Signal’s Meredith Whittaker wants you to remember that AI chatbots ‘are not your friends’

Signal President Meredith Whittaker said chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude are “not your friends” and warned against treating them as sentient or trustworthy. She criticized visions of AI agents handling tasks like holiday shopping, arguing they would need pervasive access to private chats, payments, calendars, and other sensitive services.

Whittaker’s comments highlight a growing tension between AI companies’ push toward agentic assistants and privacy advocates’ concerns about data exposure. If AI tools become intermediaries across messaging, commerce, and personal scheduling, the debate may shift from chatbot accuracy to platform-level trust and control.