Something new or an error by the hacker? Either way, replacing all that information will be costly and take a lot of time.

https://www.databreaches.net/all-of-desert-wells-family-medicine-patients-electronic-health-records-were-corrupted-and-unrecoverable-from-ransomware-attack/

All of Desert Wells Family Medicine patients’ electronic health records were corrupted and unrecoverable from ransomware attack

On August 30, HHS added Queen Creek Medical Center d/b/a Desert Wells Family Medicine in Arizona to its public breach tool. The entity had reported that 35,000 patients were impacted by a breach involving a hack of the network.

We now have more details on that incident available thanks to a public disclosure of their notification and a copy of their letter to patients, both of which are linked from their web site.

According to their notification and letter, which was first spotted by Health ITSecurity, on May 21, 2021, Desert Wells experienced a ransomware incident that impacted many of its IT systems.

Investigation into the incident found no evidence that any sensitive data was exfiltrated, but

the unauthorized individual who accessed the network corrupted the data and patient electronic health records in Desert Wells’ possession prior to May 21, 2021 are unrecoverable despite our exhaustive efforts to try to recover our patients’ sensitive information.

The practice did have backups in place, but report that the backup data was also corrupted by the unauthorized individual.

It is not clear from the notification whether the threat actor was just incompetent at encrypting files or if the corruption of files and backup was intentional to pressure the entity into paying ransom to get a copy that the threat actor may have exfiltrated without it being detected by investigators.

Desert Wells makes no mention of any ransom demand or negotiations although they do describe the incident as a ransomware attack.

This information in the involved patient electronic health records may have included patients’ names in combination with their address, date of birth, Social Security number, driver’s license number, patient account number, billing account number, health insurance plan member ID, medical record number, dates of service, provider names, and medical and clinical treatment information.

Desert Wells’ notification gives a clue as to the massive task that lies ahead:

Desert Wells will continue to expend every effort to rebuild patients’ electronic health records in a new and enhanced electronic medical record system. This includes compiling our patients’ data from other sources, including from medical specialists, previous medical providers, hospitals, pharmacies, imaging centers, and labs, among others. We will request that patients update necessary forms during this process.

When you think about the enormity of the task, it may become clearer why Wood Ranch Medical decided to close their practice in similar circumstances.

In a companion letter to patients, Dr. Daniel Hoag addresses the matter forthrightly, informs patients that they are being offered credit monitoring and identity theft restoration services should they be needed, and ends the letter with a very human note:

We recognize this is an upsetting situation and, from my family to yours, sincerely apologize for any concern this may cause. I’m sure many of you have been reading about other healthcare providers in the community, and around the country, that have been impacted by cybersecurity events. For our part, we are continuing to take steps to enhance the security of our systems and the data entrusted to us, including by implementing enhanced endpoint detection and 24/7 threat monitoring, and providing additional training and education to our staff.

We thank our loyal patients for your patience and understanding, as we continue to work day and night to bring you the high quality care and service you deserve.

This attack never showed up on any of the ransomware leak sites that DataBreaches.net checks on a frequent basis. Nor has any data allegedly from any attack shown up for sale or free on any forum where such data normally appear.

Always worth reviewing.

https://threatpost.com/top-steps-ransomware-recovery-preparation/169378/

Top Steps for Ransomware Recovery and Preparation

When it comes to ransomware attacks, it’s no longer a question of if or even when, but how often. A business falls victim to a ransomware attack every 11 seconds, making ransomware the fastest-growing type of cybercrime.

… The first thing to do when dealing with a ransomware attack is to assess your options for recovery. This may mean a complete bottom-up approach — reinstalling systems along with recovery of data — or it may mean making do with smaller data sets that can be recovered quickly. Depending on the desired outcome, here are some important options to consider:

As vaccine records become a national ID card, access to the source code makes it easier to hack or even create your own.

https://techblog.cdt.ca.gov/2021/09/releasing-our-digital-vaccine-record-code-on-github/

Releasing our Digital Vaccine Record code on GitHub

Soon after we launched the Digital Vaccine Record portal in June, our friends at the Colorado Digital Service asked if we’d be willing to share our code with other states. Shortly after that, several other states reached out with similar requests. I’m excited to share that my office has released the code for both the front end and the middle tier for California’s Digital Vaccine Record to the public domain on GitHub.

