How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Cybersecurity
Navigating the AI Changes: Balancing Opportunity and Risk Amidst Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Regulation Concerns
Virginia Beach, VA (August 5, 2023) –
Artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm in the past year. It seems to have become a buzzword in the evening news, or at keynote events for big tech companies. This innovation has the potential to completely change the playbook for running a business if used correctly. Programs like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard have already found their way into the daily routines of employees across the world, optimizing mundane day-to-day tasks such as writing emails and data entry as well as more creative tasks like brainstorming for new products or marketing campaigns. Utilizing AI capabilities will be one of the best ways for a company to gain a competitive advantage in 2023. However, the AI revolution has come with downsides, and companies across the world have cause for concern.
How Will This Impact Cybersecurity?
AI Attacks – What happens when AI gets into the wrong hands? Criminals can utilize the powers of AI to create malicious code that is sophisticated enough to bypass security systems. It is becoming increasingly common for scam artists to use generative AI to imitate voices of relatives or coworkers in order to gain access to personal information or money.
Data Privacy – How do AI models learn, and how do they use personal data? OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is now facing lawsuits from several authors who claim that the company illegally used over 300,000 copyrighted books in their training programs without proper authorization. ChatGPT and other AI models learn from massive amounts of data scraped across the internet. Unfortunately, most companies developing AI are not upfront about how exactly they are training their models.
Misinformation – Most of us were taught a long time ago to not trust everything we see on the internet, but does AI know this? Large Language Models like ChatGPT and Bard are trained on information found throughout the internet, which may include some less than credible sources. Sometimes, though, it may produce something on its own by combining patterns from all the data it has on the internet. This can lead an AI model to say something completely ridiculous, just because it sounds like something a human would say.
How Do I Protect Myself or My Company?
As with any new threat, the best way to protect yourself is to stay informed. The more educated someone is on Artificial Intelligence, the less likely they are to misuse it. Mandating AI safety training for all employees is a great start to keeping your company safe.
Artificial intelligence is just that, artificial. While an AI model can ingest more information than a human, it does not have the reasoning skills, emotional intelligence, or the imagination of a human. This is what humans do best, which is why it is important for us not to develop an over reliance on AI. The best way to utilize AI is with human oversight over decision-making and critical processes. Blindly trusting AI has the potential to jeopardize the quality of our work. Just like anything on the internet, it is necessary that we take everything an AI says with a grain of salt and cross-reference its data.
To combat data privacy concerns, the easiest precaution to take is to not share personal information with AI. Large Language Models not only learn from data on the internet, but they also learn from users. Because we are not exactly sure what these AI companies are doing with our data, the best practice is not to give these models anything specific about our personal information.
As of right now, there is no legal outline for AI, but it is important to stay informed. The White House has released a blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, which is very informative and gives us an idea of what direction the federal government plans to take on AI. There has also been a congressional hearing featuring Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, where he and several others speak about the dangers of AI as well as potential courses of action to regulate AI. There is no telling when such regulation will be signed into law, but once that happens it will be important for companies to maintain compliance.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, it is the responsibility of users to weigh the pros and cons of integrating AI into their daily lives. Now is the time to begin investing in learning and upskilling within our industry. There will come a time when embracing AI is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for any company that wants to remain competitive. By proactively investing in keeping up with new innovations, you can ensure that instead of getting left behind, you become an active participant in shaping the way AI impacts the world around us.
References
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/technology/ai-chatbot-information-truth.html
https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ai-bill-of-rights/
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