006: 5 No-nonsense Questions on AI to Stay Ahead of 99%

Read Time: 7 Minutes
Read on: monicatalkscyber.com

One of the biggest impacts of AI in the 21st century will be influencing human behavior. That's a bold statement. But under this claim is the following foundation. Today, AI can already create, deceive, and influence human behavior. That's the fundamental shift that we're seeing happen with AI. Generative AI is probabilistic. It 'creates' based on large datasets the underlying Large Language Model (LLM) is trained on. But, it can mimic real human-like conversations, emotions, and experiences. That's what's so different about AI compared to any other technology. Let’s just take one example: AI companions.

🤔 First, what the heck is an AI companion?

It’s when you create a highly personalized AI chatbot that is capable of:
- Providing you with companionship.
- Providing you with emotional support.
- Engaging with you in full conversations.
- Providing you with personalized interactions.

🤯 WOW!

People today are already creating AI companions for fun, but also to cope with loneliness. It’s changing experiences for many, both in good and some extremely disturbing ways. A good example of this is Replika AI: "The AI companion who cares", according to their website.

In fact, this trend of AI companions has already started as we speak, and it may be an even bigger thing in the future. This is just the beginning.

Cybercriminals abusing AI, e.g. using deepfakes, to social-engineer or influence humans into taking a particular action is just the tip of the iceberg. AI companion takes it to a whole new level, without any human intervention on the other side. On one hand, the concept of AI companion can impact human decision making and behavior negatively, leading to unintended consequences. On the other hand, it can be a highly powerful mechanism for elderly care and nursing homes.

So how do you stay ahead of the 99% in this AI race?

Security, ethics, accountability, legality, and responsibility are key. I'll cover different aspects of AI in my 10x masterclass (July 10th/July 12th), in particular the key perspectives for a (potential) security leader.

No matter where you are in your journey today, you need to know about various AI use cases exploding around us. You need to know what they mean, what to consider, and how to stay ahead of your business rivals.

You start to understand by being curious and asking questions.

What are The Top 5 Questions to Ask About AI to Stay Ahead of 99%?

Here are 5 no-nonsense, real questions about AI you should be asking to stay ahead:

1. Could this AI tool exhibit bias?

Every AI tool can exhibit bias. That's just a fact. However, the AI itself is not biased. The bias comes from the underlying datasets and algorithms it is based on. These biases influence the outcomes from the AI tool. What does this actually mean?

AI itself is not biased. Not yet. Not until it has a conscience of it's own. But, the data it operates on or the algorithm or model it uses can be biased.

Let's take the example of Amazon's recruitment tool. It aimed to solve the challenges of hiring and to automate hiring. But it turned out that this "amazing" AI recruitment tool hated women. It showed bias against women and favored male candidates. Why? It was trained on datasets were based on resumes from the last 10 years. Majority of the resumes belonged to male candidates.

"That is because Amazon’s computer models were trained to vet applicants by observing patterns in resumes submitted to the company over a 10-year period. Most came from men, a reflection of male dominance across the tech industry."

Reuters

No wonder it didn’t like women. In fact, it taught itself to prefer men and hate women. This Amazon project had to be shut down eventually, and rightly so.

So every time, ask yourself: Could this AI tool be biased? What are the underlying datasets it's trained on? How does the underlying algorithm work?

2. Are you talking to a human or AI?

AI will replace a lot of jobs (more on it in point 5 below). In some other cases, it will take over various aspects of some jobs. It will augment many others. We've been seeing customer service being augmented as one of the fastest ones. AI will likely not replace all human customer service. But, it will replace much of it. We see more examples of AI-augmented customer service every day, such as Air AI.

So now, the question is, as a consumer, do you know if you're looking at something that's created by a human or by AI? Are you listening to something that's created by a human or by AI? Are you interacting with a person or a human-mimicking artificial intelligence?

We are already at a point in the history of humanity, where AI can make you feel emotions, even though it's not AGI. It can even make you feel that it feels emotions, even when it doesn't. It can influence your behavior.

Think about that for a moment. Now imagine AI is able to do all that to you, but you don't even know you're talking to an AI? Your emotions get fired up by an AI. Your behavior gets manipulated by an AI. You respond, thinking it's human on the other side.

Your response might be different if you knew it's AI you are listening to, watching at or interacting with. So, the question you need to ask is: Are you talking to a human or it's AI? Knowing whether it's AI or human can be critical for many decisions.

3. Should you ban your employees from using AI?

I bet most of you are already using AI. At least, generative AI. Whether employers know it or not. Whether they like it or not. Whether you're using it correctly or not. Whether you're leveraging it securely or not. Businesses today need to assume that most employees are already using (generative) AI tools.

The new survey from The Conference Board finds that 56 percent of workers are using generative AI on the job, with nearly 1 in 10 employing the technology on a daily basis.

