AI: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

AI gives you the tools to do a lot of things in a fraction of the time they used to require. But using AI has its privacy costs, and trying to avoid them can lead to some really bad consequences. AI also doesn’t always get things right.

The most important thing you need to know about AI is that it’s not private. As soon as you put something into AI, it’s out in the world. AI makes its living by collecting data from the internet – lots of data at lightning-fast speed and often without permission. That means they frequently gather sensitive information without your knowledge or consent, and that data can be used for purposes you didn’t agree to, raising ethical concerns. AI can also enable unchecked surveillance, and when you combine that with the vast amounts of data stored by AI systems, you could be set up for the heightened risk of unauthorized access and data breaches. That’s bad and ugly.

Protecting your privacy takes some work. Best practices include never sharing sensitive information, actively controlling data settings, and using approved AI tools. Additionally, regularly deleting past chat histories and reading privacy policies can help ensure better data security. To be anonymous, consider using tools that run locally on your device instead of cloud-based services, and utilize a secure browser with privacy features. You can also use a VPN and sign up with a disposable email address to further protect your identity. DO NOT try to use the dark web. I have some good “street smarts” in the internet world, but these streets are populated by some really bad people. You can easily stumble into a really bad place and be ruined. It’s not like a game.

You also need to remember that AI is not always correct or all that smart. AI can provide wrong answers, so it’s up to you to make sure you verify any information you get from it. A wrong answer could create a life-and-death situation, a costly business decision, or a major inconvenience – just to name a few.

But what I find really frustrating is when Copilot puts you into a loop that is not related in any way to what you’re trying to do. I understand how computers work – they’re anal – but you are supposed to be able to use plain English get your work done or get information. I got into some serious verbal tiffs with my AI; it was really ugly.

However, if you check and double-check AI and really stay on top of it, the technology can work wonders. As an example, I was able to create in just a few hours a travel itinerary that combined independent travel and a cruise. It got us down to the minute we would arrive in various locations, and in the next-to-the-last stage, it gave us choices of hotels that met specific criteria. On the downside, it included a hotel that doesn’t exist, but the beauty was that as I continued to feed it information, it kept narrowing down our options to those that were more acceptable. The lesson from this exercise is that you have to verify all the information, but the bottom line is that it saved me days of work.

We can help you peel away the bad and the ugly to get to the good stuff in AI. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to see how you can keep your corporate data safe and prevent employees from leaking sensitive information. We can set up rules for how your system uses AI. Our new security software tools provide safeguards if you choose to use them.

Copilot is My God?

We likely don’t realize how much AI plays a role in our daily lives. You know those annoying phone trees, the ones that don’t seem to ask the right questions for your problem or offer a good answer or access to a real human being? That’s AI at work. They drive me nuts, but what keeps me awake is who has access to my data?

Many of our customers are turning to Microsoft Copilot to access the power of AI, and if you’re thinking about doing it, here are a couple of things to consider.

As you’ll discover upfront, there’s a free version and a paid version. The main difference is that free Copilot is a basic AI assistant with web-grounded chat and limited image creation. The paid Copilot Pro and Microsoft 365 Copilot offer deeper integration with Microsoft apps, priority access to advanced models, and higher usage limits. I can use ChatGPT to create Excel formulas for my data, but it’s the paid version that accesses my data.

AI carries a number of risks, including data poisoning, adversarial attacks, and privacy leakage, which can compromise a model’s integrity and sensitive data. There’s also the potential for model theft and vulnerabilities in the supply chain and APIs. Let’s focus on risks related to data, privacy, and model integrity.

  • Privacy Leakage: AI models trained on sensitive data may inadvertently leak that information through their outputs. This includes data inversion and membership inference attacks, where attackers try to extract private information about the training data.
  • Model Stealing: Attackers can reverse-engineer or replicate an AI model by analyzing its outputs, which can be used for malicious purposes or to steal intellectual property.
  • Data Breaches: AI systems often require large amounts of data, making them attractive targets for data theft. A breach can expose sensitive personal, financial, or proprietary information.

Whether you use AI or not, Windows 11 and your computer play key roles in your security. All computers are not created equal. If you do a lot of work with Copilot, your computer may not cut it. You should have a computer with a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of processing 40 TOPS – 40 trillion operations per second. Anything less than that will require your computer to offload data from your CPU and graphics card by sending it to the cloud.

Sending it to the cloud involves a security risk, no matter how small the risk may be, and that’s a breach opportunity. Sending data to the cloud also slows you down. If your computer can keep all your work local, it’s faster and more private.

Windows-based computer chips that run 40+ TOPS or more are the specialized Neural Processing Units (NPUs) in new “Copilot+ PCs,” which include processors from Intel’s Lunar Lake series and upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite/Plus chips. These are not standard CPUs like the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, which does not meet the requirement.

Computers capable of 40 TOPS start at around $600 to $700. More powerful and versatile models can cost more than $1,000, but prices could be much higher, depending on the NPU or if it uses a more expensive, high-performance GPU, which can add significant cost for graphics-intensive tasks. In addition, you likely will have licensing fees depending on what you’re doing and how many computers are doing the work.

We can help you assess your AI needs and sort through myriad options for Copilot licenses and the computers needed to accomplish the tasks you require. AI can require a large investment, which requires intensive investigation. Contact us by phone – 973-433-6676 – or email to set up an appointment to start the investigation process.