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Comment by jsheard | Hacker News Reader

> But on the other hand, I'm pragmatic (some might say cynical?), and I'm just left here thinking "what is Signal trying to sell us?"

A messaging app? I'm struggling to come up with a potential conflict of interest here unless they have a wild pivot coming up.

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I didn't mean to imply a conflict of interest, I'm wondering what product or service offering (or maybe feature on their messaging app) prompted this.

No other tech (major) leaders are saying the quiet parts out loud right, about the efficacy, cost to build and operate or security and privacy nightmares created by the way we have adopted LLMs.

Whittaker’s background is in AI research. She talks a lot (and has been for a while) about the privacy implications of AI.

I’m not sure of any one thing that could be considered to prompt it. But a large one is the wide-deployment of models on devices with access to private information (Signal potentially included)

Maybe it's not about gaining something, but rather about not losing anything. Signal seems to operate from a kind of activism mindset, prioritizing privacy, security, and ethical responsibility, right? By warning about agentic AI, they’re not necessarily seeking a direct benefit. Or maybe the benefit is appearing more genuine and principled, which already attracted their userbase in the first place.

Exactly, if the masses cease to have "computers" any more (deterministic boxes solely under the user's control), then it matters little how bulletproof signal's ratchet protocol is, sadly.

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