Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen urges AI companies to honor spirit of self-regulation

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen on Friday said artificial intelligence companies must "step up and comply" with the spirit of their White House agreement to self-regulate, days after Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and other CEOs signed the document.

"The history of tech companies engaging with regulation is: Often they will follow the exact written statement when we are dealing with very flexible systems," Haugen told CNBC's "Squawk Box" in an interview Friday.

She questioned if the companies will hold to the "spirit of the rules," or if they will seek to exploit things that aren't expressly prohibited and "go around the end of the fence."

Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook's civic misinformation team, leaked a trove of internal documents to the Wall Street Journal in 2021 that became a series of reports called "The Facebook Files." Some of the documents showed the company was aware of how its platforms negatively impacted teens' mental health.

"The Social Reckoning," a new Aaron Sorkin movie releasing Oct. 9, centers on that story. Haugen also wrote a book about her role in bringing the documents to light, "The Power of One: How I Found the Strength to Tell the Truth and Why I Blew the Whistle on Facebook."

As the debate around AI's threats to the human race has reached a fever pitch in recent weeks, Haugen said AI companies have been "more proactive" at engaging with safety concerns today than in years past. She also noted the push from Anthropic and its CEO, Dario Amodei, to advocate for independent auditors.

"I think that is an acknowledgement that, that at least at least Dario knows that that if you're given the space to cut corners, even the angels among us begin to cut corners," Haugen said.