The use of Artificial Intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT, Cloud and Gemini is increasing rapidly. Many people now not only take information from them, but have also started sharing their personal problems and feelings. Meanwhile, President of messaging platform Signal, Meredith Whittaker has advised users to be careful. He says that it may be wrong to consider AI chatbots as friends or trusted companions because they do not think or feel like humans.
AI is not a friend, just a technology
While talking to Bloomberg, Meredith Whitaker said that people have started seeing AI assistants as friends or trusted companions, but this thinking is not correct. According to him, these systems are not conscious or sentient beings. Even though chatbots’ conversations may seem empathetic and human-like, they don’t actually understand emotions or experiences. They simply generate answers based on patterns learned from massive amounts of data available. Therefore, users should understand that AI’s behavior may appear human-like, but it does not have true human understanding.
Control always remains in the hands of the company
Whittaker also emphasized that ultimate control over AI systems rests with the companies that operate them. He said that users can say anything to these platforms, but the power to decide what the system will do and what not, rests with the organization running the service. His comment comes at a time when concerns are increasing about emotional attachment with AI. This year, OpenAI faced criticism when it removed a version of GPT-4O whose friendly style had struck an emotional chord with some users.
Dependence on AI for decisions is not good
Meredith Whitaker said that she herself uses AI tools mainly for practical tasks like formatting documents. She said that she is serious about her thoughts and writing, so she does not depend on AI to ask deep questions or take decisions. According to him, the process of understanding an idea, struggling with it and then reaching a solution is an important part of creativity. He also raised concerns about AI agents that can handle multiple services like shopping, messaging, calendars and payments simultaneously. They believe that for such systems to work, they would need very extensive access to users’ personal data, which raises privacy-related questions.
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