Signal president Meredith Whittaker: AI chatbots 'are not your friends'
Signal president Meredith Whittaker told TechCrunch, "These are not your friends," saying AI chatbots are not conscious or sentient interlocutors. She warned that giving chatbots access to users' devices and combining device scanning with targeted digital advertising could create a new architecture of surveillance that undermines privacy. Whittaker added that the shift from simple chatbots to autonomous agents increases computing costs and systemic risks, and she urged limits on device access and stronger design and policy safeguards to protect users.
The instinct of students is often to use AI to help with homework, even if they are not trying to cheat. And because off-the-shelf chatbots are a helpful assistant, rather than a tutor, they give you the answer and undermine learning. Paper: cepr.org/publications...
I talk about the research on when AI undermines, versus supporting, thinking and learning here: www.oneusefulthing.org/p/choosing-t...
I wonder if you could make a chatbot that works better as a tutor just with a system prompt, or if you'd need to do more work than that (ironic)