Transcript

0:01

There are many AI tools that are Chrome extensions, browser extensions, Firefox extensions as well. And the the what that means is they will ask for permissions to read whatever webpage you're currently on and use that information to work with AI. Maybe you want to have the tool summarize the page or let's say you're on a YouTube video and you want the tool to summarize the YouTube video by reading the transcript, and need the plugin software needs access to read or watch what you're looking at on the screen as well. Now one of those tools as of this time that's quite popular is called harpaharpa.ai. But there are many things like this, AI tools like this where, when you install Harpa, it says, we need permission.

0:59

To read every webpage that you go to. And and I was at first, like, a little nervous about that. But then I said, let me give it a try. And indeed, it's a really cool tool because what whatever web page you're surfing, you're on YouTube, you're on Wikipedia, you're on someone else's website, you're you know, whatever website you're looking at, web page, it can do things like summarize this webpage. Let's let me converse with this webpage.

1:26

Given your understanding of the entire thing, let me converse and ask questions if I don't wanna read this giant, you know, article or whatever like that. Let me let me get the main points or whatever. Or it can rewrite an article. If you're in Google Docs, you select a section, and then you click on Harpa extension. Please help me rewrite it to be more funny.

1:46

Please help me shorten this. Please help me expand on this. Whatever. All kinds of stuff you can do. So The reason why I decided not to use it anymore, and therefore, I'm not teaching it, except ironically, I am teaching it right now, is because over over the years, I've just become really cautious about Chrome extension privacy.

2:09

Because the fact that it can read all the web pages I'm on, all the tabs that I have open. Well, as long as I I open the tab and the the thing is and the extension is there, then it can beat it. Means, if I'm on a Google spreadsheet, if I'm on a Google spreadsheet that has or an email or whatever document that has my banking information, has my password for anything. It can read it. It can read it.

2:33

And so I'm like, I don't know Harper. It's not Microsoft. It's not Google. It's like bigger companies. They have more they have more regulators.

2:45

They have more detectives, you know, millions of users out there. Some of them obviously are gonna be privacy detectives or whatever, and and there's gonna be enough public pressure to increase the privacy security, all that stuff. But smaller companies don't have those kinds of detectives. They don't have the numbers. They don't have the regulators.

3:03

They don't have yeah. So so it over time, I've noticed myself basically uninstalling all I don't use any Chrome extension anymore. Not not one except for Google Docs offline. That's the only one I use. It's from Google and yeah.

3:18

And so I just wanna I just wanted to say that to to share with you that it's not only because I'm lazy and don't wanna teach you all these cool extensions out there, and that's true as well. But it's it's also because I don't use it myself because I get creeped up by thinking, like, it's reading all my gmails. I have some private stuff I'm sharing with friends, family, whatever. No. I mean, and if and and to to Harper's credit, I emailed Harper support.

3:45

Say, I'm concerned about this. And it responded they responded within a day. Okay. So let me share with you the response. So, Harba's email basically said, back and very courteous, very nice to say, hey, you know, we we understand the the privacy concern.

4:01

And, you know, Harper doesn't read the page until you ask it. You turn on what's called page aware mode. Now I didn't study Harper enough to know who else. Page aware mode default. Or is it not default?

4:14

Like, could could they turn it on default without my knowing? I don't know. And so or if you patch past page parameters. Let me go and show you my screen. So those of you who who kinda know more about this stuff can can can see what what the response is.

4:29

Yes. I'm concerned about the security readout pages. Yes. Harpa does have access to every open tab on your browser. But it won't it won't read this stuff until you turn on page aware mode or pass page parameters such as or run a command which uses any of those, which by the way, If I say, hey.

4:46

Please summarize this page. He's essentially giving all the data up because it's it's it's turning on page aware mode at that point. However, Harper does not read web page content without your explicit action, 1 of the above. It doesn't send data to any third party except for the Now, of course, I have to trust that this is true. I don't know if that's true or not.

5:06

Right? It's a small company. Right? We could add security directory, but that would just but it's only at a perceived level of security. Anyway, I I I did appreciate their answer, but I still, just intuitively speaking, I'm not comfortable with that.

5:22

And and the bottom line is, whatever Harpa does, chat GBT can and can pretty much do or other AI tools that are larger, bigger companies can pretty much do it or can soon do it. So that's my argument is that be careful using you know, however much we we wanna hate on Big Tech, Microsoft, Google, Apple, you know, OpenAI even. Like I said, they have more of the security measures given the public pressure that these smaller companies don't have. So That's my opinion. I hope this is helpful.

5:60

I hope that saves you from any kind of hacking or privacy leaks that might that may happen as a result.