Perspective. A roadmap of future regulation?

https://www.insideprivacy.com/california-privacy-rights-act/california-privacy-protection-agency-seeks-comments-on-preliminary-cpra-issues/

California Privacy Protection Agency Seeks Comments on Preliminary CPRA Issues

The California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA), which is responsible for issuing regulations implementing the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), has posted its approved discussion draft for seeking public comments in preparation for its CPRA rulemaking activities. The CPPA indicated that it is particularly interested in receiving comments on the following eight topics:

Perspective. A long way to go.

https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/the-problem-with-ai

The term 'AI' overpromises: Here's how to make it work for humans instead

… But there is not the slightest shred of understanding, reasoning and context in there, just simple re-creation of things seen before. An image recognition system trained to detect sheep in a picture does not have the slightest idea what "sheep" actually means. However, those systems have become so good at recreating the output, that they sometimes look like they know what they are doing.

Isn't that good enough, you may ask? Well, for some limited cases, it is. But it is not "intelligent", as it lacks any ability to reason and needs informed users to identify less obvious outliers with possibly harmful downstream effects.

We don’t need to gather data about you if you volunteer all the data we want.

https://www.pogowasright.org/license-plate-readers-use-footage-from-ring-smartphones-and-atms-to-id-vehicles/

License Plate Readers Use Footage From Ring, Smartphones And ATMs To ID Vehicles

Joe Cadillic writes:

Flock Safety’s license plate readers can now ID vehicles from any camera source. Basically, Flock Safety has turned every camera in the country into potential license plate readers.

[…]

Flock Safety claims to care about the privacy of people living in HOA’s and neighborhood associations. All residents have to do to protect their privacy, is email their home address and license plate number to Flock Safety’s “Safe List” and click the “remove my vehicles from footage” box.

“The Safe List allows footage captured of your vehicle to be marked as resident. This way, if a crime happens in your neighborhood and your HOA or trusted neighbor needs to look through Flock footage, they can filter out all known residents in their search. This keeps your vehicle out of the search.”

The problem with Flock Safety’s “Safe List” is two-fold…..

Read more on MassPrivateI.

It’s not perfect, but it is better than nothing.

https://www.bespacific.com/8-easy-ways-to-stay-anonymous-online/

8 Easy Ways to Stay Anonymous Online

PC Magazine: “…There are always going to be good reasons for people to go online without being tracked. For one, anonymity may be the only way for a real whistleblower to reveal corruption, considering how some have been treated. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting to stay anonymous, no matter what you’re doing. Is it even possible to take control of your own personal privacy online? Ultimately, the only way to stay truly anonymous online is…not to go online at all. That’s not a real option for most of us, though. Here’s a rundown of what you can do to minimize spying, targeted ads, and ID theft as you explore the online world…”

Will we learn to speak dolphin? Has Facebook been training this AI on speech it recorded from its users without their knowledge?

https://www.marktechpost.com/2021/09/09/facebook-ai-introduces-gslm-generative-spoken-language-model-a-textless-nlp-model-that-breaks-free-completely-of-the-dependence-on-text-for-training/

Facebook AI Introduces GSLM (Generative Spoken Language Model), A Textless NLP Model That Breaks Free Completely of The Dependence on Text for Training

The recent advancements in text-based language models, such as BERT, RoBERTa, and GPT-3, have been extremely impressive. Because they can generate realistically written words from a given input, these models can be utilized for various natural language processing applications, including sentiment analysis translation information retrieval inferences summarization, among others using only a few labels or examples (e.g., BART and XLM R). However, these applications have a major limitation: the models are only suitable for languages with very large text data sets.

Facebook AI has introduced the first high-performance NLP model, called Generative Spoken Language Model (GSLM), which leverages state-of-the-art representation learning to work with raw audio signals without labels or text. This can lead to a new era of textless applications for any language spoken on earth, even those without significant text data sets. By using GSLM, you can develop NLP models that incorporate the full range of expressivity found in spoken language.

Perspective.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/gartner-ai-is-moving-fast-and-will-be-ready-for-prime-time-sooner-than-you-think/

Gartner: AI is moving fast and will be ready for prime time sooner than you think

Users want more than artificial intelligence can provide at the moment but those capabilities are changing fast, according to Gartner's Hype Cycle for Artificial Intelligence 2021 report. Gartner analysts described 34 types of AI technologies in the report and also noted that the AI hype cycle is more fast-paced, with an above-average number of innovations reaching mainstream adoption within two to five years.

