tech
Signal's Meredith Whittaker says AI chatbots 'are not your friends' and calls Copilot agents a backdoor
Signal’s Whittaker warns AI chatbots are not sentient and that agentic systems like Copilot needing access to messages and credit cards are a backdoor.
TL;DR
- Signal president Meredith Whittaker warns AI chatbots are not sentient or friends.
- She argues that agentic AI systems, like Microsoft's Copilot, amount to a new form of surveillance infrastructure.
- These systems require pervasive access to user data, creating a 'backdoor' that undermines end-to-end encryption.
- Whittaker believes agentic AI is structurally incompatible with privacy-focused applications like Signal.
- She criticizes the anthropomorphism of AI and the commercial incentives to collect and analyze user data.
- The trend towards agent-first computing by major tech companies creates databases of entire digital lives, prime targets for exploitation.
- Whittaker states that users trade privacy for convenience without understanding the terms of these AI systems.