Daily Tech Digest - November 11, 2024

What if robots learned the same way genAI chatbots do?

To unlock further potential in robotic learning, training objectives beyond supervised learning, such as self-supervised or unsupervised learning, should be investigated. It is important to grow the datasets with diverse, high-quality data. This could include teleoperation data, simulations, human videos, and deployed robot data. Researchers need to learn the optimal blend of data types for higher HPT success rates. Researchers and later industry will need to create standardized virtual testing grounds to facilitate the comparison of different robot models. ... Think of it as giving robots more demanding, more realistic challenges to solve. Scientists are also looking into how the amount of data, the size of the robot’s “brain” (model), and its performance are connected. Understanding this relationship could help us build better robots more efficiently. Another exciting area is teaching robots to understand different types of information. This could include 3D maps of their surroundings, touch sensors, and even data from human actions. By combining all these different inputs, robots could learn to understand their environment more like humans do. All these research ideas aim to create smarter, more versatile robots that can handle a wider range of tasks in the real world. 


Chief AI Officers: Should Every Business Have One?

The CAIO's mandate extends beyond technical oversight. These leaders define their company's AI vision, bring solutions to market and establish ethical governance frameworks, Laqab said. Their systems address data privacy protection and eliminate bias in AI implementations while aligning with organizational objectives. At Ascendion, every data scientist and machine learning engineer develops solutions under stringent guidelines, which Laqab describes as "prioritizing rigorous planning and transparency" - an approach critical in regulated sectors such as healthcare and finance where trustworthy AI proves essential. ... CAIOs work in strategic partnership with CIOs and CTOs to integrate AI capabilities into organizational systems. Laqab underscored the importance of unified planning where AI leaders and technology teams implement initiatives without duplicating or straining resources. This approach builds cross-functional momentum, enabling CAIOs to embed AI in broader processes while maximizing existing IT investments and supporting overall strategy. ... "Just as the CDO emerged to manage data, the CAIO is essential for navigating the complex landscape of AI technologies. 


New research reveals AI adoption on rise, but challenges remain in data governance & ROI realisation

Commenting on the survey, Noshin Kagalwalla, Vice President & Managing Director, SAS India, said: “Indian companies are undoubtedly making progress in AI adoption, but significant work remains. The challenge lies not only in deploying AI but also in a way that it is trustworthy, scalable, and aligned with long-term business objectives. Strategic investments in data governance and AI infrastructure will be crucial to driving sustainable AI performance across industries in India.” “The disparity in target outcomes between AI Leaders and AI Followers demonstrates a lack of clear strategy and roadmap. Where AI Followers are focused on short-term, productivity-based results, AI Leaders have moved beyond these to more complex functional and industry use cases,” said Shukri Dabaghi, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific and EMEA Emerging at SAS. “As businesses look to capitalise on the transformative potential of AI, it’s important for business leaders to learn from the differences between an AI Leader and an AI Follower. Avoiding a ‘gold rush’ way of thinking ensures long-term transformation is built on trustworthy AI and capabilities in data, processes and skills,” said Mr. Dabaghi.


4 reasons why veterans thrive as cybersecurity professionals

Through their military experience, veterans learn to combat the most sophisticated adversaries in existence and adopt an apex attacker’s perspective. Many of today’s malicious actors are not lone individuals wearing a hoodie and operating from a cybercafe; they’re highly skilled, well-funded nation-state actors or part of a larger cybercrime group that operates like a corporate organization. Dealing with such high-level adversaries requires defenders who are trained specifically to combat their techniques. Many veterans are trained extensively in red team attack simulations, in which they pose as an attacker and attempt to breach an organization’s systems to assess vulnerabilities and boost the organization’s security posture. This training is used to combat nation-state attackers, with military members engaging in monthly or multi-year attack simulations. ... Maintaining security requires a distinct mentality where your approach meets the dedication of the threat actor trying to hack into your system. Veterans can become skilled in specialized areas like hunting for advanced adversaries within security systems. They know that adversaries can be relentless in their attempts and can be adept in providing relentless defense.


Responsible AI starts with transparency

Today, most foundational AI models have been trained on data scrubbed from the public internet, so it’s essentially impossible for users to understand the dataset at web scale. Even the model providers themselves aren’t always able to fully understand the composition of their own training data when it’s pulled from so many different sources across the entire internet. Even if they were, they wouldn’t be required to disclose that information to model users. This lack of data transparency is one reason that using publicly available AI models may not be appropriate for enterprises. However, there are ways to work around this. For instance, you can build proxy models, which are simple models used to approximate the results of your more complex AI models. Building a good proxy model requires you to balance the tradeoff between simplicity and accuracy. Nevertheless, even a very simple approximated model can help you understand how each feature of a model impacts its predictions. ... When it comes to building trust, it’s impossible to fully separate your AI models from the humans who use them. Humans naturally want to have some control over the tools they use; if you can’t give employees that sense of control, it’s unlikely they’ll continue to use AI.


