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The Promise of AI is in Assistive Intelligence

This is a contributed piece by Francois Ajenstat, chief product officer at Tableau Software and has been written in response to a recent piece by our senior staff writer, Dan Swinhoe

As artificial intelligence surges to the forefront of modern society, research and debate swirls around the power and role it should play. More often than not, a cloud of skepticism looms over the topic of security of jobs in the workforce. However, if we consider AI as assistive intelligence rather than an asteroid on a collision course, humans can take advantage of the opportunities presented through its advancement. With this approach, humans enhance, rather than replace skills, leading to increased benefit from technology and improvements in quality of life.
Applications of AI have the ability to empower workers and increase efficiencies across industries and every aspect of the supply chain. To put this into perspective, a recent study from PwC argues that machines will “increase productivity by up to 14.3% by 2030” and the UK’s GDP could be up to 10.3% higher in 2030, equivalent to an additional £232bn ($307bn).

Yet the advantages of AI are not exclusive to a macroeconomic level. Benefits also extend to the individual level by fundamentally changing employee responsibilities. Workers are liberated from daily mundane and menial tasks to explore a higher level of thinking and creativity, ultimately expanding their job roles. Of course, this in turn will translate into positives for their employers as a more engaged workforce leads to increased sales, productivity and employee retention.

In fact, a recent Deloitte Insights study of workers in the public sector showed that many tasks could actually be handled through automation. The study found that documenting and recording information is the most time-consuming for employees, sucking 10% of work hours, which could be saved using technology like AI.

However, AI is not a replacement for tasks simply because they are time-consuming. The same Deloitte study concludes that tasks, like caring for patients, simply cannot be replaced by AI. For example, cognitive technologies cannot assess a patient’s mood or administer medicine, and therefore are not advanced enough to replace the role of workers carrying out such responsibilities. Currently, the reach of AI extends only to enabling human workers with more of the time and resources needed to provide exceptional patient care. Ultimately, AI compliments human intelligence, enabling workers to focus on tasks that require insights and experience beyond what goes into an algorithm.

This brings us to the fact that true business value comes from the capitalisation of uniquely human skills. Individuals fluent in the language of data are already in high demand across the corporate world. While machine learning backed algorithms and AI assist decision makers in accessing and analysing relevant data, some tasks are abstract or situational and require an amount of intuition and experience to make the best decisions. Humans are uniquely qualified to ensure the encoded assumptions are reasonable and then to ask meaningful follow-up questions that link answers back to business problems.

While AI can find unexpected outliers and identify patterns within the data, human analysis plays a vital role in gathering useful insights from what they find on the screen. This is especially true when those problems lie in industries such as marketing, where success is often related to one’s ability to make a personal connection between brands and consumers – human to human. AI can be used to sort through data and identify a target audience, but only humans have the emotional intelligence to create a story that will resonate with the right audiences and deliver results.

Just as any mammal adapts to a change in its environment, so too will the human race. Machines have yet to match humans in regards to solving contextual business problems with big data. They lack the ability to draw from personal experience, context, emotion and the ingenuity required to go that next step. Exploring this scope is therefore paramount in acquiring job security and increasing workers’ purpose.

The debate surrounding AI will only intensify with its continued expansion. As with any groundbreaking development, the fear of disrupting the status quo is unavoidable. However, disruption does not have to equal destruction.
What matters is how we respond and find new ways to thrive alongside technology.

Next Generation CIOs to Create Paths of Success

This is a contributed piece by Adam Spearing, Senior Vice President, EMEA of Platform and Communities at Salesforce

The role of the CIO has changed immeasurably since I started working in tech some 20 years ago. The IT department is no longer here to ‘keep the lights on.’ Instead, the CIO is now Innovator in Chief, disruptor extraordinaire, and driver of change.

