Summary

Gruber reflects on Muse, Meta's AI agent app sitting atop the App Store, and explains why he won't let it — or any AI agent — control his Mac or access his personal data. His reasoning is simple: he applies the same trust threshold to AI as to humans, and he would never let a stranger use his Mac or read his email. He acknowledges personal assistants are valuable and that he may eventually grant AI agents some measured access, but trust has to be earned first. He closes with a story about a high school teacher whose patient, withering phrase 'I'll wait' perfectly captures his stance: he's not competing for AI's attention; he's simply not ready yet.

Key Insight

Gruber applies the same trust calculus to AI agents as to humans — access to his digital life must be earned, not assumed, and no amount of hype changes that threshold.

Spicy Quotes (click to share)

• 7

  I would never let an unknown person use my Mac. Not even for a minute, not even with me watching them.

• 6

  It doesn't even get to the point of my considering Meta as Muse's creator.

• 6

  My time is valuable, but not as valuable as my comfort.

• 5

  The upside of Apple's restrictive Mac App Store policies is that users can blindly install apps from the Mac App Store and trust that those apps cannot run amok on their system.

• 3

  I'm not saying I will never grant access to such things to an AI agent. In fact, I bet that sooner or later I will, to some carefully measured extent. But not now.

• 3

  He wasn't going to compete for attention.

• 7

  I'll wait.

Tone

reflective, skeptical, personal