Source: Survey from Conference Board

So, banning AI isn't the solution. Here are three things employers and businesses should do instead:

1. Define an AI policy and guidelines around how employees can and should be using AI tools. Have an AI strategy. Not everything needs to be "artificially intelligized".

2. Educate them on both sides of the coin. Address both the innovation and the risks and negative impacts of an AI tool.

3. Provide them a sandbox, a playground of sorts, where they can test and play with the AI and mock data without repercussions. Do it before moving it into your actual business model or using actual data.

The biggest mistake businesses can make is to try to put "AI" in everything (without any use case) or to ban the use of AI in the organization. The second biggest mistake is to have no guidance around how employees should use AI. Don't do that.

Instead, ask how can you:

1. Educate them

2. Empower them

3. Encourage them

to leverage AI for the business in a safe, secure, ethical, and legal manner, and without bias or discrimination?

4. How does this AI app use your data?

We are sharing data all over the Internet, everywhere, all the time. However, your data can be and highly likely is being used to train AI models. While every technology that processes your data is subject to questions around how your data is processed, AI stands out because it can learn, adapt, and evolve. Are you OK with your data being used that way? Do you provide any sensitive data to the AI models or their algorithms? Is it your personal data? Is it critical business data? There is no free lunch. Ever. This is the price you pay nonetheless to use the technology. While often it's OK to share your data, but is it worth the free service even when it’s sensitive or critical information? Likely not.

Transparency is a key feature to look for when deciding which AI tool you wish to use.

LLM-based AI tools work on huge datasets. You'd want to know if, when, and how your data can train the AI model. Here are some key questions to ask on the use of your data by these AI tools:

- How is the data processing and AI training policy?
- Does the provider disclose that information?
- Does it use it for training an AI model?
- How can you turn it off?
- Where is it stored?

5. What parts of my job will become obsolete and be replaced or augmented by AI?

99% of the people are asking the question, “Will AI take over or eliminate my job?”. It may but that question is too vague and broad. A much better and a more precise question to ask and understand is:

Which parts of my job will be replaced by AI in the short term, which jobs will become fully AI-driven in the long term and how does the long term outlook look like?

One of the many reasons for the narrative "AI won't replace but someone using AI will" is that the above question doesn't roll off the tongue that easy as compared to the slick quick "AI won't replace you..." narrative. But like it's with any prediction, it's always hard to make.

The best way to predict the future is to create it. – Abraham Lincoln

I go deeper into AI for cybersecurity, leadership and up-skilling in my masterclass. AI will replace and eliminate certain jobs. Maybe not today. Maybe not soon. But over time, there will be displacement. Some jobs today are fully automated and no human is involved. But that wasn't the case a hundred years ago. One of the greatest examples of that is agriculture. We moved from a society where over 90% of the world farmed or worked in agriculture. Today, only a minority does that. Yet, almost everyone outside of agriculture is still employable. We no longer have elevator operators in most parts of the (developed) world.

An even better next step to that question is, which parts of my job can AI nicely augment and probably should?

Ask yourself these two questions. That's when you start thinking about where you see real risks to your job. How do you skill up? How do you use AI to augment your role? How do you make it even stronger? How do you use AI as a competitive advantage in your role?

If you don’t ask these questions, before AI replaces your job, you'll likely be left behind the rest in the skills needed in the changing world.

Learning and growing with AI today is a superpower for tomorrow's world.

Where Do You Go From Here?

AI has the potential to do a lot of good for humanity, like any other technology. However, unlike any other technology, it can:

1. Learn and evolve.

2. Potentially become sentient.

3. Exacerbate it's risks in speed and scale.

The biggest risk with AI is that it has the capacity to influence human behavior and exacerbate the risks in speed and scale, unlike any other technology.

Even though the majority of these above questions also apply to other technologies as well, the greatest risk of AI is that it can exacerbate every risk both in speed and scale, causing intense harm beyond your imagination. Next time you use AI (probably already today), start asking at least some of these questions, if not all.

The success of whether AI will truly revolutionize humanity relies on one key factor: whether its net impact is positive or negative?

I am certain, I’ve missed plenty questions. What other questions would you ask about how AI is being used today? How and to what extent are you using AI today in your role or to skill up?

***

If you want to skill up, break into security leadership or 10x your career as a security leader, consider joining my flagship The 10x Security Leadership Masterclass. In this masterclass, I show both aspiring and current security leaders how to take the leap from concept to effective and influential security leadership with ease, proven frameworks and tested methodologies. You'll learn not only from me but from condensed knowledge from 12+ other global and highly successful security leaders providing you knowledge, framework and expertise of 50+ years combined in just a matter of few hours. Click here to get started today.

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***

–– Monica Verma

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