Asked about the privacy implications of chatbots like ChatGPT and Cloud, Signal president Meredith Whittaker responded, “They’re not your friends. They’re not sentient beings. They’re not emotional communicators.”

Whittaker made this comment. An extended interview with Bloomberg About Policy, Privacy and Signals She admits she uses AI tools “to format a document here and there,” but insists, “I don’t ask them questions. I’m very serious about my thinking and writing, and I don’t want the process of working through an idea.” […] Predicting or eclipsing the response of a system that averages what already exists.”

As for the Microsoft AICEO. Prophecy of Mustafa Suleiman That users could let Microsoft CoPilot handle all their Christmas shopping this year, Whittaker argued, in this scenario – where CoPilot is snooping on a family group chat to determine who wants it – would mean giving it “my credit card, my browser, my signal, my ability to message my siblings, my home address”. [and] My calendar.”

“What you just described is a system that has very broad access to multiple applications and services,” Whittaker said. “From a signal perspective, it would be kind of a backdoor.”