Combating Cybercrime: What to Expect From Trump Presidency?

Trump is no stranger to combating cybercrime. His first administration updated the National Cyber Strategy for the first time in 15 years. "The administration will push to ensure that our federal departments and agencies have the necessary legal authorities and resources to combat transnational cybercriminal activity, including identifying and dismantling botnets, dark markets and other infrastructure used to enable cybercrime," it said. Especially where nation-state attacks are concerned, defending forward - disrupting malicious cyber activity at its source - has been U.S. military doctrine since 2018. But experts also see blemishes on Trump's cyber track record, including his axing the top cybersecurity coordinator role in the White House, weakening cyber diplomacy - a core strategy for tackling cybercrime safe havens - and firing the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which helps improve domestic resilience. Whether the U.S. continues its strategy of naming and shaming cybercriminals it can't reach, often in Russia, is unclear. Ian Thornton-Trump, a veteran CISO who formerly served with the Military Intelligence Branch of the Canadian Forces, predicts the administration could redirect resources to focus more on China and deemphasize the naming, shaming and disruption of Russian criminals' operations.


Transforming Enterprise Networks With AIOps: A New Era of Intelligent Connectivity

One of the primary benefits of AIOps is its ability to enhance intelligent network management. In today's complex network environments, optimizing performance and ensuring seamless connectivity in a continuously changing fabric is critical. AIOps provides insights across the various IT domains (e.g., application, security, infrastructure, etc.) that help networking professionals identify areas for improvement, automate routine tasks, and maintain optimal network performance. By leveraging AI-driven analytics, organizations can ensure that their networks are always running smoothly, reducing downtime and improving overall efficiency. ... AIOps is paving the way for the creation of autonomous networks that didn't materialize during the era of software-defined networking or intent-based networking. These initiatives claimed to create self-managing, self-healing networks that could adapt to changing conditions and demands with minimal human intervention, except a crucial element was missing: AIOps. AIOps highlights areas where automation can be implemented, allowing networks to respond dynamically to issues and changes in the environment. 


CIOs to spend ambitiously on AI in 2025 — and beyond

The big investments in generative AI may eventually rival traditional cloud investments but that does not mean top cloud providers — all of whom are top AI platforms providers — will suffer. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform are enabling the massive amount of gen AI experimentation and planned deployment of AI next year, IDC points out. ... “In the near term, most enterprises are focusing on automation and productivity use cases that can be implemented without fundamentally changing business processes,” McCarthy adds. “However, the higher value use cases involve new business models, which require widespread organizational change.” Stephen Crowley, senior advisor for S&L Ventures and former CIO of global technology solutions at Covetrus, still sees that future as a little way off. “Building the foundation is different from moving to production with AI apps. I think that will take longer,” he says. ... The risks of accidentally exposing sensitive corporate data or designing gen AI models that fly afield of their intended missions are also top of mind for Dairyland Power’s Melby, who is working with a Microsoft partner to deploy Copilot and Azure OpenAI capabilities to employees in a secure manner.


Building a workplace culture that supports mental well-being: A guide

Balancing productivity and employee well-being can be challenging but achievable. Creating a supportive work environment makes employees more likely to be engaged and productive. This approach not only benefits employees but also drives better business outcomes. ... To co-relate this model to mental health in the workplace, we can consider the inner foundational level as the basic needs and rights that must be met for employees, such as fair wages, job security, and a healthy work-life balance ... The inner circle or foundational level showcases the basic needs and rights of employees. Ensuring employees have fair wages, access to mental health resources, supportive management, and a healthy work-life balance. Avoid overwork, and reduce workplace stressors. The middle circle depicts evolved workplaces. A mental health mature workplace will invest in engaged employees, leaders who walk the talk, policies that ensure employees thrive, and psychological safety and the necessary infrastructure, sensitization and practice to support employee well-being and growth. The outer circle depicts a sustainable mental health positive culture that balances and is focused on achieving higher levels of maturity in culture and processes. 


7 reasons security breach sources remain unknown

As attacks become more sophisticated it can become more difficult to unpack the cause of problems, says Raj Samani, SVP and chief scientist at security firm Rapid7. “We must acknowledge that many threat groups take measures to obfuscate their tracks, invariably making any investigation more challenging,” he says. “However, this is often only part of the reason why identifying the source of the breach is so difficult.” Samani adds: “Whilst technologies will aid the investigation, the time spent retroactively reviewing such incidents often competes with the urgency of the next issue, or indeed, the demand to get the environment operational again.” Many breaches are detected long after they occur, and delays make it harder to identify root causes. Here, time is on the side of an attacker, with computer forensic capabilities fading over time as data is amended, overwritten, and deleted. “Hackers are always finding new ways to blend into regular network traffic, so even the best detection systems can end up playing a never-ending game of ‘whack-a-mole’ with threats,” says Peter Wood, CTO at Spectrum Search. “And while the systems might flag something suspicious, figuring out exactly where it started is another story altogether.”



Quote for the day:

“Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.” -- Theodore Levitt

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