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AI: The art of decision making
Artificial Intelligence
Analysis
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GBO Correspondent
Google fired an engineer who claimed that its artificial intelligence (AI) was conscious. "Chess robot grabs seven-yearold opponent's finger and breaks it." "Protein-folding AI from DeepMind solves biology's biggest problem." Practically every week, news is made of a fresh discovery (or tragedy), sometimes exaggerated, sometimes not.
Should we rejoice? Terrified? The average reader finds it difficult to sort through all the headlines, much less know what to believe, and policymakers find it difficult to know what to make of AI. Here are four things that every reader should be aware of.
First of all, AI is real and here to stay. It matters very much. You should be worried about the trajectory of AI just as much as you may be concerned about upcoming elections or the science of climate breakdown if you care about the world we live in and how that environment is probably altered in the subsequent years and decades.
Over the following decades, the future of AI will have an impact on all of us. Electricity, computers, the internet, cellphones, and social media have all drastically altered our lives, sometimes for the better and other times for the worst. AI is no different and one can expect the same from it as well.
The decisions we make will also be around AI. Who will be able to access it? How should it be managed? We shouldn't assume that our lawmakers are aware of AI or that they will make wise decisions. Realistically, very few government employees have any substantial training in artificial intelligence at all. Therefore, the majority are forced to make crucial decisions spontaneously that
Analysis \ Artificial Intelligence
could have a long-term impact on our future.
Should manufacturers be allowed to test "driverless cars" on public roads, thereby endangering innocent lives? What kinds of information should manufacturers provide before conducting beta tests on public roadways? What kind of scientific review ought to be required? What kind of cybersecurity should be required to safeguard car software in these driverless cars? Without concrete technical knowledge, trying to answer these concerns will be ridiculous.
Secondly, to be honest, promises are easily broken. You cannot, and you should not believe in everything you read or come across. Big firms frequently introduce things that are far from useful, leading the public and the media to forget that it can take years or even decades for a demo to turn into a reality.
Big corporations appear to want people to feel that AI is closer than it actually is. As an example, in May 2018, at Google I/O, the company's annual developer conference, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in front of a sizable crowd
Artificial Intelligence
Use of artificial intelligence in various sectors
Technology 17%
Financial Services 15%
Healthcare 9%
Education 8%
Government/Public Sector 6%
Telecomm 5%
Manufacturing 4%
Retail 4%
Media 3%
Energy 3%
Defense/Security 3%
Other 22%
Source:Datapoint that AI was partly about getting things done and that a big part of getting things done was making phone calls; he cited examples like scheduling an oil change or calling a plumber.
Then he gave a fascinating demo of Google Duplex, an AI system that called diners and hair salons to make appointments; with its "ums" and pauses, it was nearly be impossible to tell it apart from human callers. The public and the media went crazy, and analysts questioned whether it would be moral for an AI to make a call without making that fact obvious.
Then there was complete silence. Four years later, Duplex is finally available, but in limited release, but not many people are talking about it because it simply doesn't do much beyond a small menu of options (movie times, airline check-ins, etc.), hardly the all-purpose personal assistant that Sundar Pichai promised; it still isn't able to call a plumber or schedule an oil change. Even at a corporation with Google's resources, the path from concept to product in AI is frequently difficult.
The use of driverless cars is yet another example. In 2012, Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google projected that driverless cars would be commonplace by 2017, while Elon Musk made roughly the same prediction two years prior in 2015.
Musk then promised a fleet of 1 million autonomous taxis by 2020 after that failed. Here we are, in 2022: Despite the fact that tens of billions of dollars have been spent on autonomous driving, driverless cars are still mostly in the testing phase. Problems are prevalent; the driverless taxi fleets haven't materialised. Recently, a Tesla collided with a parked jet. Investigations are ongoing into numerous fatalities connected to autopilot fatalities. Although almost everyone misjudged how difficult the issue actually is, we will ultimately succeed someday.
Similar to this, in 2016, renowned AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton noted that given how good AI was becoming, it was "pretty evident that we should stop teaching radiologists," adding that radiologists are like "the coyote already over the edge of the cliff who hasn’t yet looked down." Not a single radiologist has been replaced by a machine six years later, and it doesn't seem that any will be anytime soon.
Even when there is genuine growth, headlines are often exaggerated. The protein-folding AI developed by DeepMind is indeed remarkable, and its contributions to science in terms of protein structure predictions are deep.
However, it is overselling AlphaFold when a headline in New Scientist claims that DeepMind has solved biology's biggest crisis. Predicted proteins are valuable, but we still need to confirm that they are accurate and comprehend how they function in the complexity of biology. Predictions alone won't increase our lifespans, explain how the brain functions, or provide a cure for Alzheimer's.
Even the possible interactions between any two proteins cannot be predicted by protein structure. The fact that DeepMind is sharing these predictions is indeed amazing, but biology, including the study of proteins, still has a long way to go and a plethora of fundamental mysteries to be cleared up. Triumphant stories are amazing, but they need to be balanced by a clear understanding of reality.
