The Five Most Key Takeaways from This Article
- A new wave of A.I.-enhanced devices like laptops and smartphones will be rolling out in the coming years.
- The fact is, it is doubtful that tech companies will offer versions of these devices without the A.I. upgrades. As such, it is wise for individuals, but especially business owners, to be aware of the potential privacy and security issues of these devices.
- One of the big worries is that these devices will be spending a lot more memory on running the A.I. features. And as a result, more and more data—some of which could be quite sensitive, like your customers’ credit card numbers—will be sent to a cloud. (Some tech companies promise to encrypt and/or “scramble” the data so that it is safe off your device.)
- Just recently, Microsoft delayed the rollout of Recall, which is like A.I. with a photographic memory of the data on your device. This delay came after security experts pointed out that hackers could access just about everything you’ve done and seen on your device.
- Business owners will need to encourage employees to practice safer communications and sharing of sensitive company data (e.g., trade secrets) once these devices become the norm. It may even be necessary in some cases to look into ways to encrypt company data and communications.
The Tradeoff of A.I. Devices
Every economist worth however much salt an economist is worth knows that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
To tech-ify this reality, there is no such thing as a bonus feature on a device that magically improves its functioning without some impact on performance or other important aspects.
And one of those important aspects is the privacy and security of a device’s users.
In the case of the upcoming generations of A.I.-enhanced devices, the tradeoff will consist of A.I. features that can bring new levels of convenience and efficiency to the use of our devices, at the cost of giving more and more on-device data to A.I. systems, and even off-device clouds.
How Should Business Owners Approach Data Security in the Age of A.I.?
This writer advocates for a nice dash of, well, we could use the word “caution” but that seems almost mild here.
Because, after all, a cautious person may very well feel reassured by leading tech companies’ claims that your data will be just fine, thank you, no need to worry.
But really, as most professional computer-whiz hackers can attest, there is (almost) always a backdoor to sensitive data.
And so, let us go with something a tad stronger…how about…ooh, got it, let us go with “paranoia”.
Just a little bit of that, okay?
Yes, this writer knows, American intellectuals have been dissecting the problem of paranoia for some time now (generations, really), both affirming and critiquing it, but what level of paranoia about privacy and security will be useful (meaning productive, meaning profitable or how about maybe just profit-saving) to business owners?
Company Culture and Device Use
For this writer, that would involve instructing employees, whether on-site or remote, to be wary of what they type and view on their computers.
Or even say on their phones.
Of course, we all are semi-conscious of how what we say around even our seemingly idling (they are never quite turned off, are they?) smartphones can directly affect the ads that pop up on our social media feeds.
But new A.I.-equipped phones will have more tasks to perform involving data on a customer’s device. Among these tasks is lighting-fast information retrieval. So instead of having to do all that work digging through your email to find a certain email, you can just ask the A.I. info-retriever to find the email based on a description of it.
And it is not as if in-person meetings will make it even easier because, you know, the whole “they’re listening” thing about these smart devices.
But to bring back the classic free lunch metaphor from the field of economics, the cost of this convenience is less data privacy.
Investing in Data Security Solutions
There may arise new companies hawking encryption methods for better securing your company’s data. Methods in the interest of protecting e.g. certain trade secrets that at one point in time would have been in one of those vaults with spy-movie levels of authentication.
And so, cybersecurity solutions will likely become much more important as time goes on.
Of course, those are already important, but especially in the age of A.I.
As far as what those cybersecurity solutions would entail, one would imagine some of the top services would involve data encryption software that can keep companies’ sensitive data more secure.
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