This shift is down to the rapid change in the way tech is perceived in many organizations and the demands from a generation used to the mobile consumer experience — it has become a core enabler to the business, rather than a nice to have. What’s more, with breakthrough capabilities enabled by new technologies such as AI and big data, a growing shortage of available developers, and an increasingly tech-savvy business user, the role of IT — and the CIO in particular — is morphing into one of strategic advisor to the business and driver of innovation within the company.

But how can IT leaders manage this digital transition and take advantage of rapidly emerging opportunities? Discussing this question with customers, colleagues, and partners, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are three things IT leaders need to do to thrive in this new environment.

Take a business-first IT mindset
The rise of the next-gen CIO and their success can be put down to a number of factors, but one of the biggest is ensuring the IT function is commercially oriented. Today’s most successful CIOs are setting up their departments as profit, rather than cost, centers. CIOs must have a greater understanding of the business case for any new programme or tech-focused initiative. Only by understanding the wider business strategy and objectives can CIOs understand how to prioritize IT projects that best serve the customer and grow the business. It’s therefore a key part of the CIO’s role to ensure IT is involved in all decision-making processes and to establish themselves as a partner within the business.

Ocado’s CTO Paul Clarke is a case in point. When it comes to instilling long-term change, Paul sees the mission for his division, Ocado Technology, as fueling innovation and entrepreneurial spirit throughout the business. This ensures that technology decisions and initiatives are powering the commercial and strategic needs of the company.

Unlock data to innovate
Technological change is also forcing large companies to find new ways of working. Shell, for example, is facing market disruption from new types of competitors, which are changing the way the market trades and buys fuel. The company can’t afford to stand still and watch the world change around it.
As a CIO, one way to discover new ways of working is to unlock the data sitting within the business and turn that ever-growing pile of data into opportunity. Embracing a cloud-based system of engagement is no longer just about delivering a 360-degree view of the customer. It also enables end users to slice and dice customer data for actionable insights that help them see opportunities for new ways of working such as building apps to help run the business.

In the case of Shell, the team is using data analytics, big data and artificial intelligence to make better decisions internally. For example AI is being used in the analysis of the huge volumes of information created in the day-to-day running of Shell’s plants, helping the company to become more profitable.
Shell also uses AI to improve the customer experience and to keep ahead of the competition. For example the Shell Connected Car Open API can analyze user behavior and offer customers tailored convenience and loyalty rewards. The platform helps Shell predict what a customer might want so that when they arrive at one of their retail sites they can immediately send an offer to their phone such as a discount on food and drink.

Focus on the customer and employee experience
It’s not just businesses looking for fresh ways of working. Customers too are looking for innovative ways to make their lives easier. Our recent State of IT report shows customers are not simply looking for differentiation — they seek disruption. And they’re giving their loyalty (and business) to companies that are looking at new ways to do things that make their lives easier – whether it’s booking a place to stay with Airbnb or ordering tonight’s dinner via Deliveroo.

Technology has also changed what customers expect from the brands and companies they interact with. An overwhelming 70% said technology has made it easier for them to take their business elsewhere and a further 58% agree it has ‘significantly changed’ their expectations of how companies should interact with them. CIOs therefore need to focus on deploying new workflows and technologies that help their business deliver a convenient — and disruptive — experience to customers.

CIOs today should also look at applying these same principles to their employees. After all, it is employees who serve on the front lines of customer service, act as brand ambassadors, and are ultimately responsible for the organization’s success.

It’s clear that it has never been a more exciting or daunting time to be a CIO. The reason? Well, with IT leading the business, CIOs are under the spotlight like never before. At the same time the speed of business is also increasing. To quote Shell’s VP & Global CIO, Craig Walker: “Make a decision in the 1990s and it wouldn’t be wrong for eight years. Now, it could be eight weeks.”

Mexico: Fintech to Drive Competitive Growth

Mexico is making the greatest strides in Latin America when it comes to regulating the fast growing fintech industry.