… Gartner analysts Shubhangi Vashisth and Svetlana Sicular wrote the report and identified these four AI mega trends:

1. Companies are looking to operationalize AI platforms to enable reusability, scalability and governance and speed up AI adoption and growth. AI orchestration and automation platforms (AIOAPs) and model operationalization (ModelOps) reflect this trend.

2. Innovation in AI means efficient use of all resources, including data, models and compute. Multi-experience AI, composite AI, generative AI and transformers are examples of this trend.

3. Responsible AI includes explainable AI, risk management and AI ethics for increased trust, transparency, fairness and auditability of AI initiatives.

4. Small and wide data approaches enable more robust analytics and AI, reduce organizations' dependency on big data and deliver more complete situational awareness.

Perspective. Maybe Brazil isn’t the only place with a law like this/ (See yesterdays Blog) Of course these companies could simply cut Texas out of their services for the next election cycle.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/09/govgregabbott-social-media-censorship-bill/

Texas governor signs bill prohibiting social media giants from blocking users based on viewpoint

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Thursday signed a bill that would prohibit large tech companies from blocking or restricting people or their posts based on their viewpoint, setting the stage for a legal battle with the tech industry.

The law applies to social media companies with more than 50 million monthly active users in the United States, including Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube, and requires them to create reports on any illegal or potentially policy-violating content, as well as build a complaint system, where people could challenge companies’ decisions to remove content or flag illegal activity. Individuals and the state attorney general could file lawsuits if they believe that the tech companies wrongfully banned them from their platforms.

“It is now law that conservative viewpoints in Texas cannot be banned on social media,” Abbott said. Conservatives have long claimed without evidence that Silicon Valley social media companies are censoring them based on their political affiliation. The companies deny those accusations.

Perspective. It must be hard to get and keep employees.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/09/amazon-to-cover-100percent-of-college-tuition-for-us-hourly-employees.html

Amazon to cover 100% of college tuition for U.S. hourly employees

Amazon said Thursday it will offer to pay 100% of college tuition for its 750,000 U.S. hourly employees.

The e-commerce giant is following the lead of other large U.S. companies that are dangling perks such as education benefits or more pay to woo workers in a tight job market.

Starting in January, Amazon said, it will cover the cost of college tuition, fees and textbooks for hourly employees in its operations network after 90 days of employment. It will also begin covering high school diploma programs, GEDs and English as a second language certifications for employees.

… As the job market has grown more competitive, Amazon is ramping up incentives to lure workers. In some areas of the country, Amazon is offering sign-on bonuses for new employees worth up to $3,000.

Learning, for fun or profit.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/linkedin-free-courses/419250/#close

LinkedIn Makes 35+ Learning Courses Free For a Month

… A one month trial of the LinkedIn Learning Hub can be redeemed starting today until October 9.

The courses touch on subjects such as ways to support your team through hybrid work, cultivating well-being during difficult times, and being a manager everyone wants to work for.

… The courses available in LinkedIn’s Learning hub are geared toward job seekers, managers, and HR professionals.

Even virtual machines need access to your data.

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/the-rise-of-software-machines-requires-a-new-type-of-identity-management/

The Rise of Software “Machines” Requires a New Type of Identity Management

For many years, the technology industry has been working on ways to verify people when they do business online, with passwords and multi-factor authentication. With the advent of digital transformation, cloud, and IoT, however, there’s been a rise in the need for verification for authenticate and authorize machines of all types from cloud workloads to Kubernetes clusters to mobile apps. Similar to how people need to be authenticated to access their online services, all the new services and devices in use must have identities — machine identities.

The rise of these machines has expanded the attack surface and most companies aren’t aware of the risk. As a result of this rapid rise in software-based “machines,” Forrester estimates that machine identities are growing at twice the rate of human identities and Gartner has recognized Machine Identity Management as a new category within Identity and Access Management and listed it among the top 8 security trends for 2021.

