Why Washington should ask dumber questions about tech

As artificial intelligence comes to dominate the global conversation around technology, Signal Foundation President Meredith Whittaker has emerged as a contrarian figure; a leader from the industry willing to sound notes of caution about the hype, risks and data-privacy threat of AI. A manager and researcher at Google for more than a decade, Whittaker left in 2019 after leading a number of walkouts and protests around the company’s changing policies on things like AI ethics and military contracts. Now, as head of the nonprofit that runs the encrypted-messaging app Signal, she advocates for tough privacy protections that put checks on Big Tech’s data-devouring business models. Her advice to policymakers: "...just be brave enough to ask the dumb question. People are deeply afraid of being humiliated for being dumb about AI ... These quote-unquote stupid questions, like, 'How does this work? Do we have control over the data? What are the privacy implications? Are there vulnerabilities there?' These are just basic questions that should be the floor before entrusting critical decision making to obscure systems that often don’t, in my opinion, meet that bar for safety use in critical domains."