Tag: Artificial Intelligence

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WHAT TOOLS ARE BEING CREATED TO ENSURE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SECURITY?

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your blockchain and artificial intelligence technology questions are answered!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, was submitted by Ish and he wants to know what tools are being created to ensure artificial intelligence (AI) security?

Ish, you came to the right place.  I did a little research and discovered an excellent report from the RAND Corporation.  Let’s review what they say, but first a word about the Rand Corporation.

The RAND Corporation is a non-profit policy analysis organization.  RAND was established in 1948.  Their mission is to advise governments and large corporation on matters of national importance.  RAND was contracted by the United Kingdom to examine the range of tools designed for the development, deployment and use of trustworthy AI in the United Kingdom and the United States.  Wow!  No easy task, Batman!  What did RAND conclude?

Let’s begin with tools for trustworthy AI.  RAND acknowledges the rather obvious point—there is not a universally accept definition for the term “tools for trustworthy AI”.  However, governments and large institutions have consistently articulated certain principles that would enhance trustworthiness in AI.  Those principles include fairness, transparency, accountability, privacy, safety and explainability.  Notwithstanding the lack of consensus, RAND made the attempt and offered the following definition:

Tools for trustworthy AI are specific approaches or methods to help make AI more trustworthy and can help to bridge the gap between the high-level AI principles and characteristics, on the one hand, and the practical implementation of trustworthy AI, on the other.

Based on their definition, RAND identified far more tools for developing trustworthy AI than what I expected—233 to be precise.  RAND divides the tool set into three categories:  technical, procedural, and educational.  You may be surprised to learn the US depends more on technical professionals and academia to develop AI trust tools when compared to the UK.  Additionally, large US corporation develop more trustworthy AI tools compared to their counterparts in the UK.  The UK prefers procedural methosds and relies less on academia. 

As expected, the RAND study offers a series of recommendations.  RAND offers the following guiding principle:

AI tools need to be complemented by a collaborative and inclusive approach that involves multiple perspectives and actors, such as governments, businesses, civil society, academia and international organizations.  In other words, be willing to listen to voices from across the spectrum.  RAND also suggested governments use the following methodology:

  1.  Link up with relevant stakeholders to proactively track and analyze the landscape of tools for trustworthy AI in the UK, the US and beyond.
  2. Systematically capture experiences and lessons learnt on tools for trustworthy AI, share those insights with stakeholders and use them to anticipate potential future directions.
  3. Promote the consistent use of a common vocabulary for trustworthy AI among stakeholders in the UK and the US.
  4. Encourage the inclusion of assessment processes in the development and use of tools for trustworthy AI to gain a better understanding of their effectiveness.
  5. Continue to partner and build diverse coalitions with international organizations and initiatives, and to promote interoperable tools for trustworthy AI.
  6. Join forces to provide resources such as data and computing power to support and democratize the development of tools for trustworthy AI.

Time to end with a proverb from the UK where they say: Every cloud has its silver lining.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

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CAN YOU LEARN BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY IN MALAYSIA?

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your blockchain and artificial intelligence technology questions are answered!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question was submitted by Ying in Thailand, and she wants to know if she can learn blockchain technology in Malaysia.

Ying, you came to the right place.  Your question shows you are aware that blockchain technology is spreading throughout the world.  The answer is yes, you can learn blockchain technology in Malaysia.  Let’s look at a Malaysian blockchain program and see what they offer.  We begin with the program name.

The name is not particularly creative, but it gets the point across—The Malaysia Blockchain Academy.  Simple and straight forward.  Their physical presence is in their capital, Kuala Lumpur.  A beautiful city, and worth a visit.  I hope to be there later this year.

The academy offers seven on-line courses and one in-person.  I’ll start by talking about the in-person course, named Certified Blockchain Technologist.  According to the Academy, this is an instructor led course designed for anyone who wants to understand blockchain technology.   The course offers to teach blockchain technology using real world examples, case studies and use cases.  By the end of the course you will create your own blockchain and wallet!  If you pass the final and complete a class project, you will earn a certificate that is recognized across the global.  Holy high tech, Batman.  Now an overview of their seven on-line courses.

The Academy does not explicitly indicate the order in which courses should be taken in, nevertheless I will suggest a sequence, beginning with Introduction to Hyperledger Blockchain.  What is Hyperledger Blockchain?  Hyperledger is an open source permissioned blockchain framework designed for global enterprises who want to have advanced privacy controls in place. It was started by The Linux Foundation and now backed by IBM, Intel and SAP Ariba.  What else is available?

Next, I suggest Blockchain Platforms and Framework as that course offers a deep understanding of the technology, with a particular emphasis on IBM technology. Who knows, maybe land a job with IBM?  After you finish those three classes, students are ready for courses four and five, both of which are practical and hands.

I suggest Create a Blockchain Network as the fourth course and Create an App Using Blockchain as the fifth.  These two courses are designed to teach students how to apply the lessons not just theoretical understanding.  That’s awesome, right?  Let’s cover the last three courses.