I’m becoming more and more concerned that because I don’t have a smartphone OR social media accounts I will be flagged as a terrorist hiding from the government’s justifiable surveillance. How could I possibly prove my innocence without those tools?

https://www.bespacific.com/lapd-officers-told-to-collect-social-media-data-on-every-civilian-they-stop/

LAPD officers told to collect social media data on every civilian they stop

The Guardian: “The Los Angeles police department (LAPD) has directed its officers to collect the social media information of every civilian they interview, including individuals who are not arrested or accused of a crime, according to records shared with the Guardian. Copies of the “field interview cards” that police complete when they question civilians reveal that LAPD officers are instructed to record a civilian’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media accounts, alongside basic biographical information. An internal memo further shows that the police chief, Michel Moore, told employees that it was critical to collect the data for use in “investigations, arrests, and prosecutions”, and warned that supervisors would review cards to ensure they were complete. The documents, which were obtained by the not-for-profit organization the Brennan Center for Justice, have raised concerns about civil liberties and the potential for mass surveillance of civilians without justification.

There are real dangers about police having all of this social media identifying information at their fingertips,” said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, a deputy director at the Brennan Center, noting that the information was probably stored in a database that could be used for a wide range of purposes…”

(Related)

https://www.pogowasright.org/the-detective-in-your-dms-massachusetts-appeal-takes-aim-at-police-trawling-social-media-while-l-a-cops-are-told-to-collect-even-more-data/

The detective in your DMs: Massachusetts appeal takes aim at police trawling social media

Thomas F. Harrison reports:

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court struggled Wednesday to figure out whether police can use trickery to conduct unlimited surveillance of social media accounts even if they have no reason to think that anyone did anything wrong.

The justices seemed to think that officers can generally conduct undercover operations but they were troubled by the idea that nothing on social media is truly private.

Read more on Courthouse News.

[From the article:

That hasn’t stopped the cops. In New York, police routinely spend hours scrolling through the social media accounts of teenagers looking for possible gang activity, often creating fake accounts in the guise of attractive teenage girls to get friended.

A study back in 2014 revealed that 81% of police officers use social media in investigations, and 80% think it’s ethical to create fake accounts to get a suspect to friend them.

Perspective.

https://www.denverpost.com/2021/09/09/boulder-artificial-intelligence-technology/

Boulder, northern Front Range rank as an early leader in artificial intelligence

From Netflix movie recommendations to supercomputers that review medical scans looking for cancer, innovations in artificial intelligence promise to create wealth and drive growth for the regions able to establish early on a concentration of businesses in that sector.

While hardly a hub yet, Colorado’s northern Front Range is an early contender when it comes to participating in the emerging field, in particular Boulder, according to a study released Wednesday by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program.

“The Bay Area dominates but there are some surprising inland stars” including Boulder, said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brooking who co-authored the report on the geography of AI.

Perspective. Would Trump have tried this is he thought of it?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/world/americas/bolsonaro-social-networks.html

Brazil’s President Bans Social Networks From Removing Some Posts

President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil is temporarily banning social media companies from removing certain content, including his claims that the only way he’ll lose next year’s elections is if the vote is rigged — one of the most significant steps by a democratically elected leader to control what can be said on the internet.

The new social media rules, issued this week and effective immediately, appear to be the first time a national government has stopped internet companies from taking down content that violates their rules, according to internet law experts and officials at tech companies. And they come at a precarious moment for Brazil.

(Related) A “service” this country gets for free…

https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-in-kenya-influencers-are-hired-to-spread-disinformation/

In Kenya, Influencers Are Hired to Spread Disinformation

No doubt US pro sports teams will jump on this. It’s better than baseball cards, even without the gum.

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/09/09/la-liga-becomes-first-top-soccer-league-to-offer-nfts-of-all-players/

La Liga Becomes First Top Soccer League to Offer NFTs of All Players

Fans will be able to trade and play fantasy tournaments with NFTs representing players from the top 20 clubs in Spain.

Tools & Techniques.

https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-use-microsoft-start-personalized-news-feed/

How to Use Microsoft Start to Curate a Personalized News Feed

Microsoft has just launched Microsoft Start, which lets you curate a personalized news feed. Here's everything you need to know about it.

Find someone who is down, then kick them.

https://www.databreaches.net/afghanistan-becomes-the-primary-target-for-ransomware-attacks-following-taliban-takeover/

Afghanistan becomes the primary target for ransomware attacks following Taliban takeover

Paul Skeldon reports;

The recent Taliban takeover of the government in Afghanistan has brought a lot of chaos upon the nation – and cybercriminals are seeing that such disorder in the country is another chance for them to benefit.

According to the Atlas VPN team data analysis, Afghanistan became the primary target for ransomware attacks worldwide in the last month. Providing security for companies’ staff and customers will be extremely difficult in now Taliban-ruled land.

