Meredith Whittaker

Featuring Meredith Whittaker, Edward Ongweso Jr., and Sarah Myers West on the mundane dystopia concealed beneath the AI hype machine. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Subscribe to New Left Review newleftreview.org Register for the Socialism 2023 Conference socialismconference.org

Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation and a key figure in digital privacy, discusses the current landscape of messaging apps, specifically Signal's end-to-end encryption. She delves into the threats posed by AI on user privacy and explains the implications of backdoors in communication tools. The conversation touches on the delicate balance between law enforcement and user rights, exploring ethical concerns around hacked encrypted chats. Whittaker highlights the ongoing struggles of maintaining digital privacy in an increasingly surveilled world.

Tech expert Meredith Whittaker discusses the rise of AI, concerns about user privacy, and the need for tech companies to move away from monetizing user surveillance. Topics include the evolution of tech, inefficiencies of surveillance-based ad tech, hidden costs of AI models, and the power play of cloud business.

In this riveting episode, Audrey Tang, Taiwan's Digital Minister, and Meredith Whittaker, President of the Signal Foundation, discuss the limitations of end-to-end encryption in protecting our online privacy. They also explore the open-source world, AI, and their personal connection to the open-source community.

Meredith Whittaker, a historical analyst, discusses the link between Charles Babbage and plantation logics of control in computing. She also explores the political economy of 'open' AI and the concentration of power in the tech industry. The chapter highlights surveillance, the dominance of big tech, challenges in AI development, and the desire to control people's value.