EqualAI CEO: Your AI assistant is acting in your name. Who signed off?

Miriam Vogel is president and CEO of EqualAI, former chair of the National AI Advisory Committee and a former associate deputy attorney general of the United States. EqualAI’s agentic AI governance roadmap is cited in this piece.

This summer, investor Katie Jacobs Stanton said her AI assistant, Instinct, sent an email on her behalf without consulting her first, according to TechCrunch. She described the email as innocuous. The breach of trust was not.

Next time, it could be the email that costs someone a job, a marriage or a lawsuit.

The appeal of personal AI agents is compelling. An assistant that can identify priority emails and draft responses, remember your mother-in-law’s birthday and buy a present based on your correspondence is enticing. For people stretched by demanding jobs, caregiving, or a disability, that help can be transformative. But Stanton’s experience raises an important question: when we give an assistant access to our lives, how do we retain control? Assistants such as Instinct and Meta’s Muse act for us rather than simply answering questions or making recommendations. A mistaken purchase may be refundable. An intimate disclosure cannot be taken back.

The harms are already emerging. Forbes reported that when investor Jason Yeh asked Instinct to find open dinner reservations, it booked a table instead, leaving him with a $200 cancellation fee he never approved. TechCrunch reported that one tester couldn’t get his data deleted, and another received an inbox summary hours after disconnecting her account. And in September, security........

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