Bulletins

AI researcher and tech activist Meredith Whittaker will join the FTC

Whittaker, known for co-founding the AI Now Institute and as a leader among tech activists, confirmed the appointment on Wednesday.

FTC building exterior

Meredith Whittaker will be joining the FTC as an adviser on AI.

Photo: bpperry/Getty Images

Meredith Whittaker, a tech worker activist and prominent AI researcher who co-founded the AI Now Institute at New York University, will be leaving her post at the institution to join the Federal Trade Commission as a senior adviser on artificial intelligence.

Whittaker confirmed Nov. 3 that she would be joining the Biden FTC under Lina Khan, the chair of the commission who has spearheaded new interpretations of how antitrust law applies to large technology companies.

Whittaker, a veteran of Google and the founder of Google Open Research and co-founder of M-Lab, helped organize and lead the 2018 Google protests over Google's payouts to Andy Rubin after alleged sexual assaults. She resigned from the company in 2019 and then co-founded the AI Now Institute, which studies how artificial intelligence can shape society.

Since leaving Google, Whittaker has also become a leader for tech workers seeking to organize and protest inside their tech companies, providing guidance from her own experience to groups and individuals across the industry.

Anna Kramer

Anna Kramer is a reporter at Protocol (Twitter: @ anna_c_kramer, email: akramer@protocol.com), where she writes about labor and workplace issues. Prior to joining the team, she covered tech and small business for the San Francisco Chronicle and privacy for Bloomberg Law. She is a recent graduate of Brown University, where she studied International Relations and Arabic and wrote her senior thesis about surveillance tools and technological development in the Middle East.

ftcmeredith whittakerlina khanartificial intelligence
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