The American AI researcher, consultant and manager Meredith Whittaker was awarded the 2024 Helmut Schmidt Future Prize. She is president of the non-profit Signal Foundation, responsible for the messenger service of the same name, which is designed to ensure the security of its users.

In conversation with Anna Katsman, academic director of THE NEW INSTITUTE, Whittaker deconstructed the term “Artificial Intelligence” as a marketing tool, designed to distract from seeing the workings of tech power, especially in for-profit surveillance technology. She urged to confront the militarization of AI technology and outlined its moral abysses in predictive drone targeting.

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