Category «Technology Trends»

Software is increasingly being built by AI – so it’s vital to know if it can be trusted

Software is ubiquitous, powering almost every aspect of our lives. The computerised systems in your car alone incorporate tens of millions of lines of code. The increasing digital transformation of our society means that demand for more and better software is likely to continue into the future. Researchers, technologists and data scientists Iván Alfonso and Jordi Cabot. highlight a critical dilemma with the acceleration of AI in all facets of our lives. There are not enough human programmers to build all this software. This means that more and more of the software you use every day is built with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI). Software developers are already very familiar with tools such as GitHub Copilot, a kind of ChatGPT for programmers. It works something like a smart autocomplete tool to increase the productivity of human programmers. But we are now witnessing a more radical revolution, where AI “agents” are poised to carry out many types of development tasks on behalf of human programmers. Agents are programs that use AI to perform tasks and achieve specific objectives for a human user. AI agents can learn and make decisions with some level of autonomy, though they are still under human supervision.

Subjects: AI, KM, Legal Profession, Legal Research, Technology Trends

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 29, 2025

Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex and wide ranging ways technology is used to compromise and diminish our privacy and online security, often without our situational awareness. Five highlights from this week: Google Confirms Gmail Upgrade – 3 Billion Users Must Now Decide; What is Signal, the app where Trump officials texted war plans?; Even More Venmo Accounts Tied to Trump Officials in Signal Group Chat Left Data Public; NIST releases finalized guidelines on protecting AI from attacks; Canada – We partner with world-renowned scambusters to create our own fraud-fighting call centre.

Subjects: AI, Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Encryption, Privacy, Search Engines, Search Strategies, Social Media, Technology Trends

A Digital Extension of Historical Bias: Arab Americans and the New Frontier of Algorithmic Discrimination

The integration of artificial intelligence into U.S. national security operations has automated and amplified discriminatory practices established in the post-9/11 era, creating unprecedented barriers for Arab Americans. This paper by Natalie Abdou examines how AI systems deploy overlapping forms of bias through facial recognition technology, language processing, and automated screening, producing a uniquely destructive form of compound discrimination that is more pervasive and harder to challenge than traditional bias.

Subjects: 9-11-2001, AI, Civil Liberties, Patriot Act, Privacy, Technology Trends, Travel

Fake papers are contaminating the world’s scientific literature, fueling a corrupt industry and slowing legitimate lifesaving medical research

Over the past decade, furtive commercial entities around the world have industrialized the production, sale and dissemination of bogus scholarly research, undermining the literature that everyone from doctors to engineers rely on to make decisions about human live. To better understand the scope, ramifications and potential solutions of this metastasizing assault on science, Frederik Joelving, contributing editor at Retraction Watch, a website that reports on retractions of scientific papers and related topics, and two computer scientists at France’s Université Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier and Cyril Labbé , and Guillaume Cabanac, Université Grenoble Alpes who specialize in detecting bogus publications – spent six months investigating paper mills.

Subjects: AI, Education, Health, Healthcare, KM, Medical Research, Technology Trends

Automakers are collecting sensitive data and selling it without your permission

The public is increasingly familiar with the scale of data collection, surveillance, marketing and sale, and privacy violations that routinely occur when using apps, browsers, social media, the internet, and cell phones. But extensive data collection and privacy violations also routinely occurs when we use cars and trucks [regardless of manufacturer], much if not all of it likely without our knowledge or consent. Sabrina I. Pacifici’s article will inform you about how, where, when and by whom your transportation data is collected, and ways in which is it used, including sale by data brokers.

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Legal Research, Privacy, Spyware, Technology Trends, Travel

AI in Finance and Banking, December 31, 2024

This semi-monthly column by Sabrina I. Pacifici highlights news, government documents, NGO/IGO papers, conferences, industry white papers and reports, academic papers and speeches, and central bank actions on the subject of AI’s fast paced impact on the banking and finance sectors. The chronological links provided are to the primary sources, and as available, indicate links to alternate free versions. Five highlights from this post: Report on the Uses, Opportunities and Risks of Artificial Intelligence in the Financial Services Sector; How AI could change the work of bank CEOs; US Treasury Releases Reports on AI in Financial Services; IMF – Artificial Intelligence, Dollar, Growth, and Debt Drove 2024 Blog Readership; and OECD – Artificial Intelligence and tourism.

Subjects: AI in Banking and Finance, Big Data, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Privacy, Technology Trends

Yes, I am a human’: bot detection is no longer working – and just wait until AI agents come along

Welcome to the strange battle between bot detection and AI, which is set to get even more complicated in the coming years as technology continues to improve. Professors Irfan Mehmood and Kamran Mahroof describe what the future after Captcha may look like.

Subjects: AI, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Privacy, Search Engines, Search Strategies, Technology Trends

1 in 6 Congresswomen Targeted by AI-Generated Sexually Explicit Deepfakes

A first-of-its-kind study highlights the stark gender disparity in AI-generated nonconsensual intimate images and puts into focus the evolving risks for women in politics and public life. By Barbara Rodriguez and Jasmine Mithan.

Subjects: AI, Communications, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Legal Research, Pornography, Privacy, Social Media, Technology Trends, United States Law