Signal President Meredith Whittaker emphasized that AI chatbots are not conscious beings and should not be viewed as friends. During an interview with Bloomberg on June 20, 2026, she stated, 'These are not your friends. These are not conscious beings. These are not sentient interlocutors.' Whittaker discussed the broader implications of AI on privacy and policy, stressing the importance of maintaining personal autonomy in the creative process. She acknowledged using AI tools for formatting documents but insisted she does not rely on them for critical thinking or writing tasks. '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 [...] to be foreclosed or eclipsed by the response of a system that’s averaging what’s already out there,' she said. Whittaker also addressed concerns about AI systems like Microsoft Copilot, warning that granting them access to personal data could create a 'backdoor' in platforms like Signal. She argued that allowing Copilot to manage tasks such as Christmas shopping would require access to sensitive information, including credit cards, calendars, and messaging platforms. 'What you’ve just described is a system with very pervasive access across multiple applications and services,' she said. 'In the context of Signal, it would constitute a kind of a backdoor.'
Source: techcrunch