In the past 30 days, cybercriminals launched 1.77% of all ransomware attacks at Afghanistan. Hackers noticed that businesses in the Taliban governed country right now are very vulnerable.

Read more on Telemedia Online. The Atlas VPN analysis relied on the Kaspersky cybermap.

Not sure this makes it clear…

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/state-of-privacy-laws-in-us/

The State of Consumer Data Privacy Laws in the US (And Why It Matters)

… What current national privacy laws (don’t) do

Currently, privacy laws are a cluttered mess of different sectoral rules. “Historically, in the US we have a bunch of disparate federal [and state] laws,” said Amie Stepanovich, executive director at the Silicon Flatirons Center at Colorado Law. “[These] either look at specific types of data, like credit data or health information,” Stepanovich said, “or look at specific populations like children, and regulate within those realms.”

The United States doesn’t have a singular law that covers the privacy of all types of data. Instead, it has a mix of laws that go by acronyms like HIPAA, FCRA, FERPA, GLBA, ECPA, COPPA, and VPPA.

Does this mean you can’t open your iPhone in Baltimore?

https://www.huntonprivacyblog.com/2021/09/07/update-baltimore-bans-private-sector-use-of-facial-recognition-technology/

UPDATE: Baltimore Bans Private-Sector Use of Facial Recognition Technology

On August 9, 2021, Baltimore joined Portland, Oregon and New York City in enacting a local ordinance regulating the private sector’s use of facial recognition technology. Baltimore’s ordinance will become effective on September 8, 2021. Read our earlier post for more details about Baltimore’s ban on the use of facial recognition technology by private entities and individuals within its city limits.

Trying. It might even be helpful.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/money-mimicry-mind-control-big-tech-slams-ethics-brakes-ai-2021-09-08/

Money, mimicry and mind control: Big Tech slams ethics brakes on AI

In September last year, Google's cloud unit looked into using artificial intelligence to help a financial firm decide whom to lend money to.

It turned down the client's idea after weeks of internal discussions, deeming the project too ethically dicey because the AI technology could perpetuate biases like those around race and gender.

Since early last year, Google has also blocked new AI features analyzing emotions, fearing cultural insensitivity, while Microsoft restricted software mimicking voices and IBM rejected a client request for an advanced facial-recognition system.

All these technologies were curbed by panels of executives or other leaders, according to interviews with AI ethics chiefs at the three U.S. technology giants.

It was a good idea, it was a bad idea...

https://news.mit.edu/2021/qa-dina-katabi-smart-home-actual-intelligence-0907

Q&A: Dina Katabi on a “smart” home with actual intelligence

The next frontier is the home, and building truly-intelligent wireless systems that understand people’s health and can interact with the environment and other devices. Google Home and Alexa are reactive. You tell them, “wake me up,” but they sound the alarm whether you’re in bed or have already left for work. My lab is working on the next generation of wireless sensors and machine-learning models that can make more personalized predictions.

We call them the invisibles. For example, instead of ringing an alarm at a specific time, the sensor can tell if you’ve woken up and started making coffee. It knows to silence the alarm. Similarly, it can monitor an elderly person living alone and alert their caregiver if there’s a change in vital signs or eating habits. Most importantly, it can act without people having to wear a device or tell the sensors what to do.

For my MBA students.

https://hbr.org/2021/09/why-ai-will-never-replace-managers

Why AI Will Never Replace Managers

Given that artificial intelligence is increasingly overtaking people on a range of expert tasks, will it someday make human managers obsolete? Luckily, there’s one cognitive ability where people still have a big edge: reframing. Reframing is not about solving a problem (with either intuition or conscious reasoning) but about defining what exactly is the problem to be solved. It isn’t easy, and it’s usually time-consuming, but it is key to both discovering breakthrough innovations and adapting to a rapidly changing environment. Four tactics can help you cultivate this ability: dedicating time to not thinking about the problem, making hidden assumptions explicit, playful exploration, and leveraging surprising analogies.

