Dianne Hackborn
@hackbod@mastodon.social  ·  activity timestamp 3 weeks ago
@jbz Isn't this just saying that it will be able to send messages for you through WhatsApp? I don't see anything about it reading WhatsApp messags? Or did I miss that somewhere.

The full list of things there is "send WhatsApp messages, set timers, and even make calls" -- so? And how is this different from the old Assistant being able to do these actions?

(Fwiw I am skeptical generally of it reading WhatsApp messages, I doubt WhatsApp would allow that.)
Dianne Hackborn
@hackbod@mastodon.social  ·  activity timestamp 3 weeks ago
@jbz Actually, no. The way the platform is designed, the keyboard can't see what is on the screen, it only has access to the text field in which you are typing. (There is a mechanism to show keyboard suggestions using more context -- Smart Reply in https://security.googleblog.com/2021/09/introducing-androids-private-compute.html -- that keeps data private on-device.)

Which still leaves the question, is there something concrete for this privacy scare, or is this just speculation (and without even really understanding how Android is designed)?