A new bill doing the rounds promises to protect consumers and stimulate competition, keep a watchful eye over payment security and cryptocurrencies, and prevent money laundering or terrorist funding.
It’s a notably progressive step for Mexico to take. It will join a select number of other countries like Germany that have introduced explicit fintech legislation. According to Federico de Noriega Olea, partner at the Mexican offices of law firm Hogan Lovells, the law should provide more legal certainty for firms to carry out and expand their businesses, which may also mean greater access to funds.

It will at the same time place greater responsibility on companies to adhere to the rules, such as meeting capital requirements and reporting obligations. The more mature companies that have been carrying out some form of self-regulation may be better equipped to deal with this change. Younger companies that have just launched may struggle to adapt.

“The rules will definitely create a barrier to entry,” says de Noriega Olea. “Any regulation is in itself a barrier to entry. Again, the degree of such a barrier will depend on secondary regulation. I don’t believe the regulator is planning to create a high barrier to entry because one of the main goals of the proposed law is to foster competition.”

Bridging the credit gap
As per figures from 2015 from Encuesta Nacional de Inclusion Financiera (ENIF), a survey on financial inclusion, 44% of Mexican adults do not have a bank account. That figure may have changed slightly in the last two years but it speaks to a problem in Latin America’s second largest economy where adults have little or no access to credit or financial services. While there’s plenty of bluster and big promises, fintech is trying to bridge that gap and regulation can either be a friend or an enemy.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has been supporting fintech companies already active in the country, such as online and P2P lenders Afluenta and Kreditech, which provide a new bent on traditional services. Fintech has regularly threatened to upend traditional financial institutions but both sides of this coin will be affected by a change in the law.

“We consider that the legislation, as it is now, has the right elements to promote innovation in the financial industry,” says Carlos López-Moctezuma, head of new digital businesses and financial inclusion at BBVA Bancomer, one of Mexico’s biggest banks. “However, we need to keep track of the secondary legislation because those are actually the operative guidelines on how the fintech legislation is going to be implemented.”
BBVA Bancomer is very active in the fintech space itself. In August, it launched its startup sandbox programme, inviting startups inside the bank to work on new fintech services. These very companies will fall under the rules of this new legislation.

“However this is not something new for us in the way that we as a bank have been supervised, and prior to beginning working with another company, depending on the services offered by them, we have to be authorised by the authority,” López-Moctezuma adds.
“This is something that will affect fintech [companies] that haven’t been working with banks so far because they will have to spend resources in order to comply with the new regulation.”

Ahead of the pack
Mexico is the most forward in the Latin American region as far as implementing fintech regulations. Other countries haven’t moved as prominently but are starting to take notice. Brazil, the region’s biggest economy, is evaluating new legislation on how the technology should be regulated.

The Brazilian central bank published the draft law for consultation in August. According to an official from the bank, the law is specifically designed to address crowdfunding and online lending.

“The proposed regulation is expected to improve the regulatory framework for this type of electronic credit contract while contributing to the enhancement of efficiency and competition in the credit market,” he explains. “Such benefits are likely to reduce banking spread and boost the real economy, reaching microfinance operations.”

The Mexican law has not yet been passed and it’s expected that there will be many amendments made to the final document before the consultation period ends. Following the public consultation, the bill will eventually make its way to Congress but it’s difficult to pin down any time frame.

“Hopefully, it will be approved before year end,” says de Noriega Olea, “but I personally don’t believe that will happen because Congress has other priorities now, including discussing of the 2018 budget.”
That budget of course will be under much scrutiny in the wake of the earthquake in September which will mean funds being allocated to rebuilding and recovery, so fintech regulations may not exactly be on the forefront of Mexican politicians’ minds.

Foreign Tech Firm Needs a Threat

There’s no denying that the technology industry is rapidly evolving. And as a result, the companies that operate within this lucrative sector are also growing. From Apple to Samsung, the tech elite have billions of dollars at their disposal and are becoming ever more powerful.
With all this power, they’re capable of exerting their dominance and influencing countries around the world. But while high-growth technology companies are contributing massive amounts of money to global economies, some people fear that these firms pose a security risk to critical infrastructure systems.
The United States is an example of a country that has slammed foreign technology companies in recent times. Recently, American lawmakers ordered telco AT&T to sever its ties with Huawei over fears that the Chinese mobile phone maker is simply becoming too powerful. They believe that the firm poses a grave threat to national security.

