AI & People: What Kind of History Will We Write Together? (Part 1)

With great power comes great responsibility.¹

It’s 2023.

Is privacy still possible?

For decades, we in the security industry have been passionate — and vocal — about privacy. We have jumped up and down, waving our hands in the air to get the attention of business, government, education, and individual humans. Often unsuccessfully. But we dusted ourselves off, stood tall, and carried on sharing our message.

And today, right now, we are afraid. Why?

Because the future of privacy largely depends on how we handle the power of AI in the coming years. And based on how humans have handled the responsibility of privacy so far, we are very afraid.

AI has immense potential to help humanity. AND, we need to make sure that we protect our right to privacy, permission, bias-removal, and more as we activate and enable this tool in its many forms.

Warren Buffett famously said:

You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out

So… let’s take a look at what we will likely see when the “tide goes out” on some of the AI in our lives…

Loss of privacy continues to happen through legal, illegal, convenience (hello Alexa and ChatGPT) and buried-in-the-legalese access to our data.

So what happens when convenience, profit, and privacy-loss are not balanced against societal benefit, data-security, awareness, and transparency?

As AI adoption increases, so does the data-privacy impact on every one of us:

• Do we know how, where, when, and why our data is being collected?
• Have we given our permission for this collection?
• Do we have the right to refuse collection — to “opt out” of specific data collection?
• Who is in charge of our data? How are they securing our data?

It’s YOUR data. Learn, discuss, and be heard.

Where are we headed

Some questions to ponder about our AI-inclusive future (grab coffee — these are important!):

1. Will we take AI down paths of enormous benefit?
2. Will we take AI down paths we cannot reverse, but wish that we could?
3. How will we know? What warning flags should we be on the look-out for?
4. What will be the AI cost/benefit to future generations: legal, practical, and privacy?

As AI use and its associated data collection increases, so does the challenge of privacy and security.

Decisions made by today’s consumers, politicians, and corporations will affect the lives of future generations, so we must advocate for the right to privacy, security, and transparency in the handling of our personal data.

And possibly the most important question, and frankly the only RIGHT question:

Wherever AI is going, how will it get there?

A small start to the answers: it’s up to you, it’s up to me.

Stay tuned for the next two newsletters. I’ll go into more detail.

Attribution:

¹ The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time, Volume 36… Speaker: Mr. Lamb (William Lamb), Date: June 27, 1817 … Fleet-Street, London. link

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Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.