Signal's President calls copilot agents a backdoor

signal president meredith whittaker warned that integrating ai agents like microsoft copilot into daily life creates systems with pervasive access that function as backdoors. she specifically criticized scenarios where agents monitor group chats and make purchases, arguing this exposes users to mass surveillance by granting access to private messages, credit cards, and calendars. whittaker also pushed back on the anthropomorphization of ai tools, stating that while she uses them for formatting, she avoids them for critical thinking to prevent her process from being eclipsed by systems averaging existing data. her comments challenge the aggressive industry pivot toward autonomous agents and question whether the privacy implications of such integration are being adequately addressed.