Creating security backdoors
The worry for government officials – especially in the United States – is that foreign technology companies could use backdoors to compromise state information security. Scott Crawford, a director at 451 Research, believes that this issue plays out on “multiple” levels. But it is “often more visible when it comes to security risks, rather than foreign dominance”.
He tells us: “In many of these cases, the concern is that foreign interests could introduce technology or capabilities into the US that could introduce a risk to US information security – a risk that could be difficult to ferret out, if such a threat could be obscured within the technology.”
American security researchers have been looking into these threats for years, as the 2012 case with Huawei and ZTE certainly proves. However, Crawford makes it clear that these incidents aren’t just exclusive to Beijing – they come from countries globally. “These concerns arise in part from evidence gathered by security researchers in recent years alleging either direct or indirect involvement of foreign interests in breaches of sensitive information security. China has repeatedly been alleged to be behind many of these incidents – but it isn’t the only nation seen as posing a threat to foreign interests,” he says.

US as the culprit
The United States isn’t exactly innocent when it comes to surveillance and other espionage activities. Former CIA employee Edward Snowden has offered a great deal of insight into the country’s cyber spying over the years. “The US itself is often seen in this light, particularly following Edward Snowden’s allegations about US surveillance activities. It is therefore not surprising, perhaps, that in 2012, investigations by the US House of Representatives flared around accusations that Huawei and ZTE were doing exactly what the NSA was revealed to be doing two years later with their Tailored Access Operations teams,” explains Crawford.
Responding to these allegations, the Chinese have also been hesitant to accept American technologies into their market. Companies such as Apple and Google have struggled to reach out to the masses in the country. “China itself has reportedly opposed the incursion of US tech leaders into its markets, though many strategic tech companies have sought to reach rapprochement with China to ease concerns,” he says.

Companies that rely solely on foreign technology providers could be putting themselves at risk, admits Crawford. “There is concern at a more strategic level. Should any nation become dependent on a foreign technology provider for capabilities critical to society, it could be placing its strategic interests at risk. At the personal level, this concern could arise regarding technology critical to individual health or safety. At the societal level, it could involve technologies seen as part of critical infrastructure,” he explains.
He expects governments to become tougher on technology companies with the rise of IoT, concluding: “We would expect these concerns to color government response to the continued rise of the Internet of Things, as smart computing capability becomes increasingly integrated with the technologies of everyday life, from large-scale utilities to the smart home.”

A growing security risk
James Wickes, CEO and co-founder of cloud-based visual surveillance company Cloudview, says governments are right to be concerned about foreign companies that become too powerful. He tells us that the threats are “particularly felt in the domain of CCTV equipment, where the security services have not only raised concerns but identified specific threats”. Wickes points out to a situation in the 2016 case when MI6 became worried about Chinese company Hikvision being Britain’s largest supplier of CCTV equipment. He says UK security specialists “expressed grave concerns about the potential security risk, particularly for internet connected cameras”.

In May 2017, the US Department of Homeland Security highlighted similar vulnerabilities. It found a range of problems in connected cameras and issued a security advisory notice. Wickes explains that security researchers have also reported “backdoors in a range of cameras from other manufacturers that allow remote unauthorized administrative access via the web”, giving cyber crooks the ability to target government systems. He says: “Such backdoors are rarely an oversight, and are built in by people who know what they’re doing. They provide a means for hackers to come and go undetected, bypassing all usual security measures.”
In extreme circumstances, cyber criminals could use these backdoors to launch devastating terrorist attacks on countries. “They could even allow the hacker to configure the device to allow front door entry by unwanted persons to appear legitimate. This could easily result in a security breach that affects national security or competitiveness. With an inbuilt back door, poor IoT security might be a little too tempting for a nosey nation, while for terrorists, why bother with suicide bombs if you can shut down power stations, open dams and look at CCTV footage of major cities and public places at will,” he concludes.

