"Signal President Meredith Whittaker warned Friday that agentic AI could come with a risk to user privacy.
Speaking onstage at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, the advocate for secure communications referred to the use of AI agents as “putting your brain in a jar,” and cautioned that this new paradigm of computing — where AI performs tasks on users’ behalf — has a “profound issue” with both privacy and security.
Whittaker explained how AI agents are being marketed as a way to add value to your life by handling various online tasks for the user. For instance, AI agents would be able to take on tasks like looking up concerts, booking tickets, scheduling the event on your calendar, and messaging your friends that it’s booked.
“So we can just put our brain in a jar because the thing is doing that and we don’t have to touch it, right?,” Whittaker mused.
Then she explained the type of access the AI agent would need to perform these tasks, including access to our web browser and a way to drive it as well as access to our credit card information to pay for tickets, our calendar, and messaging app to send the text to your friends."
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