp AI assistant for a contact number for TransPennine Express. The chatbot confidently sent him a mobile phone number for customer services, but it turned out to be the private number of a completely unconnected WhatsApp user 170 miles away in Oxfordshire.

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