Meredith Whittaker
President of Signal; co-founder of the AI Now Institute
Spent over a decade at Google, helped organize the 2018 Google walkout, co-founded the AI Now Institute, and now leads the Signal Foundation. She argues AI is fundamentally a surveillance-business-model technology.
Key arguments & positions
- Argues today's AI is a product of the surveillance business model, and that concentrated data and compute are the real story.
- Opposes client-side scanning and encryption backdoors, and has said Signal would leave markets that mandate them.
- Argues "agentic AI" as currently built requires handing over broad device access, which breaks the security model of private messaging.
Accomplishments
- President of the Signal Foundation since 2022; chief advisor and former faculty director of the AI Now Institute.
- Spent 13 years at Google, founded its Open Research group, and co-organized the 2018 Google walkout.
- Former senior advisor on AI to the US Federal Trade Commission.
Papers & key writings
Links
In the library
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