OpenAI can now send your texts for you in new ChatGPT update
OpenAI has announced a new update that will allow people to use ChatGPT to send texts via Apple Messages
It's likely you've turned to ChatGPT at least once to help draft a text. Maybe you need help ending a situationship or you need to explain yourself to your boss after missing a deadline – using artificial intelligence can be useful.
Typically Apple Messages and ChatGPT are two completely separate things, but now OpenAI has created a plugin for the messaging app so that folks can connect their messages inbox with the chatbot. It works with Codex and ChatGPT Work as well.
Per Bloomberg, the new plugin will allows the OpenAI system to take actions such as reading, writing and sending text messages.
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It can also sift through your inbox to find messages and give you summaries and other information about conversations from the Apple Messages app.
This will only be able on Mac desktop for the time being. It's unclear if the plugin will go on to be downloaded on cellphones in the future.
ChatGPT says of the new feature on its website: "The Apple Messages plugin is available on all plans in the ChatGPT desktop app for macOS.
"In Codex and ChatGPT Work, it can read and search iMessage, SMS, and RCS chats on your Mac and send messages on your behalf through the Messages app.
"It doesn’t let you interact with ChatGPT remotely through Messages, and it doesn’t work in regular ChatGPT chats."
Privacy concerns
Since the sharing the news, some have expressed privacy concerns about OpenAI's new collaboration with Apple – but the AI research organization has stressed to Bloomberg that 'it requires a user’s consent and doesn’t create an index of all someone’s messages'.
"The plugin also runs locally on the Mac and uses existing operating system tools, such as AppleScript and Accessibility, to work with the Messages app," OpenAI added.
OpenAI shared a brief video online advertizing the new plugin, and a lot of people appear to be onboard with it.
"Being able to catch up and reply to messages without switching apps is a nice touch," one person said.
"Drafting my replies for me: magnificent, and i still won't read them," quipped another.
A third person said: "Holy [expletive] I need this [expletive] for going through old messages like you wouldn’t believe."
Others suggested OpenAI add the plugin to WhatsApp too, which is owned by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta.
How to download it
- Open Plugins, find the Apple Messages plugin, and install it
- Start a new Codex or ChatGPT Work chat and ask it to find, summarize, draft, or send a message
- Grant the requested macOS permissions before ChatGPT reads Messages
- Review the message and its recipients before allowing a send
Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Apple, ChatGPT, Technology
Niamh Shackleton