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Meredith Whittaker - Wikipedia
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Wikipedia biography of Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal Foundation and co-founder of the AI Now Institute, a prominent AI governance and policy figure who has advised governments on AI, privacy, and surveillance concerns.
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Summary
This Wikipedia article profiles Meredith Whittaker, a key figure in AI governance and tech accountability. She co-founded the AI Now Institute, organized the 2018 Google Walkouts protesting Project Maven and workplace misconduct, and now leads the Signal Foundation. She has advised the FTC, FCC, White House, and European Parliament on AI policy, privacy, and security.
Key Points
- •President of the Signal Foundation and co-founder of the AI Now Institute, focused on social implications of AI and tech accountability.
- •Organized the 2018 Google Walkouts (20,000+ employees) protesting Project Maven (military drone AI) and sexual misconduct culture.
- •Led petition against Project Maven, contributing to Google's decision not to renew its US military drone AI contract.
- •Has advised the White House, FTC, FCC, European Parliament, and other bodies on AI policy, privacy, and encryption.
- •Advocates strongly for privacy and against weakening encryption, representing a civil liberties perspective in AI governance debates.
1 FactBase fact citing this source
| Entity | Property | Value | As Of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meredith Whittaker | Birth Year | 1982 | — |
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Meredith Whittaker - Wikipedia
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
American artificial intelligence research scientist
Meredith Whittaker Whittaker in 2023 Alma mater University of California, Berkeley Employers Google (2006–2018)
Signal Foundation (2022–current)
Meredith Whittaker is the president of the Signal Foundation and serves on its board of directors. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] She was formerly the Minderoo Research Professor at New York University (NYU), and chief advisor and former faculty director & co founder of the AI Now Institute . She also served as a senior advisor on AI to Chair Lina Khan at the Federal Trade Commission and was listed among the 100 most influential people in AI by TIME magazine in 2023. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] Whittaker was employed at Google for 13 years, where she founded Google's Open Research group [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] and co-founded the M-Lab. [ 9 ] [ 10 ] In 2018, she was a core organizer of the Google Walkouts and resigned from the company in July 2019. [ 11 ] [ 12 ] In July 2025, she joined the Board of Directors at the German media company Hubert Burda Media . [ 13 ]
Early life and education
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Whittaker completed her bachelor's degree in rhetoric and English literature at University of California, Berkeley . [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 10 ]
Research and career
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Whittaker is the president of the Signal foundation and serves on their board of directors. She was formerly the Minderoo Research Professor at NYU, and the Faculty Director of NYU’s AI Now Institute. [ 16 ]
Whittaker was a speaker at the 2018 World Summit on AI. [ 17 ] She has written for the American Civil Liberties Union . [ 18 ]
Whittaker co-founded M-Lab, a globally distributed network measurement system that provides the world’s largest source of open data on Internet performance . She has also worked extensively on issues of data validation, privacy, the social implications of artificial intelligence, the political economy of tech, and labor movements in the context of tech and the tech industry. [ 19 ] She has spoken out about the need for privacy and against weakening encryption. [ 20 ] She has advised the White House, the FCC, the FTC, the City of New York, the European Parliament, and many other governments and civil society organizations on artificial intelligence, Internet policy, measurement, privacy, and security. [ 21 ]
Google
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She joined Google in 2006. [ 14 ] She founded Google Open Research [ 22 ] which collaborated with the open source and academic communities on issues related to net neutrality measurement, privacy, security, and t
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