On to course six, Introduction to Polkadot technology.  I find this offering particularly useful.  Polkadot is a layer one blockchain with a world-wide reach.  Develop an expertise in Polkadot and you are immediately employable or even better create your own company!  Two more courses remain.

Checking in at number seven is a class focused on Fin-Tech.  Fin-Tech is an abbreviation for Financial Technology. Stop and consider all the technology associated with finance and banking and then visualize yourself at the center of that technology.  That is the point of the Fin-Tech class. 

We conclude with a crypto-currency course.  Unfortunately, the common narrative is that blockchain and crypto currency are one and the same.  They are not.  Crypto currency is just one of numerous blockchain applications.  Take this course and understand the technology behind crypto.

Time to go, but first a proverb from Malaysia, where they say:  A tiger dies leaving its stripes, a person dies leaving their name.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

Uncategorized

DID THE WHITE HOUSE CREATE AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SAFETY AND SECURITY BOARD?

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your blockchain and artificial intelligence technology questions are answered!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, comes from Lynn in Florida and she wants to know if the White House created an artificial intelligence safety and security board?

Lynn, you came to the right place.  The answer is yes, the White House did establish an artificial intelligence safety and security board.  Let’s spend the next three minutes examining this situation, including the who, what, why.  We begin with a bit of background.

Last October, President Biden issued an executive order (14110) which directed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish an advisory board that would support the development and management of AI technologies responsibly.  Note, establishing advising boards in Washington is common to the point where there are extensive federal regulations that must be followed, including public notices.  The executive order directed the DHS Secretary to establish the advisory board within 180 days.  DHS made it under the wire Batman! On to the purpose of the Board. 

The purpose includes, but is not limited to, information about emergent risks, threat mitigation guidance, and guardrails for critical infrastructure owners’ and operators’ use of AI, says the Federal Register notice posted on April 29th.  The notice also says, the Board will provide DHS information, advice, and recommendations to advance the security and resilience of our nation’s critical infrastructure in its use of artificial intelligence. Interestingly, the Board has been exempted from the Federal Advisory Committee Act, “…in recognition of the sensitive nature of the subject matter involved.”  Holy government secrets Batman! A word about the Board organization.

Although up to 35 members are permitted, DHS elected to appoint only 22 members.  The Board will meet quarterly. Senior Advisor to the President for Science and Technology, Arati Prabhakar, will function as principal staff.  Although no mention of where the Board will meet, mostly likely and logical, is DHS headquarters. 

Who are the 22 Board members?

  • Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI;
  • Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder, Anthropic;
  • Ed Bastian, CEO, Delta Air Lines;
  • Rumman Chowdhury, Ph.D., CEO, Humane Intelligence;
  • Alexandra Reeve Givens, President and CEO, Center for Democracy and Technology
  • Bruce Harrell, Mayor of Seattle, Washington; Chair, Technology and Innovation Committee, United States Conference of Mayors;
  • Damon Hewitt, President and Executive Director, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law;
  • Vicki Hollub, President and CEO, Occidental Petroleum;
  • Jensen Huang, President and CEO, NVIDIA;
  • Arvind Krishna, Chair and CEO, IBM;
  • Fei-Fei Li, Ph.D., co-director, Stanford Human-centered Artificial Intelligence Institute;
  • Wes Moore, Governor of Maryland;
  • Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft;
  • Shantanu Narayen, Chair and CEO, Adobe;
  • Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet;
  • Arati Prabhakar, Ph.D., Assistant to the President for Science and Technology; and Director, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy;
  • Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO, Cisco; and Chair, Business Roundtable;
  • Adam Selipsky, CEO, Amazon Web Services;
  • Lisa Su, Chair and CEO, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD);
  • Nicol Turner Lee, Ph.D., Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Technology Innovation, Brookings Institution;
  • Kathy Warden, Chair, CEO and President, Northrop Grumman; and
  • Maya Wiley, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Do you see is the intermingling of government and corporate America?  For what purpose, you decide.  I guess we won’t know because the meetings are secret. 

Time to go, but first a proverb from Portugal: To a person who understands half a word is enough.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence, blockchain association

IS THE BIS (BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS) AN HONEST SOURCE REGARDING DECENTRALIZED FINANCE?

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your blockchain and artificial intelligence technology questions are answered!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, was submitted by Rufus and he wants to know whether the Bank for International Settlement (BIS) provided an honest assessment of decentralized finance in their recent report, titled Project Atlas? https://www.bis.org/publ/othp76.pdf

Rufus, you came to the right place.  Correct, the BIS did produce Project Atlas, a report that purports to “map out” the world of decentralized and crypto finance.  Project Atlas was released October 2023 by the BIS’s “Innovation Hub”.  Let’s assess their creditability but first a short description of the BIS. 

BIS is headquartered in Switzerland.  BIS is the bank used by central banks to settle transactions.  Holy epidemy of centralized finance Batman!  BIS says it facilitates international monetary cooperation, financial stability and provides banking services to central banks across the globe. 

