When technology exceeds the social norms needed to govern IT
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are happening faster and with more powerful results. Powerful AI tools like ChatGPT Used to write malware, term papers and developer code, without the social norms available to govern our behaviors or the laws we need to protect us from harm. Technology often surpasses the social norms governing its use, especially when major innovations occur. Think briefly about texting and driving; It took a decade or more for laws to be written banning texting while driving. The world sent 250 billion texts already in 2002 (source: WSJ). [Have we convinced people of the dangers of texting and driving even today?]
This article explains what ChatGPT is, some of what it can do, and asks important questions about the opportunities and challenges we face.
Primer on ChatGPT:
CyberHoot’s cybersecurity directory of technical terms defines ChatGPT as a conversational chat bot that leverages “Generative Pre-Trained Transformer” (“GPT”) AI algorithms. ChatGPT can chat with users in a grammatically correct way, even correcting others’ grammar. It can write and solve code problems of programmers. It has conversation memory and can refer to past dialogue from the current conversation. He admits mistakes and challenges false assumptions. It can write lyrics to a song. Given a complex topic he can summarize the main points in natural language in ways that students can use for term papers. [Is that ethical?]
Microsoft and Open AI
Back in 2019, Microsoft invested heavily ($1 billion) in open AI, apparently hoping to create a more competitive landscape for search engines by building the ChatGPT language model into BING. Many sources have claimed that BING may publish ChatGPT searches as early as March 2023. According to This article From TheWeek.Co.Uk:
“Generative AI is being hailed as the next era defining technological innovation, changing the way we create new content on the web or even experience the web…“
As generative AI technology improves fake news and biased opinions will become harder to detect. [What will be our source(s) of truth]
Hackers using ChatGPT to create malware
CyberHoot’s attention found articles emerging that hackers are using ChatGPT to write malware code such as ransomware and phishing attacks. OpenAI responded to such criticism by citing its terms and conditions of acceptable use that prohibit using ChatGPT for “any kind of injury”, and is investigating adding watermarks to the output of its AI engine. Multiple articles by security researchers now claim that hackers have adopted ChatGPT to write malware code despite the tools’ built-in checks and balances.
So where does that leave us? What does all this mean for the average SMB owner or employee?
