Big Data & Analytics - Thinks & Links | April 23, 2023

Author

Randy Lariar
March 28, 2024

I spent some time this week in the great state of Michigan speaking to several different groups about AI, ChatGPT, Cyber Security, and a whole host of related topics. Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and their teams came out for breakfasts, lunches, and dinners where everyone had questions about AI. The conversations were animated and exciting! We discussed how these new AI models work, what risks they introduce (Cyber and otherwise), and what to do about it. We also touched on fun topics like the future of work, the ethics of AI, and if we’re all living in a simulation.

The conversations were engaging and they were also truly validating that we’re all thinking about the same things. AI - particularly LLM technology - is being figured out as we go, together this year. The increased focus on AI this year is impacting all our businesses.

Here's what we’re hearing from our clients:

  • Everyone is very interested to know how everyone else is responding to AI / ChatGPT

  • Many CISOs and teams are getting Executive and Board pressure to begin integrating AI into business processes, many are worried about the variety of risks this may introduce

  • Everyone wants use cases - how are other firms using ChatGPT / LLMs – the most common use cases I heard were:

  1. Coding and query creation

  2. Researching various error message and topics (with caution)

  3. Cutting over databases – using ChatGPT to re-write sanitized SQL queries

  4. Write documents - or at least get a solid first draft

  • Everyone who is using the OpenAI model is very concerned about exposure to lawsuits, ownership of the data and results of the tools

  • Some clients have already begun building internal Large Language Models so that they can avoid the privacy and legal risks of using OpenAI's tools

  • All agree this will lead to a significant shift in the workforce over the coming years

What does this mean for you?

  • Artificial Intelligence - once a subject reserved for science fiction and data nerds (yours truly) is mainstream and universally applicable to every service and product in the market

  • Service providers will need adjust to consider AI implications of the work they provide - both in the solutions they help provide as well as how they do their business more efficiently using AI.

  • Products are already introducing LLMs into their features. So even if a client builds no AI themselves, these models will continue to become more influential in how their technology operates

  • The Hype is Strong - with vendors and consultants, and we at Optiv can play a valuable role as a Trusted Advisor in this space. Engagement on this topic can differentiate us from our competitors and truly help our clients Securing Greatness - if we do the work now to learn about the various opportunities and risks these models introduce

Former OpenAI Team at Anthropic: Invest in NIST for AI

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is working on AI measurement and standards setting efforts, but Anthropic believes increasing funding would be critical to allow for faster and better creation of measures of AI assurance, safety, trust, and innovation. This could lead to a path for system certification that could pair with policy levers for responsible AI.

Headed to RSA Next Week? Check Out This Session on Pen Testing and AI

Davi Ottenheimer will be speaking about testing and AI/ML models, including how we need to think not just about how the model can be defeated, but how it is deployed so that some of the obvious exploits are never exposed. Ottenheimer wrote a great article on this last week.

ChatGPT + Elasticsearch

How to use a powerful Chatbot with a powerful search engine

Stack Overflow Would Like to be Paid for Training LLMs

Code creation is arguably one of the most incredible features of LLMs. You type a barely grammatical sentence in and have working code out in seconds. This capability was enabled by OpenAI reading an unknown number of technical data sources – very likely including Stack Overflow. There’s going to be some interesting discussions about ownership and copyright as these sources try to either get paid or be removed from commercially available LLMs. The usage rights of code generated by ChatGPT are also still TBD. AI is many things, but it is most certainly going to be a gold rush for lawyers (and AI bots trained to act as them)

AI has mastered SQL

This article walks through the reasoning behind the statement that data base searching via the SQL language is now a solved problem by AI. The article reviews several different operations and logical steps that the AI has to know to handle any SQL query. Perhaps not surprising today – but mind-blowing just a few weeks ago – it scores a 98.9% accuracy in this author’s testing.

Have A Great Weekend!