BIS has an office dedicated to financial innovations.  However, their Innovation Hub did not feel compelled to create decentralized finance.  Given BIS is the epidemy of concentrated finance and its corresponding power, I suppose decentralized finance was not a priority innovation.

BIS says the rise of decentralized finance poses threats and risk.  The BIS is correct. There are threats, there are risks.  The more important questions are, who is threaten and who is at risk by the rise of decentralized finance and crypto? 

According to BIS, central bank regulators are becoming increasingly apprehensive about the scale of crypto markets and their integration with traditional finance.  I can’t help but point out BIS believes research integrity starts by asking central bankers if decentralized finance is a problem! Why not ask central bankers if centralized banking is a problem or what are the problems with centralized banking?  Sorry, for the rude observation Batman!  And, although commercial banks have minimal exposure to crypto markets say the BIS, they are nevertheless nervous.  If that sounds contradictory you are not alone. Let’s move on. 

BIS cites failure of two crypto projects, FTX and Terra, as examples of the “pitfalls” of unregulated finance markets but fails to note neither required taxpayer bailouts.  In other words, decentralized finance poses a threat and risk because business failure is punished with financial loss not rescued by middle class taxpayers. Perhaps BIS has a right to fear the public asking, “why when decentralized finance fails there are no taxpayer bailouts but when traditional finance fails, we are stuck with the bill?”  That indeed is a threat and risk.

BIS says the gaps in their ability to collect decentralize finance data is a threat and risk.  BIS says:

Project Atlas seeks to answer the question: how can central banks harness technologies to gain insights into DeFi markets and gather more reliable and comprehensive statistics on crypto ecosystems?

In other words, BIS, and fellow compadres, want to maintain control.  Their innovation hub consists not to create new technology offering greater freedom; their innovation hub is dedicated to researching how to extend and maintain the incumbent system; a system they own and employ to control the world’s financial system.  Holy transparent agenda Batman!

I will cease but not before pointing out Project Atlas true innovation is it shows centralized finance is threaten by crypto and decentralized finance.  That’s a big deal.

Time to hit the road, but first a proverb from Paraguay: If it doesn’t rain it doesn’t leak, says the man with a damaged roof.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence

WHAT IS THE STATE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your blockchain and artificial intelligence technology questions are answered!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, was submitted by Jayesh and he wants to know what is the state of artificial intelligence?

Jayesh, you came to the right place; I have your answer.  Last week Stanford University Institute for Human Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) released a 500-page report titled, AI Index: The State of AI in 13 charts. The report contains fascinating findings.  Let’s cover the highlights beginning with foundation models by access types in 2023.

A foundation model serves as the fundamental architecture upon which more specialized models are built.  For instance, ChatGPT is a well-known foundation model.  In 2023, there were 149 foundation models released. Fortunately, 66% were open source, meaning they can be freely used and modified by anyone.  In 2021 and 2022, only 31% and 44% were open sourced.  That’s the good news.  The “bad news” –closed source models outperformed open-source models across 10 benchmarks.  Holy lagging behind, Batman!  What about quantity you ask?

When it comes to quantity of AI foundation models in 2023, Google is the leader.  Google released 18, second place Meta knocked out 11, winning the bronze medal was Microsoft with 9.  OpenAI earned honorable mention with 7 models.  One point to consider is the close relationship between Microsoft and Open AI; Microsoft owns 49% of Open AI.  Hence, perhaps a more precise analysis would be to blend the production of Microsoft and Open AI. 

We move onto foundation model by economic sectors and the result is no thunderbolt. If you guessed industry (private for-profit corporations) dominates foundation models, Bingo, move to the head of the class.  With 108 foundation models released in 2023, industry is the epicenter of activity.  Academia lags far behind at only 28, and government is microscopic with only 4 models. 

Building foundation models is expensive.  HAI reports Google spent about $191B, yes, $191B with a “B” to build the Gemini foundation model.  OpenAI, and its ChatGPT came in second with an estimated $78B price tag.  Given these are industry models, investors will expect a return on investments.  Will free models to fade into oblivion in the future?  Let’s see. Speaking of money, private investment in AI is down from the 2021 peak.  Perhaps this explains why ChaptGPT was a sensation in 2022 and 2023 (reaping the results of previous investments?).  Maybe.  HAI reports $96B was spent in 2023, of which 25% went to generative AI.  And of course, private investment dominated in the US. 

What countries are leading the AI race?  Answer:  US and China.  According to HAI, the US released 61 notable foundation models, whereas China had only 15 and the UK 8. 

Let’s wrap up with three more findings, starting with the top five AI corporate adoption use cases.  HAI reports the high flying five are:  contact center automation (26%); personalization (23%); customer acquisition (22%); AI based enhancements of products (22%) and creation of new AI-based products (19%).  When it comes to global opinion, 57% believe AI will change their job in the next five years, 35% say AI is unlikely to impact their job, and 8% are clueless.  Ha, ha! Nervous about AI?  Join the 69% of British nervous Nellies; or perhaps instead chill with South Koreans, where only 44% are nervous.

Time to say goodbye, but first a proverb from Cameroon: Rain does not fall on one roof alone.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson