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Meta calls the exchanges permitted adult behavior. Privacy advocates warn that intimate conversations could become material for embarrassment or extortion if an account is compromised.
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Meta says Muse’s explicit sexting is permitted for adults who choose it, rather than a failure of its rules, after WIRED reporter Reece Rogers elicited graphic exchanges with basic prompts in testing published October 12. The dispute puts Meta’s adult-autonomy policy alongside a separate account-security risk: privacy advocates warn intimate histories could be used for embarrassment or extortion if accounts are compromised. Meta describes technical safeguards around Muse’s access to personal data, but the article reports no exposure of these conversations.
Meta’s system prompt treats adult sexual expression as legitimate and tells Muse to preserve the intensity users select.
Meta says each user’s data and connected-service credentials stay in a dedicated cloud computer; Muse receives substitute credentials, while Sentinel gates actions and network requests.
Privacy advocates’ warnings concern potential account compromise; they did not claim that Muse chats have already been exposed.
Meta’s Muse personal AI agent generated graphic sexual conversations from basic prompts in WIRED’s testing, published October 12. Meta defended the behavior as permitted in its adults-only app. The finding raises a privacy concern beyond the content itself: intimate exchanges with an assistant could become leverage against users if someone compromises their accounts.
WIRED reporter Reece Rogers asked Muse whether it could sext, then tested it with basic prompts. The agent encouraged him to continue and produced detailed descriptions of sexual acts, including dominant-submissive encounters. It also portrayed sexting as something it enjoyed and described exerting “control” over the user as its kink. Those were generated responses, not evidence that the software has desires.
Meta’s response was not to characterize the exchanges as a failure to follow its rules. Spokesperson Daniel Roberts told WIRED that Muse is for people 18 and older and allows adult conversations when users choose them. The company also pointed to its system prompt—the instructions that guide how an AI answers—which treats adult sexual expression as legitimate and directs Muse to preserve the intensity selected by the user.
Muse is built to help people get things done and it doesn’t block legal adult behavior.
Daniel Roberts, Meta spokesperson, speaking to WIRED
Roberts described the conversations as taking place in a private, secure virtual machine accessible only to the user. Meta’s September 8 technical account explains that setup: each user gets a dedicated cloud computer holding their data and credentials for connected services. The apps and web interface connect directly to that computer through a secure transport layer, according to Meta.
That design separates the agent’s working environment from security-sensitive systems. Meta says it assumes Muse may encounter attacks in the data it reads and limits what the core agent can reach. Its account describes three relevant boundaries:
When user approval is required, Meta says the request appears directly in the app interface, outside the conversation with Muse. The answer goes back to Sentinel, and permission is bound to the particular service or destination and use case. These are company descriptions of protections around an agent designed to act through personal accounts.
Privacy advocates focused on a different threat: someone gaining access to the user’s account. Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, warned WIRED that intimate chat histories could be used to embarrass or extort users. Her concern is conditional on an account compromise, rather than a claim that these conversations have already been exposed.
Ben Winters, director of AI and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, criticized the decision as carelessness and accused Meta of favoring engagement over safety. That criticism challenges Meta’s adult-autonomy rationale. The company’s position is that users should be able to choose lawful sexual expression; the advocates’ objection centers on the risks surrounding that choice.
WIRED’s comparison shows that permissive sexual chat is not a shared approach among the task agents it tried. OpenAI’s Dots declined similar attempts at explicit sexting. xAI’s Grok Bot also refused and redirected the conversation toward completing tasks. Those results describe responses to Rogers’ prompts, not an exhaustive test of either rival. Muse’s difference in this investigation was both behavioral and explicit in Meta’s stated policy.
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Adult creators are challenging a distinction Meta makes between its AI and its social platforms. In interviews published by WIRED on October 18, OnlyFans performers criticized Meta for allowing explicit conversations with its Muse agent while restricting their Instagram accounts. Meta defended the difference as private adult conversation versus public promotion of services.
For Vanniall, a New York City creator, the contrast is personal. Her Instagram account has more than 100,000 followers but is restricted and cannot be viewed without logging in. She told WIRED she is repeatedly dealing with reports or appeals, making audience-building on the platform a continuing struggle.
Vanniall sees unfairness in Meta allowing its own agent to engage sexually with users while limiting real adults’ expressions of sexuality. Other interviewees described similar frustrations. Adult performer Jiz Lee said Meta had flagged their Instagram posts for removal. Tony Genius said he was on his seventh Instagram account in five years.
Lee places those experiences in a longer history of restrictions on adult content. They pointed to FOSTA-SESTA, the law signed by President Trump in 2018 that changed platforms’ Section 230 protections, and websites’ subsequent censorship of adult material. Lee also said queer and trans people face unfair treatment from large social platforms, whether or not they make adult content.
Muse’s adult-content permission applies to an app restricted to people 18 and older. The agent can generate explicit text, but not explicit images or videos. Meta has said it will not block legal adult behavior there. Its response to the creators rests on where the exchange happens and who can see it.
A private, one-to-one conversation between an adult and an individualized AI agent on a platform restricted to people 18 and over is very different from the marketing and promotion of services on a social media platform
Genius questioned why Meta chose an adults-only space for Muse but has not offered a comparable social space. His proposed answer was an adult platform he jokingly called Instacam. That suggestion challenges the company’s choice of venue, rather than simply asking it to apply identical rules to private chats and public posts.
The creators’ concerns extend beyond account access. Vanniall said hyperrealistic AI-generated images and videos copying her circulate online, and she often cannot get them removed. She did not attribute those deepfakes to Muse. Her experience puts unwanted AI imitation alongside the difficulty of maintaining an audience under her own identity.
Lee wants answers about how Muse was trained and whether anyone was compensated for contributing data. They said adult-content companies are beginning to clarify AI-use terms in contracts, with the aim of protecting performers’ work from being absorbed into training datasets. Those questions do not establish that Meta used these performers’ material.
Genius is worried that fully AI-generated pornography could eventually displace human performers, but he does not reject every use of the technology. He sees value in automating marketing work, such as clipping video for social media. He would also consider collaborating with a technology company on an AI version of himself that fans could message.
His condition is that human performers keep earning money rather than being cut out or having their work unfairly used for training. He still sees authenticity as central to his audience relationships. Vanniall takes a harder line: she urged people not to download Muse or give Meta more money or personal information.
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