A friend of mine was at my house the other day and as we were sitting in my kitchen talking my iPhone, which was sitting on the counter beside me, interrupted our discussion and said, “I didn’t understand that”. Then a few minutes later my Amazon Alexa randomly started playing music. It is a little disconcerting to know my devices are listening in to everything I say. I know that they are programmed to try to assist me, but it also feels a little intrusive.
New technologies often bring both optimism and concerns. And few technologies have had the power to reshape our lives like AI can and will. Many people have concerns about how it will impact their job, their security, their assets and their retirement.
Movies like “Terminator”, I, Robot, The Matrix and others haven’t help ease our concerns. They generate visions in our minds on what will happen as AI progresses and ultimately becomes “self-aware” as in “Terminator”. Those movies probably don’t help as our minds can gravitate to the scariest conclusions.
Traditional AI has been around for over 50 years, but we are rapidly transitioning into Generative AI, which is a type of artificial intelligence that can create completely new content, such as text, images, music, audio and code. Traditional AI was designed to analyze data, find patterns, and classify existing information but Generative AI learns the underlying structure of its training data to generate fresh, unique outputs that closely resemble human-made creations such as composing original soundtracks or artwork, cloning voices and generating video clips from text descriptions.
I recently listened to an analyst talking about some of the unforeseen benefits of AI, such as with autonomous electric vehicles. She commented that soon owners will be able to have their car take them to work, drop them off and then go and make money for the owner through a ride share service like Uber and then come back to pick them up at the end of the day. The thought of that had never even crossed my mind.
We often have a hard time envisioning what the world of AI will look like as it develops but there will most certainly be many benefits and advantages as well as some downsides and dangers. Unlike a minor inconvenience like having my iPhone randomly ask me a question in my kitchen, we will need to be much more vigilant on protecting ourselves, our identities and our assets from more sophisticated scammers and bad actors who are now using AI to better fool individuals into sending them money. A scammer can now take a 10 second voice recording and generate a conversation that sounds exactly like that person.
Why do so many people fall for these scams? The scammers do their homework. They have evolved significantly beyond random robocalls. They pull public data online and often know your full name, address, and even social security number or family details. They are successfully tricking highly educated professionals, young adults and seniors alike by using highly sophisticated psychological tactics. And now with the assistance of AI, it will be even harder to determine if you are getting a call from a loved one or a scammer who is impersonating them.
The best takeaway is to NEVER send money to ANYONE who says that you need to send it now or pressures you, even if it sounds like someone you know or someone official. Hang up RIGHT AWAY and call the person or place they are impersonating to see if it was them. The longer you stay on the line, the more likely you are to become a victim.
Another thing every person should have is a good identity theft protection service. I wrote about this in a blog last September. It is relatively inexpensive and can help identify fraudulent activity before it can cause major problems. Baird has secured special pricing for our clients with an identity theft protection service called ID Watchdog. Call someone on our team if you are interested in finding out more about it or click on the link below for more details and how to sign up.
CLICK HERE to view ID Watchdog information
Enjoy the remaining days of summer!
Kurt
“The purpose of AI is to amplify human ingenuity, not replace it.”
~ Satya Nadella