Privacy meets Artificial Intelligence: The Intersection of Cybersecurity and Leadership

It’s 2023 – is privacy still possible? Much of humanity’s future privacy is reliant on the promise, potential, and caveats of how we handle the power of AI in the coming years. AI is a powerhouse tool with immense potential to help humanity. As we activate and enable this tool in it’s many forms, let’s make sure that we protect our right to privacy, permission, bias-removal, and more.

SwissCognitive Guest Blogger: Kim Scofield, MSc Artificial Intelligence. Founder, Space42 and Blonde Bad Wolf Consulting

With great power comes great responsibility…

It’s 2023.

Is privacy still possible?

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Much of humanity’s future privacy is reliant on the promise, potential, and caveats of how we handle the power of AI in the coming years.

AI is a powerhouse tool with immense potential to help humanity. As we activate and enable this tool in it’s many forms, let’s make sure that we protect our right to privacy, permission, bias-removal, and more.

So… Is privacy still possible? How does “outside access” to your data, including criminal access, affect your world? The voice of each and every person is needed to make sure we ALL have choices.

Warren Buffett famously said

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

So… let’s see what happens when the “tide goes out” on some of the AI in our lives.

Let’s start with a fundamental precept: Convenience, profit, and privacy-loss must balance with societal benefit, data-security, awareness, and transparency.

Loss of privacy can happen through legal, illegal, convenience (hello, Alexa), and buried-in-the-legaleze access to your data.

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” specific data collection?
Who is in charge of our data? How are they securing our data? Remember: AI abilities can be used by both IT and^⁠1

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

Where are we headed

A short list of my AI questions to you (grab coffee – these are important!):

Where is AI headed in 2023?
Will we head down paths of enormous benefit?
Will we head down paths we cannot reverse. but wish that we could?
What will be the cost/benefit to future generations: legal, practical, and privacy?

In a nutshell:

Wherever AI is going – and it is definitely going SOMEWHERE – how will it get there?

Now that is the RIGHT question!

A small start to the answers:

It’s up to you.

It’s up to me.

Join the conversation!

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Challenges

As AI use, and it’s 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. AI familiarity and education for students, consumers, ourselves, politicians, corporate leaders, employees, et al., we may be able to slow the watershed of personal data voluntarily shared through social media, online shopping, fitness devices (FitBit, for example), convenience (how many times do we click “sign in with Google”, or sign up for yet another “rewards card”?) and more.

Our roles are changing. This covers everyone, both inside and outside the AI space. No matter where we are in the ecosystem and in our organization; we all play a part. That “part” is changing, and we need to adapt.

How do we get there

We must advocate for ourself and others. Ask questions about our data, and require accountability in the answers.

This comes back to leadership: holding corporate and government leaders accountable.

When we allow apps like Snapchat^⁠2 to add funny glasses to our webcam image (glasses that follow our movements) or when we use facial recognition to unlock our mobile phone, do we consider how much privacy we lost?

What about the times we are not even aware that AI-powered analysis is being used: “Microsoft is removing emotion recognition features from its facial recognition tech”^⁠3: “It’s not entirely clear just how many major tech companies are using systems meant to read human emotions”

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AI affects us EVERY DAY. It’s important to educate ourselves, to advocate for both ourselves and others, and to be a part of the on-going conversation around AI ethics, cybersecurity, potentially beneficial AI-powered applications, and legal implications across agencies and geo-political borders.

AI can do wondrous things, bringing health and other solutions to our global population, but we must be constantly vigilant – both inside and outside the AI space.

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The call-to-action: communicate.

Ask questions.

Hold leaders accountable. Always.

Hold yourself accountable. Always.

Personal accountability: begins with us.

Corporate, government, and legal accountability: begins at the level of Boards, Directors, CSuites and elected Representatives. This category of leadership is only going to be held accountable – to the degree that it needs to be – if the public is really paying attention (this is a general statement, of course – there are many organizations with high integrity and inspirational leadership).

So let’s pay attention.

No need to be an expert.

Ask questions. Engage those of us within this industry in conversation. Follow organizations like The Algorithmic Justice League,^⁠4 the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)^⁠5, and others. Attend events.

Be objective. Be informed. The basics aren’t as daunting as they may seem at first.

And remember – we are all in this together!

Technology is accelerating, and how it touches each of our lives is important. Let’s break down the silos in 2023 and communicate!

Imagine a world…

Imagine a world where we break down the silos and communicate! I learn more about your world and you learn more about mine. Engage a techie in conversation – or a marketing professional, an investor, a researcher, a CEO… or???

Imagine a world with millions of people who successfully advocate for privacy, safety, and security – both online and offline.

Imagine a world of secure-data AI solutions that bring health benefits, education, inclusion, and life-changing opportunities to places, people, and problems.

Imagine a world where everyone who has access to the internet looks beneath the public veneer of news cycles and sees the real story… making transparency an everyday reality.

The Final Takeaway

AI has amazing potential.

But…

AI has amazing potential. The more we benefit, the more we risk losing our privacy – personally, legally, and geo-politically.

As we work toward to impactful solutions in health, education, food distribution, inclusion, information privacy and more – let’s remember to respect both ourselves AND our technology.

Both will flourish if we stay informed, and make the best long-term decisions we can.

Remember:

Once lost, your privacy is never coming back.
Convenience ALWAYS equates to loss of privacy. The cost may be worth the benefit, but the reality remains: the privacy is lost.

Where is AI headed in 2023??

Where SHOULD AI be headed in 2023??

We need to answer these questions – and many others – together.

AI + PEOPLE

It’s the only option for 2023

Join us and add your voice to the discussion!

¹AI in Cybersecutiry: https://swisscognitive.ch/2022/12/20/ai-in-cybersecurity-do-defenders-or-attackers-benefit-more/

²Snapchat privacy lawsuit, Illinois, 2015-present: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/04/snapchat-users-could-get-money-from-data-privacy-lawsuit-how-to-apply.html

³Microsoft: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/microsoft-removing-emotion-recognition-features-facial-recognition-tec-rcna35087

⁴Algorithmic Justice League (ALJ): https://www.ajl.org/

⁵Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): https://www.eff.org/

About the Author:

Kim Scofield, , MSc Artificial Intelligence, is the Founder and CEO of Blonde Bad Wolf Consulting, and Space42, Kim’s focus is the consulting, leadership, artificial intelligence, digital ethics, blockchain, and cybersecurity. She is a Private Investor with radical policies for investment transparency, integrity, impact, and education.