ChatGPT can now read and send your iMessages on Mac, and while the privacy protections sound reasonable, handing an AI full access to your message history is exactly the kind of thing you should understand before clicking Allow. While I’m pretty “forgiving” of all my apps that allow access to various things (AI apps do seem to request a lot of access to get work done), this is one I’m probably not going to do.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if Apple tries to lock this one down, as it directly competes with Siri Intelligence and its deeper integration into iOS and macOS. Apple and OpenAI are currently in one (or more) lawsuits, and Apple also “downgraded” OpenAI’s integration into Apple/Siri Intelligence in favor of Google. So, there is a bit of bad blood there.
I think you can lump this new access into Messages by OpenAI, similar to OpenAI’s announcement of integration with Apple Health. Both of these access points allow OpenAI to see potentially extremely private data. I would be extremely careful about what you allow and what you don’t. And remember, OpenAI is not the only one doing this; Anthropic does as well.