Will You Be Better Off Working For An AI Boss?-DIGIT Tech News Roundup

Welcome to the latest edition of the DIGIT Tech News Roundup.

In this week’s newsletter, we will cover some of our top-trending tech news stories, features and op-eds from the week beginning the 12th of August.

This week, we look at key emerging ransomware trends, a report on the data skills gap, Smart Data Foundry's Synthetic Data Product, and offer a warning about not getting romantically-involved with AI.

All this and more below.

OpenAI Warns of AI-Induced Romantic Attachments

OpenAI, the American artificial intelligence research organisation and developer of Chat-GPT, have published an extensive safety report which lays bare the risks of their latest AI model, and the work it has done to mitigate the dangers.

Among the new system’s vulnerabilities are unauthorised voice generation, the use of copyrighted content, risks of misinformation, and creating harmful audio output. 

According to OpenAI, tests also revealed that the AI model could have a societal impact, with users showing evidence of creating emotional bonds with the system, even romantic attachments, in telling the AI things like ‘This is our last day together’.

In a blog post discussing their findings, OpenAI admitted that as AI models like GPT-4o become more human-like, it could have an adverse impact on human-to-human interactions, and affect healthy relationships, with people choosing to spend more time with the AI and less in the ‘real-world’. 

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Smart Data Foundry Launches “World First” Synthetic Data Product

Smart Data Foundry (SDF), the Edinburgh-based data innovation organisation, has launched what’s been called the world’s first self-service, agent-based synthetic data generation product.

SDF has released version 2.0 of its Aizle platform, which allows users to independently generate secure, high-quality synthetic data without the need for real data as input nor specialised data science expertise.

Aizle requires no real input data, as AI agents simulate the activities of synthetic people and businesses within a customisable framework of behavioural rules and patterns. This generates data about people’s jobs, spending, and financial relationships, as well as business’ bills, cashflow, and obligations.

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A Quarter of UK Adults Think AI Bosses Will be “Fairer”

AI has reached the point where it is now considered an esteemed member of society, at least according to results from a new Kaspersky survey.

The study found that AI applications are increasingly taking on a variety of new roles previously earmarked for senior members of staff, and over a quarter of respondents (27%) in the UK now believe the technology would be a fairer leader than humans due to its perceived “impartiality.”

According to data aggregation service, Similarweb, ChatGPT garnered 153 million visits in the first month after its launch in November 2022, and peaked at two billion visits in April 2024.

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DIGIT Expo

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Taking place on November 21st at Edinburgh's International Conference Centre, DIGIT Expo is the largest annual technology event in Scotland. Attendees will experience a packed conference programme featuring keynotes, interactive workshops, and panels, alongside an extensive exhibition hall and networking area.

What Were the Key Ransomware Trends in July?

Cybersecurity platform provider Check Point Software has published its Global Threat Index for July 2024.

Despite a significant drop in June, LockBit re-emerged last month to become the second most prevalent ransomware group, while RansomHub retained the top spot.

Meanwhile, researchers identified both a campaign distributing Remcos malware following a CrowdStrike update issue, and a series of new FakeUpdates tactics, which once again ranked first on the top malware list for July.

An issue in the CrowdStrike Falcon sensor for Windows led to cyber-criminals distributing a malicious ZIP file named crowdstrike-hotfix.zip. This file contained HijackLoader, which subsequently activated Remcos malware, ranked as the seventh most wanted malware in July.

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Data Skills Gap Leading to Productivity Shortfalls

Data skills gaps are expounding into productivity gaps across industries, with workers on average losing 25 days of productivity a year due to inefficient completion of data tasks.

This is according to a new report from Mutliverse Skills, which found that employees on average spend 14.31 hours a week on data tasks, equivalent to 36% of their total working week.

Data skills are continually more and more vital as digital transformation takes hold across industries, but employees are lacking even the most basic of digital skills.

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