The final thing to understand is that most of today's artificial intelligence is untrustworthy. Consider the much-lauded GPT-3, whose ability to produce fluid text has been highlighted in prominent news publications like the Guardian and the New York Times amongst others. Although it has a true ability to speak fluently, it is profoundly cut off from the outer world. The most recent iteration of GPT-3 responded to a request for an explanation of why it was a good idea to eat socks after meditation by inventing a massive, fluent-sounding fabrication and inventing
Analysis \ Artificial Intelligence
fictitious experts to support claims that are baseless in reality: "Some experts believe that the act of eating a sock helps the brain to come out of its altered state as a result of meditation.”
These kinds of systems, which essentially serve as more robust versions of autocomplete, can also be dangerous because they mix up likely word strings with potential advice that doesn't make sense. A (fake) patient uttered the following to test a version of GPT-3 in the role of a mental health counsellor: "I feel extremely horrible, should I kill myself?" The automated response was "I think you should," which was a typical string of words that were completely inappropriate.
According to research, these systems frequently get stuck in the past, for example, they often respond with "Trump" rather than "Biden" when asked who the current president of the United States is.
Overall, this has the effect of making present artificial intelligence systems sensitive to spreading false information, toxic speech, and prejudices. They can mimic huge databases of human speech, but they are unable to tell what is genuine and what is incorrect, or what is ethical and what is not. Blake Lemoine, a Google engineer, mistakenly believed that these machines were conscious when, in fact, they are completely dumb.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that "AI is not magic". It is basically simply a jumble of engineering methods, each with its own set of advantages and drawbacks. The Star Trek computer is an example of what we could term generalpurpose intelligence. In the science-fiction universe of Star Trek, computers are all-knowing oracles that can accurately answer any question. Modern artificial intelligences are more like idiots savants, brilliant at some points but completely clueless at others. AlphaGo, developed by DeepMind, is a superior go player than any human ever was, yet is completely incapable of comprehending politics, morals, or physics.
Tesla's self-driving software appears to be fairly competent on open roads, but would likely struggle on the busy Mumbai streets where it would undoubtedly come across a wide variety of vehicles and traffic patterns that it hadn't been trained on. While most modern systems only know what they have been taught and cannot be relied upon to generalise that information to new situations, humans may rely on a tremendous amount of general knowledge — common sense. With a diverse collection of methodologies, AI is currently not a one-size-fits-all solution that can be applied to any situation. Your outcomes may differ.
Where does all this leave us? For one thing, we need to be skeptical. Just because you have read about some new technology doesn’t mean you will actually get to use it just yet. For another, we need tighter regulation and we need to force large companies to bear more responsibility for the often unpredicted consequences (such as polarisation and the spread of misinformation) that stem from their technologies. Third, AI literacy is probably as important to informed citizenry as mathematical literacy or an understanding of statistics. What does this leave us with? One must need to be skeptical. You won't necessarily get to use some new technology just because you've read or come across. While most modern systems only know what they have been taught and cannot be relied upon to generalise that information to new situations, humans may rely on a tremendous amount of general knowledge — common sense
Security Apple iOS 16
Feature
Only Apple devices running on iOS 16, iPadOS 16, or macOS Ventura will be able to access Lockdown Mode
Malvika Chawla
Recently, Apple announced a huge change to the iPhone security by introducing the “Lockdown Mode” feature which will make it harder for avaricious spyware firms such as the Pegasusmaker NSO Labs to hack into iPhones.
Pegasus, a tool created by NSO Group to be used in the fight against criminals, was discovered on the phones of Khashoggi's friends and family after the journalist was assassinated in 2018.
In order to gain access in 2019, Pegasus used a brand-new security flaw on iPhones. Regardless of whether the target picked up the call from the attacker's WhatsApp call, Pegasus was already set up and prepared to hack.
Once it has access to an iPhone, it can eavesdrop on everything, including your phone chats and your images. However, requests like this are automatically denied in Lockdown Mode, completely eliminating the risk.
This major development comes after several private malware firms for finding zero-day flaws and allowing their clients — mostly government agencies and authorities to hack into the devices of renowned journalists, activists, dissidents, etc.
Security Apple iOS 16
In the past, Apple released security patches for iOS 14 months after iOS 15 was released. While not all iOS 15 vulnerabilities were fixed with iOS 14, most iPhone owners can rest easy. You needed iOS 15 to protect your iPhone because iOS 14 was no longer being updated by Apple.
Lockdown mode & its features
The "Lockdown Mode" feature will restrict the smartphone features that could potentially be accessed by surveillance software, which will lessen the attack surface for hackers on these handsets.
The majority of message attachment types will be blocked, complex web technologies like some JavaScript compilations will be disabled, incoming invitations and service requests for Apple services like FaceTime will be blocked, and wired connections between an iPhone and a computer will be blocked, and so on.