You may know all of these, but do your students?

https://www.makeuseof.com/best-websites-find-academic-information/

The 7 Best Websites to Find Academic Information Online

Will Wally be getting into politics?

https://dilbert.com/strip/2021-09-08

Outsourcing the hack.

https://www.bespacific.com/this-is-the-perfect-ransomware-victim-according-to-cybercriminals/

This is the perfect ransomware victim, according to cybercriminals

ZDNet: “On Monday, KELA published a report on listings made by ransomware operators in the underground, including access requests — the way to gain an initial foothold into a target system — revealing that many want to buy a way into US companies with a minimum revenue of over $100 million. Initial access is now big business. Ransomware groups such as Blackmatter and Lockbit may cut out some of the legwork involved in a cyberattack by purchasing access, including working credentials or the knowledge of a vulnerability in a corporate system. When you consider a successful ransomware campaign can result in payments worth millions of dollars, this cost becomes inconsequential — and can mean that cybercriminals can free up time to strike more targets. The cybersecurity company’s findings, based on observations in dark web forums during July 2021, suggest that threat actors are seeking large US firms, but Canadian, Australian, and European targets are also considered…”

How would this impact your liability? Would the lawsuits cost more than the ransom?

https://www.databreaches.net/hacker-puts-stolen-data-online-because-college-refuses-to-pay/

Hacker puts stolen data online because college refuses to pay

Cybercrimeinfo.nl reports:

The hacker who earlier this month stole data from students and employees of the Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen (HAN) has put it on the internet. RTL Nieuws reports this on Tuesday after viewing the data. The hacker demanded a ransom, but the university previously said it would not pay. The person, who uses the pseudonym ‘masterballz’ on the internet, then decided to put the data online. According to RTL News, the stolen data is now distributed via a popular download service.

Read more on Cybercrimeinfo.nl.

Tools for employee surveillance.

https://www.bespacific.com/bosses-turn-to-tattleware-to-keep-tabs-on-employees-working-from-home/

Bosses turn to ‘tattleware’ to keep tabs on employees working from home

The Guardian: “…Remote surveillance software like Sneek, also known as “tattleware” or “bossware”, represented something of a niche market pre-Covid. But that all changed in March 2020, as employers scrambled to pull together work-from-home policies out of thin air. In April last year, Google queries for “remote monitoring” were up 212% year-on-year; by April this year, they’d continued to surge by another 243%. One of the major players in the industry, ActivTrak, reports that during March 2020 alone, the firm scaled up from 50 client companies to 800. Over the course of the pandemic, the company has maintained that growth, today boasting 9,000 customers – or, as it claims, more than 250,000 individual users. Time Doctor, Teramind, and Hubstaff – which, together with ActivTrak, make up the bulk of the market – have all seen similar growth from prospective customers… ”

Gartner often has the pulse of the industry.

https://venturebeat.com/2021/09/07/ai-focus-shifts-to-small-and-wide-data/

AI focus shifts to ‘small and wide’ data

AI innovation is occurring at a fast clip, with a number of technologies on the “hype cycle” reaching mainstream adoption within two to five years. That’s according to Gartner, which today released a report identifying four trends driving near-term AI innovation in the enterprise. It finds that while the AI industry remains in an “evolutionary state,” technologies including edge AI, computer vision, decision intelligence, and machine learning are poised to have a transformational impact on markets in coming years.

… Increased trust, transparency, fairness, and auditability of AI technologies continues to be of growing importance to a range of stakeholders, according to Gartner. “Responsible AI” can help to achieve a semblance of fairness, trust, and regulatory compliance — even if biases are baked into the data and explainability methods fall short. For this reason, Gartner expects that all experts hired for AI development and training work will have to demonstrate competence in responsible AI by 2023.

At the same time, Gartner predicts that emerging “small and wide data” approaches will enable more robust analytics and AI, reducing organizations’ dependency on big data. Wide data allows analysts to examine and combine a variety of small and large, unstructured and structured data, while small data is focused on applying analytical techniques that look for useful information within small, individual sets of data.

According to Gartner, by 2025, 70% of organizations will be compelled to shift their focus from big to small and wide data, providing more context for analytics — and making AI less data-hungry.

… “[Our] research has found that only half of AI projects make it from pilot into production, and those that do take an average of nine months to do so,” Svetlana Sicular, research VP at Gartner, said in a statement.

Tools & Techniques.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkb4ng/meet-the-self-hosters-taking-back-the-internet-one-server-at-a-time

Meet the Self-Hosters, Taking Back the Internet One Server at a Time

Tired of Big Tech monopolies, a community of hobbyists is taking their digital lives off the cloud and onto DIY hardware that they control.