AI Agents 'Perilous' for Secure Apps Such as Signal, Whittaker Says

Signal Foundation president Meredith Whittaker warned that AI agents that autonomously carry out tasks pose a threat to encrypted messaging apps [non-paywalled source] because they require broad access to data stored across a device and can be hijacked if given root permissions.

Speaking at Davos on Tuesday, Whittaker said the deeper integration of AI agents into devices is "pretty perilous" for services like Signal. For an AI agent to act effectively on behalf of a user, it would need unilateral access to apps storing sensitive information such as credit card data and contacts, Whittaker said. The data that the agent stores in its context window is at greater risk of being compromised.

Whittaker called this "breaking the blood-brain barrier between the application and the operating system." "Our encryption no longer matters if all you have to do is hijack this context window," she said.