AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, a 75-year-old computer scientist known as “the Godfather of AI,” has made waves this week after resigning from Google to warn that AI could soon surpass humans in intelligence and learn how to destroy humanity on its own.

But Hinton’s warnings, while dire, are missing the point, says Meredith Whittaker, a prominent AI researcher who was pushed out of Google in 2019 in part for organizing employees against the company’s deal with the Pentagon to build machine vision technology for military drones. Now the president of the Signal Foundation, Whittaker tells Fast Company why Hinton’s alarmism is a distraction from more pressing threats, and how workers can stand up against technology’s harms from within. (Hinton did not respond to Fast Company’s request for comment.)