Bad guys or simply clueless
management?
Exposed
database reveals details on over 80 million US households
The addresses
and demographic details of more than 80 million US households are
listed on an unsecured database stored on the cloud, independent
security researchers have found.
The details
listed include names, ages and genders as well as income levels and
marital status. The researchers, led by Noam Rotem, have been unable
to identify the owner of the database, which is still
online and requires no password to access.
… The data
doesn't include payment information or Social Security numbers. The
80 million households affected make up well
over half of the households in the US, according to
Statista.
What is our
ethical goal?
How
Big Tech is struggling with the ethics of AI
… The most common practice has been to publish
company principles for ethical AI. Microsoft, Google, IBM and others
have all published lists of company ethics, while research bodies
such as the Future of Life Institute, which developed the “Asilomar
principles”, have tried to get scientists from around the world to
sign on.
But Mr Poulson said these ethics boards and
principles lacked teeth. “When it comes to a major decision,
literally only the CEO can say no,” he said.
… “Ethical approaches in industry implicitly
ask that the public simply take corporations at their word when they
say they will guide their conduct in ethical ways,” the report
said. “This does not allow insight into decision making, or the
power to reverse or guide such a decision.”
(Related) Dogbert explains his goal.
Feeling superior to the ‘great unwashed’ are
we?
Commentary:
A new digital divide, between those who opt out of algorithms and
those who don't
… many
people now trust platforms and algorithms more than their own
governments and civic society.
… The savvier users are navigating away from
devices and becoming aware about how algorithms affect their lives.
Meanwhile, consumers who have less information are relying even more
on algorithms to guide their decisions.
… As part of the recently approved General
Data Protection Regulation in the European Union, people have “a
right to explanation” of the criteria that algorithms use in their
decisions. This legislation treats the process of algorithmic
decision-making like a recipe book. The thinking goes that if you
understand the recipe, you can understand how the algorithm affects
your life.
Interesting, but probably not as extreme as they
suggest. Consider: If we detected Russian interference via social
media, what was the best possible response? Could we counter
articles, pictures, even tweets that said exactly what the targeted
voters believed?
Spies,
Lies, and Algorithms
Foreign
Affiars –
“For U.S. intelligence agencies, the twenty-first century began
with a shock, when 19 al Qaeda operatives hijacked four planes and
perpetrated the deadliest attack ever on U.S. soil. In the wake of
the attack, the intelligence community mobilized with one overriding
goal: preventing another 9/11. The CIA, the National Security
Agency, and the 15 other components of the U.S. intelligence
community restructured, reformed, and retooled. Congress
appropriated billions of dollars to support the transformation. That
effort paid off. In the nearly two decades that U.S. intelligence
agencies have been focused on fighting terrorists, they have foiled
numerous plots to attack the U.S. homeland, tracked
down Osama
bin Laden, helped eliminate the Islamic
State’s caliphate,
and found terrorists hiding everywhere from Afghan caves to Brussels
apartment complexes.
This has arguably been one of the most successful periods in the
history of American intelligence.
But
today, confronted with new threats that go well beyond terrorism,
U.S. intelligence agencies face another moment of reckoning. From
biotechnology and nanotechnology to quantum computing and artificial
intelligence (AI),
rapid technological change is giving U.S. adversaries new
capabilities and eroding traditional U.S. intelligence advantages.
The U.S. intelligence community must adapt to these shifts or risk
failure as the nation’s first line of defense. Although U.S.
intelligence agencies have taken initial steps in the right
direction, they are not moving fast enough. In fact, the first
intelligence breakdown of this new era has already come: the failure
to quickly identify and fully grasp the magnitude of Russia’s use
of social media to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
That breakdown should serve as a wake-up call. The trends it
reflects warrant a wholesale reimagining of how the intelligence
community operates. Getting there will require capitalizing on the
United States’ unique strengths, making tough organizational
changes, and rebuilding trust with U.S. technology companies…”
For my Enterprise Architects.
Your
Company Needs a Strategy for Voice Technology
Voicebot.AI
reports that the smart speaker install base within the U.S. grew
40% from 2018 to 2019,
now exceeding 66 million units. International markets have grown
even more dramatically — Dutch adoption of smart speakers exploded
from 0% to 5% in just four and a half months,
for example, with no sign of slowing down.
Voice-first
doesn’t mean voice-only, though. Smart speakers with screens —
generally referred to as “smart displays” — are surging in
popularity as well. In January of 2018, there were 1.3 million smart
display owners in the U.S., and by the end of the year, that number
had risen to 8.7 million — an
increase of 558%.
…
It
won’t be long before every company will be expected to own and
manage its own voice-first presence and capabilities, much like every
company is expected to own and manage their web presence and
capabilities. In fact, every time you see someone asking Siri to
give them information, or someone asking Google Assistant for
directions, you’ll realize that your
customers are already way ahead of you.
Something for
my students.
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