While the news that the US Government wants to stop AT&T from forging an ever-closer business relationship with Huawei may seem slightly extreme, it appears that some of these worries are just. There are instances where governments rely too much on foreign technologies, leaving them exposed to attack from state actors. Clearly, security organizations need to keep a closer eye on government IT infrastructure to ensure it’s robust enough to fend off cyber crooks.

Building a software Company, all you need is the Balance

In the era of ‘Digital Transformation’, we’re repeatedly told two mantras: Software is eating the world, and every company is now a software company.
Unsurprisingly for a company that specialises in software development, CA Technologies is a big proponent of the idea. The company’s CTO, Otto Berkes, has even written a book about it. But he takes this concept further.

He says that companies should look to become “Modern Software Factories”; where not only are companies developing their own software, but doing so in a way that makes use of all the most up to date practices and tools around DevOps, Automation, Continuous Delivery, and security.

Mastering your software transformation
CA recently released a study, Don’t Let an Outdated Software Strategy Hold You Back, designed to explore how far along companies are on this journey towards every becoming a software company.

At an event launching the research, Berkes warned that there are “Already leaders and laggards in race to build software factories.”
The report suggests that while most businesses understand the importance and need for better software and processes for developing them, few have actually perfected their implementation of the concept. Only around a quarter of the 1,200+ companies surveyed reported widespread use or implementation of tools such as automation and application analytics as well as deployment of DevOps and security principles.

Those that embrace this concept get more than just applause in reports: The companies that are leading the way towards this software-driven way of doing business – what the report calls the ‘Masters’ – report higher revenue and profit growth than other companies. These ‘masters’ were also seen to be better at attracting talent and more agile.

You can’t just buy your way to digital transformation
Whether it’s John Deere acquiring Blue River for its Machine Learning skills, GM buying Cruise Automation for its self-driving car nous, ASSA ABLOY paying up for smartlock startup August Home, or Boeing snapping up Aurora Flight Sciences, legacy companies left and right are buying the tech startups trying to disrupt them in an effort to try and get ahead of the game.

Cultural change
Beyond the mere acquisition of talent – through hiring or buying – the hard work can be changing the way the company as a whole thinks and works.
“The cultural aspect is often underestimated. You can spend a ton of resources acquiring a ton of talent, but if you don’t have the systems and the culture in place to support and enable them, it will become a futile exercise.”

Company culture, however, is often driven by the people at the top. If a company’s execs and leaders aren’t able to adapt to the digital way of doing things that can stop any kind of evolution actually taking place anywhere in the organisation.
“We talk about talent gaps today focused on software development talent, but we also need the right talent at all levels of leadership to be able to move into a new way of harnessing software.”

“It’s a question of talent management. Leadership absolutely is a part of that challenge. There are going be many cases where leadership change needs to happen along with the rest of the talent change.”

However, although change often means new faces being brought on board, simply gutting the company of its older faces isn’t wise. AWS Chief Architect Glenn Core recently told IDG Connect that keeping experience on board is incredibly important during these kinds of transformations in order to ensure new ideas are implemented in a responsibly and logical way, and Berkes agrees.

“With this kind of transformation you need a balance of talent, institutional knowledge, and memory: they know where some of the pitfalls are and where it’s better to tread cautiously, and to integrate new talent, people, and thinking into the organisation in a thoughtful way.”

“The reality in business is you don’t have the option of putting a pause on everything and starting over, you need to make sure that the business that you have continues to operate while you bring in new processes and transform the business. It’s critical to have people who have the historical context to provide that continuity.”

DevSecOps

Given we live in an age of constant hacks and mega breaches, security should be first and foremost in the minds of all developers. Sadly, this is rarely the case. Security companies often talk about the idea of ‘Security by Design’, but given the alarming frequency products are shipped with poor security, it’s clearly not something that’s really reached the ears of developers.
Berkes and CA are keen to emphasise the security aspect of their ‘software factory’ vision, and are proponents of the concept of DevSecOps.

