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Cyrille Joffre, chief technology and information officer at Sure, outlines the risks and opportunities generated by artificial intelligence, as well as looking at developments to make IT more sustainable
LAST year saw the rise of plenty of new technology, from reactive smart watches to art created by artificial intelligence.
In 2023, digital literacy will move from basic computer or smartphone skills to being comfortable with advanced technologies such as generative artificial intelligence or blockchain. Knowing how to navigate these digital tools will become essential in more aspects of day-to-day life.
(GENERATIVE) AI
The AI-powered chat tool ChatGPT was launched by the team at AI development company OpenAI on 30 November. By 5 December, more than one million users had tested it out. People have been using ChatGPT to run a virtual Linux machine, answer coding queries, develop business plans, write song lyrics and even pen Shakespearean verses. The chatbot is free to use so far – although OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman expects that this will change in the future as he tweeted ‘the compute costs are eye-watering’.
There’s understandable nervousness about what this technology means for our future, but I am excited by its ability to expand access to equitable care, to take just one positive example of its potential.
However, caution should be taken. When permitting ChatGPT to access your personal data, you create the opportunity to write a phishing lure that could sound convincingly as though it is coming from you.
Cybersecurity
As technology continues to advance and more organisations go digital, cybersecurity threats will become more prevalent and costly. The data loss, theft, fraud, ransomware attacks etc perpetrated by cyber criminals cause significant losses, along with reputational damages. By 2023, it is estimated that cybercrime will cause $8 trillion in damages globally.
And cyber criminals are increasingly adopting AI to automate the process of finding vulnerabilities in software systems and exploiting them for financial gain. We expect cyber criminals to use advanced forms of AI technology, such as programs like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, or AI chatbots (like ChatGPT), to boost the effectiveness of their scams.
To protect against these threats, we would recommend investing in cybersecurity measures such as employee training, encryption and regular software updates. With application workloads continuing to move into the cloud and then to the edge, real-time cloud-native application protection software will become a necessity.
Lastly, leveraging AI and machine learning can help to detect and react to cyber threats faster and in real time, and identify fraud/minimise associated losses.
Sustainable technology
One of the biggest challenges across society continues to be monitoring our carbon emissions in order to tackle the climate crisis.
We know progress has been made as green hydrogen, solar power and wind turbines contribute to the development of decentralised power grids.
We can see sustainable technology products and services being developed by start-ups including Patch, which helps businesses to reduce their carbon footprint. Other examples are Pachama, which uses AI and satellite imagery to identify reforestation projects that store carbon, and ClimateAi, a global climate resilience platform.
We continue to strive for ways to improve the way in which we consume materials used in technology. With the world using cloud services like Netflix and Spotify, which still run in huge data centres that consume vast amounts of energy, the industry is seeing a continued push towards making supply chains more transparent, as consumers demand that the products and services they invest in are energy-efficient and backed by more sustainable technology.
As our world becomes increasingly digital, we at Sure Business have an important role to play in ensuring that technology is used to benefit the people and businesses of the Channel Islands and beyond. The potential of tools like AI and sustainable technology is huge and we want to build the networks and provide the solutions to harness the power of digital to connect our island communities for a better future.
To learn more about the trends that will characterise 2023 and beyond, get in touch by emailing contactus@sure.com.
