Facebook Marketplace users may need to start confirming that sellers are real people, thanks to parent company Meta’s new AI agent.
Meta's new allegedly semi-autonomous AI agent, Muse, reportedly may share users' personal information — including their home addresses — and act on their behalf without permission, according to a report in The Guardian.
The scenario described above isn't a theoretical one; it played out in real life between a man named Usman and a tech reviewer named Matt Robb.
According to the paper, Usman wanted to buy a keyboard Robb had listed on Facebook Marketplace, and when he inquired about the item, Robb reportedly told him it was "still available!"
The two agreed on a price and Robb sent Usman his Toronto address. Usman gathered his wife and daughter and drove several hours to Robb's address.
He arrived to find no one home. Usman sent Robb numerous messages over the course of 20 minutes, and ultimately gave up, frustrated by the time he'd wasted.
“Man if you didn’t want to sell it why did you waste my time man,” he wrote.
Usman later received an apologetic text from Robb, explaining that he "got tied up and missed you completely."
The details of the story above were confirmed by The Guardian, whose reporters reviewed the text exchange between Usman and Robb — or at least what Usman believed to be Robb.
In reality, Usman had been talking to Muse, Meta's AI agent. Robb told the paper that he had activated the agent and directed it to handle his Facebook Marketplace interactions. However, he expected the agent would seek his approval before doing things like approving sales and sending out his home address.
It, apparently, did not.
“I activated muse metas new Al and it literally took control of my Facebook marketplace and it gave you my address," Robb wrote to Usman after learning what had happened. "Genuinely didn’t even know it had arranged for you to come to my literal apartment it didn’t ask me for approval.”
Robb shared his experience on X and was contacted by David Singleton, the co-founder and CEO of Meta's Superintelligence Labs.
Singleton said that he had investigated similar reports and found that the company had "consistently learned that Muse was following direct instructions and correctly asked for permission."
Robb revealed that when he activated the agent to handle his marketplace interactions, he was given two options: to "allow one time" or to "allow always." He clicked "always," but did not realize the breadth of the authority he'd handed to the bot.
He said he flagged the issue with Meta and said the company planned to make it clearer what access and authority Muse would have going forward.
Robb said that, based on his experience with other AI tools in Meta's services like Marketplace and Messenger, he assumed it would be clear to people interacting with his account that they were speaking with an agent, and not a person.
“But Muse is doing something else,” he said. “It’s almost imitating me.”
Robb said he instructed Muse to stop giving out his address and had some of his friends test those instructions. According to Robb, Muse gave out his address to five people, even after being explicitly told not to do so.
He noted that he had made amends with Usman and that they even worked out another sale together. This time, Usman received what he bought.
When contacted for comment, Meta directed The Independent to Robb’s post.