“The idea is to move away from the idea of having security be this thing that you think about at the end of the development cycle, this process you apply right before you release software, and have it be a core competency at all stages of development.”

However, just like changing a company’s whole mindset can be a challenge, so can ingraining security into development. Berkes argues that the concept has to be translated into very specific actions and outcomes in order to have a material impact.

“It’s one thing to talk about secure by design, it’s another to actually have the right tools to be able to cover the software lifecycle.”
Instead of simply telling developers ‘make sure you write secure code’, says Berkes, companies should instead offer tools that will actually help them identify and address security gaps in code.

In response to the general apathy security often receives from people outside the infosec bubble, some have proposed legislating that certain security frameworks for application development should be put in place to legally mandate how developers approach security.

“Legislation is tricky, partially because of the nature of security: nothing is 100% secure, so how do you legislate something you can’t guarantee?”
Instead, Berkes says he’d like to see something more akin to indicators of effort that show how seriously a company takes security.

“[People] download and cross their fingers and hope because there’s no way to really tell what amount of effort has gone into the application of security best practices. We need some kind of indication so you can assess make some kind of intelligent, data-driven assessment on level of trust.”
The Australian government is reportedly looking into a similar rating system for Internet of Things-connected products.

“It’s an interesting idea to try to standardize security best practices so that there’s some awareness both within industry and also on the consumer side of the equation so that when we click on something or download something at least you’ve got some idea of the level of effort that had been expended on security for that particular product.”

Bangalore Leads as India’s Largest Market for Flexible Workspaces

The flexible working space constituted about eight percent of the total absorption (3.42 million sq ft) in 2017 as compared to three percent share in 2016. According to a report, Bangalore remains the dominating market with almost 32 percent share of the overall flexible workspaces pie in 2017, followed by Mumbai with almost 18 percent share.

“We can say that 2018 is likely to be an active year in the flexible workspace sector, fueled by an increase in end-user demand from the IT industry. It is looking for ways to mitigate real estate costs and seeking flexible solutions. By avoiding long-term leases and the flexible workspace sector, occupiers across the market are seeking to minimise risk and are set to be the beneficiary of this uncertainty” asserted Senior Director, Office Services at Colliers International India.

The flexible workspace operators amounted to 1.1 million sq. ft., approximately seven percent of Bangalore’s total office market absorption, in 2017.
Bangalore remains the largest market for flexible workspaces in India and has the largest share of technology start-ups. Initially characterised by domestic operators, the market now has a more diverse range with international entrants including WeWork, The Executive Centre and Regus.

With approximately 23 percent of the flexible workspace operator transactions for the year, the CBD has remained one of the preferred locations. Other notable districts were SBD (28 percent) and Koramangala (18 percent). Despite being the technology hub of Bangalore, Outer Ring Road (ORR) had a share of only four percent, says the report.

Mumbai
Mumbai too is quickly catching up with Bangalore in the flexible workspace market. Occupiers in Mumbai are embracing the trend for the flexible workspace to cater to this increased demand, and various local operators have expanded at a rapid pace, fuelled by external investment.

Mumbai’s traditional CBD, Nariman Point, accommodates relatively small flexible workspace locations and most operators are planning to concentrate on the new financial hub of the city, BKC, and surrounding areas. The take-up by flexible workspace operators in Mumbai increased from 380,000 sq ft in 2016 to more than 600,000 sq. ft. (0.6 million sq. ft.) in 2017. In 2017, flexible workspace accounted for 12 percent of the total market take-up and remains concentrated in SBD locations such as BKC, Andheri and Worli, says the report.

The trend is expected to continue in 2018 due to the restricted supply in key markets in Mumbai. Companies such as iKeva and Avanta have recently announced expansion plans. Major operators present in the Mumbai market are a mix of international and domestic names including WeWork, Regus, Awfis, Avanta Business Center, Innov8 and Ikeva.

