Signal CEO Warns: AI Chatbots Are Not Your Friends

Signal messenger president Meredith Whittaker has issued a serious statement regarding the dangers of over-reliance on AI technologies and entrusting them with personal data. According to her, systems like ChatGPT or Claude are not a user's close confidant or a conscious interlocutor, but rather tools that process massive databases. This was discussed in detail in an interview with Bloomberg. Techcrunch.com reports .

Meredith Whittaker emphasized that she is completely against equating AI with human consciousness. "These are not your friends. They are not conscious beings or interlocutors with feelings," she noted. The Signal head admitted that she sometimes uses these technologies for formatting documents, but stated that she never asks them questions and does not trust machines with her thinking process.

Privacy and Control Issues

During the interview, Microsoft AI head Mustafa Suleyman's prediction about making Christmas purchases using Microsoft Copilot was also discussed. In Whittaker's view, entrusting such tasks to AI means granting full access to the user's bank cards, browser history, private messages, and home address. From a digital security perspective, this is a massive risk.

The Signal head is concerned that such systems could monitor conversations in family groups and send messages on behalf of the user. She noted that a system with broad access to multiple apps and services eliminates privacy. In the context of the Signal messenger, such cases could act as a "backdoor," weakening the security system.

Whittaker mentioned that she takes her thinking and writing process very seriously. She does not want the process of forming new ideas to be overshadowed by systems that simply summarize existing data. In her opinion, AI responses are often just an average of information available on the internet, which can kill a person's unique creative approach.

This warning is also relevant for users in Uzbekistan. As the use of ChatGPT and other bots becomes more popular in our country, entrusting personal data, bank details, and confidential correspondence to third-party systems could open the door to cybercrime. As the Signal head emphasized, no matter how convenient the technology is, it should not violate personal boundaries.

In conclusion, Meredith Whittaker urged users to be cautious of "smart assistants" provided by digital giants. In her view, the only way to maintain privacy is to avoid providing all data openly to AI and to use its capabilities only as a technical tool.