If you commute to your 9-to-5 job from the East Bay into downtown San Francisco, you’ve probably seen it: a white, furry oblong creature with perfectly round button eyes waving to you, or maybe even taunting you, from a massive billboard on Interstate 80. It’s a new personal artificial intelligence assistant called Muse, and its creator, Meta, wants you to know that millions of people have integrated it into their day-to-day lives, quietly suggesting that you should too. 

According to an October report from Yahoo Finance, Muse has been downloaded at least 5 million times since its launch in early September, earning 3 million concurrent users per week. Marketed as a round-the-clock digital serf whose entire existence is literally “built around your whole life,” Muse is meant to buy back users’ time by taking care of mundane busy work, Meta says. Based on reviews from tech reporters, it’s surprisingly capable and efficient.

It can call insurance companies on your behalf and wait on hold for you, order groceries, book hotels and manage subscriptions. Other human tasks like buying plane tickets and grocery shopping — as well as planning your wife’s birthday dinner and setting aside time to read to your kids before bed — can all now be offloaded to a digital avatar resembling an adorable abominable snowman. Chances are we’ll start seeing it everywhere. 

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But there’s a frightening caveat: In order for Muse to accomplish these tasks, it basically wants back door access to your entire life. In addition to storing logins and passwords and linking your bank account information, it wants to see your messages, personal calendar and contacts,........

© SFGate