A Senior Executive Director, Mumbai & Developer Services at Colliers International India aserted, “Currently flexible workspace operators have a strong presence in major commercial hubs such as BKC, Andheri, Powai, Vikhroli and Lower Parel. While their footprint has increased tremendously in the last year it has been confined predominantly to these locations. However, we expect growth in 2018 to occur across all micro-markets in rambuildingconsultancy.co.uk.”

Artificial Agencies IT Defenders

If 2017 taught us anything, it’s that you can’t be complacent about your cybersecurity strategy. And as the driving force behind McAfee’s security research and development, you’d expect Chief Technology Officer, Steve Grobman, to have more to worry about than most.
“You could spend all day being concerned about almost anything,” he laughs, when I ask him what threats people should be looking out for.
But there is one big issue facing all companies today. How do you deal with the fast-changing threat landscape whilst continuing to protect yourself against the threats you were worried about yesterday?

“That’s creating a lot of new challenges for an IT defender to comprehend in order to protect their environment,” Grobman says.

Artificial Intelligence has become the latest buzzword in cybersecurity spaces and McAfee is now integrating these capabilities into its latest product offerings.
And it’s easy to see why. When technology has been trained properly, it can be very good at processing massive quantities of data and seeing patterns. Unfortunately, what technology is not so good at is using intuition to spot a new attack pattern or recognize an evasion tactic.

“One of our observations is that there are certain types of things machines are good at and there are things that humans are good at, that machines aren’t,” Grobman explains. “Where a defense strategy can be most effective is when you have a strategy that has the best elements of both working together.”

To those versed in cybersecurity, it’s a well-known fact that the attacker has an inherent advantage over the defender and part of that reason is the attacker’s ability to move faster than the defender.

“When we want to deploy it [a new product] to our customers we have to develop it, put it through our internal quality assurance cycle, have our customers acquire it. They have to put it through their quality assurance cycle then they have to go through a deployment cycle,” Grobman tells me. “All of this can take weeks, possibly months. If you’re an adversary, you can build yesterday and deploy today. Time is very much on the side of the attacker.”
This scenario doesn’t change when AI becomes involved. In fact, it brings with it its own unique set of challenges. However, Grobman’s concerns aren’t from the Elon Musk school of thought.

“I am more worried about overly trusting the outcomes from AI as opposed to it going rouge per-say,” he explains. “There can sometimes be an overconfidence in the ability for AI to do things that they’re not really doing. With AI or machine learning, you can actually have a model that looks very good but is actually worthless.”

To demonstrate this problem, Grobman built his own machine learning model that he claimed could predict the winner of the Super Bowl. On the surface the model worked, correctly predicting the outcome nine out of 10 years. However, Grobman intentionally over trained the model, having it learn the noise of the games he knew he would be testing it on, rather than developing it to understand anything about American football.

“The point is, when you apply it to cybersecurity there’s a lot of companies that are saying ‘here’s how amazing our machine learning model is. Look how effective it is!’ and you really just have to understand some of the nuance of how it’s being positioned. Is it being trained? Is it being tested on things that are very similar to what it was trained on? Those are the things you need to worry about.

“Most of these models don’t really know what an attack is. It’s not like a person who’s saying, ‘there’s bad things happening – this is an attack’. It’s based off the attack looking similar enough to things that it’s been conditioned or trained on so it’s able to classify it correctly. Which is a real risk.”
This very real problem only reinforces Grobman’s belief that man and machine need to work together in order to tackle these emerging security issues. Unfortunately, an increasing cybersecurity skills gap is threatening to undermine that working model and seriously impact on how companies deal with security.

“All organizations will need a combination of technology and people and different types of organizations have different levels of ability to pay for individuals of varying talent. So, you’re going to see cyber security issues impacting organizations that haven’t traditionally had major issues.”