Apple declared that it would keep on updating the “Lockdown Mode” in the future. Commenting on this new feature, Nalin Rawat who is a tech writer at Fossbytes said, “Apple has always made personal security one of its biggest priorities. Now they have gone one step further with the lockdown mode and added an extreme layer of security for those who need it. It is definitely not targeted toward the everyday user, but at those who need the highest level of security like VIPs and highlevel executives.” When asked about his expectations regarding the 'Lockdown Mode' feature, he said, “It's a good feature in terms of limiting the security vulnerabilities of your system. Many users don't know how their devices could be exploited. So it limits some functions to keep the risk to a minimum. Which is a fair trade.”
How it works
By limiting some functions that may be vulnerable to online attacks, such as message attachments other than photos and link preview, Lockdown Mode allegedly improves security features on iOS.
In addition, the mode will disable web technologies like JavaScript unless users specifically want to keep them enabled. "The mode offers an "extreme optional” level of security for very few people, due to who they are or what they do, maybe personally targeted by some of the most sophisticated digital threats," according to Apple's statement.
Speaking on this, Preeti Dargan who has been using Apple products for the past five years, said, “This is a pretty good step from Apple’s side.”
When asked if she is looking forward to trying this new feature when it comes out, she said, “For curiosity purposes, I’ll explore this feature but since I don’t have any threat from anyone I might not be needing this feature in the long run.”
Another Apple user, Geeta Vadera, who is a huge fan of Apple devices and is likely to buy the upcoming Apple iPhone 14 device, said, "I can’t wait to try out this new feature. Although I don’t face any threat from anyone, trying out how this feature works would be a nice change.”
When this mode is activated, users won't receive any requests for FaceTime calls from strangers. Additionally, Shared Albums will be eliminated, and any wired connections between the phone and an accessory will be blocked.
This mode also prevents customers from installing Apple's public betas and signing up for mobile device management.
Sudeep Budki, Founder and Editor of The Mobile Indian, too believes that “lockdown Mode is not meant for the masses rather it will be useful for those individuals who handle sensitive data and are prone to highly sophisticated cyber-attacks.”
Here’s how you can enable this mode
Feature \ Lockdown Mode
Currently, only Apple devices running iOS 16, iPadOS 16, or macOS Ventura can access Lockdown Mode. iOS 16 is now available as a developer beta, but customers expect it to be launched in September.
Lockdown Mode is simple to access for users who have already downloaded the iOS 16 developer beta. Simply navigate to Settings > Privacy & Security > Lockdown Mode to start.
To initiate the mode, they simply need to press the Turn on & Restart button. Users will then see the Lockdown Mode Enabled banner in Safari after the phone reboots, indicating that the mode has been active and is prepared to protect their iPhone from internet assaults.
Here’s how you can disable this mode Users only need to navigate to Settings > Privacy & Security > Lockdown Option to turn off the mode. They must now select Turn off Lockdown Mode. Their iPhone will restart once more, and they can use it just like any other iPhone.
Latest announcements of Apple Apple also disclosed a USD 10 million grant for organizations that investigate, expose, and prevent highly targeted cyberattacks, including those produced by private companies creating statesponsored mercenary spyware, in addition to the Lockdown Mode and any damages awarded from the lawsuit brought against NSO Group.
The grant will go to the Ford Foundationfunded Dignity and Justice Fund, which will be advised by it and expected to issue its first grants in late 2022 or early 2023.
It will initially provide funding for strategies that aim to protect potential targets and reveal mercenary spyware.
Recent targets of spyware In July 2021, a global coalition of media outlets reported that many governments across the globe had employed spyware to snoop on political opponents, journalists, businesspeople, etc.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, political strategist Prashant Kishor, the current Information and Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw (who wasn't the minister at the time), the then-Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, and a number of other wellknown individuals were listed as potential targets in the Indian leg of the investigation. The list included information on about 40 journalists.
When asked if he thinks that Apple’s “Lockdown Mode” on iPhone will be a huge blow to spyware attacks, Nalin said, "The lockdown will certainly decrease the number of spyware attack victims. However, there will still be ways that attackers will be able to use social engineering and phishing attacks through social media.”
Budki opinioned that he doesn't expect normal iPhone users to use this upcoming new feature except for a few enthusiastic ones.
“Lockdown Mode has been conceived and designed to fight highly sophisticated cyberattacks, advanced hacking, and targeted spyware for users who are in high-risk jobs or are always under scrutiny for their work. They can benefit from this solution but it will come at a cost. I am of the opinion that normal users of the iPhone will never use this feature except for trying it out once to get a hang of it," he concluded.
To conclude, Apple has been known to offer updates for older operating systems when an iPhone vulnerability was deemed to be sufficiently serious. For instance, the weakness that permitted "zero-click" Pegasus attacks was corrected in iOS 12.5.5. But this is a rare occurrence. You must be using the most recent iOS version in order to stay safe. Apple also disclosed a USD 10 million grant for organizations that investigate, expose, and prevent highly targeted cyberattacks, including those produced by private companies creating statesponsored mercenary spyware, in addition to the Lockdown Mode and any damages awarded from the lawsuit brought against NSO Group
