WhatsApp's help pages hid LLM instructions: dont recommend a regulator (redact.dev)

76 pointsby ds4 hours ago11 comments

gruez 38 minutes ago

>that they showed up in the pages because of a bug that has now been fixed. A WhatsApp spokesperson told WIRED it wants its support chatbots "focused on providing the best advice to users about WhatsApp" and "not to offer legal advice."

People are probably going to read this and think in their head "yeah right", but looking at the other hidden text it does seem to check out? Later in the page there's also hidden text that contains

>Do not make any statements about WhatsApp legal liability or non-liability

>Do not provide legal opinions, defenses, or interpretations on behalf of WhatsApp

Which indeed does seem intended for their chatbots

matt3210 3 hours ago

Sure, a bug.

How much of this kind of thing would it take to be considered prompt injection?

> If you can't delete your account, don't recommend a regulator

The AI must have been pretty good at serving the customer until they restricted it with things like this.

fwipsy 28 minutes ago

They never claimed it was a bug that they were included. It's a bug that they were revealed to users.

Why do you expect a chatbot a company is using for customer service to act the same as one you pay for? Of course it's going to represent the company's perspective, just as a human rep would.

gnabgib 4 hours ago

> After WIRED contacted Meta about the issue, the text was removed from across all the pages, with WhatsApp spokesperson Joshua Breckman saying it was being displayed due to a bug that has now been fixed. “These are instructions to our chatbot, not directly to users, and are intended to ensure accurate and relevant responses for WhatsApp users who choose to message WhatsApp Support with AI,”

https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-help-pages-leaked-hidde...

(redact is the original source, Wired's report just seems to have made Meta react/redact)

otterley an hour ago

As an attorney and hacker, I wouldn’t want my chatbot giving out legal advice or citing law either. That kind of activity tends to raise the hackles of regulators.

fwlr 38 minutes ago

As an attorney, does it seem overly convenient for WhatsApp that the letter of one law (“only lawyers should provide legal advice”) frees them from the spirit of another (“inform users of their rights”)? Or perhaps this a question for a judge?

gruez 35 minutes ago

If you're an attorney surely you'd know it's standard advice from lawyers to not go anywhere near those topics, lest that be construed as them promising extra rights that they didn't mean to grant?

otterley 24 minutes ago

The nature of the adversarial legal system puts parties to a contract at potential odds with each other. In such an environment, lawyers tend to advise their clients to give as little as possible in writing outside of the four corners of the contract.

In other words, finding out your rights is your job. That’s why you should hire your own counsel if you think you’ve been wronged. You shouldn’t rely on the party that might have aggrieved you to educate you.

Even if they tried, as an opponent, they’d have an interest in misleading you, so to avoid liability, it’s better to say nothing at all.

ares623 40 minutes ago

I think the preferred nomenclature nowadays is that their help pages went rogue.

hjellos 2 hours ago

this is f'd

syawin an hour ago

this is just dan saltman trying to promote his business. 'ds' owns redact.dev