Signal's Meredith Whittaker says: AI chatbots are not your friends

Meredith Whittaker, who leads research at Signal, dropped a blunt reminder that AI chatbots aren't your friends, aren't conscious, aren't sentient beings—just tools dressed up in friendly language.

The point isn't to sound grumpy. It's that these systems are designed to feel like companions, so we forget how much they cost us and what they're actually doing. That illusion shapes how we trust them, what we tell them, and what we let them do with our lives.

Why this matters for us: If we keep treating AI like a cousin who listens, we'll hand over decisions about our work, our health, our money to something that doesn't actually care.