And in some ways, this is set to be the biggest security challenge facing companies in the coming years. How do companies develop and deploy technology that is not only successful from a cybersecurity point of view, but can also improve the efficiency of people, to help mitigate the labor shortage.
So, what can we expect to see more of in the future? Grobman believes we’re going to see cloud breaches that will have catastrophic impacts on organizations or people.

“I think we saw the beginnings of that with the Yahoo breach. You know, one single breach impacted three billion accounts. That’s a scale unlike anything we’ve previously seen. I think we’ll see more breaches related to non-traditional devices.”
Grobman ends our conversation on a relatively somber note, keen to acknowledge that while companies like McAfee are continuing to fight the good fight against these emerging threats, the battle is nowhere near won.

“I think the sophistication of attacks will grow,” he concludes. “All the great technology that defenders are using today is going to be used to make attacks more effective and we need to get ready for it.”

AI & MA is going to fly high in Future

This is a contributed piece from Emil Eifrem, CEO of Neo Technology, the company behind graph database, Neo4j.

Amazon has taught us the value of being able to predict what else customers might want to buy, by analysing online sales data. It’s a lesson that any retailer wishing to survive needs to start learning – and applying.
But to do so, retailers need not only to know about my past purchases, but be able to instantly combine this knowledge with any new interest shown during the customer’s current visit to offer recommendations.

How? Simple: they need to understand the customer intent by analysing a host of clues offered by the customer, interrogate this data at lightning speed to serve up uncannily relevant recommendations and so generate great, tailored offers – offers that become increasingly more accurate, as the recommendation engine gathers more data and learns more about the customer in the process.

To accomplish this requires a combination of NL (Natural Language) processing, ML (Machine Learning), accurate predictive analytics, a distributed, real-time storage and processing engine and, I contend, a graph database to make all the real-time data connections required.

Why do I say that? Let’s look at a real-world example of just such a combination – eBay’s AI-based ShopBot is built on top of a graph database. That graph layer directly enables the system to answer sophisticated questions like, ‘I am looking for a brown, leather Coach messenger bag costing less than $100, please find me those’.

ShopBot asks qualifying questions and will quickly serve up relevant product examples to choose from. The functionality is impressive – you can send the bot a photo with a direction such as, ’I like these sunglasses, can you find similar models?’ and it will employ visual image recognition and machine learning to figure out similar products for you, in milliseconds.

All this is done by using NL processing techniques to figure out your intent (text, picture and speech, but also spelling and grammar intention are parsed for meaning and context), while the graph database (using Neo4j) helps to refine the search against inventory with context – a way of representing connections based on shopper intent that’s shaping up to be key to the bot making sense of the world in order to help you.

That context is stored, so that the ShopBot can remember it for future interactions. So when a shopper searches for ‘brown bags’ for example, it knows what details to ask next like type, style, brand, budget or size. And as it accumulates this information by traversing the graph database, the application is able to quickly zero in on specific product recommendations.

Why relational isn’t your best friend here
Tapping into human intent like this and delivering highly responsive, accurate help is the Holy Grail of what applied AI can offer. In this discussion on conversational commerce the example is well made: in response to a statement, My wife and I are going camping in Lake Tahoe next week, we need a tent, most search engines would react to the word ‘tent’ and the additional context regarding location, temperature, tent size, scenery, etc. is typically lost.

This matters, as it’s this specific information that actually informs many buying decisions – and which graphs help empower computers to learn. Context drives sophisticated shopping behaviour, and graph technology is the way to open it up for a retailer.

But you can’t get there the way you’re going now. The traditional way of storing data is ‘store and retrieve’, but that doesn’t give you much in terms of context and connections – and for your searches and recommendations to be useful, context needs to come in.

To help improve meaning and precision, you need richer search, which is what AI-enriched applications such as chatbots give us.

Graph databases are now one of the central pillars of the future of applied AI, and graph is shaping up as the most practical way of getting there.

Stop the Storm of Diabetes

The body’s blood sugar is controlled by insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas in the abdomen. Insulin acts on food in the bloodstream to move glucose into cells, where it is broken down to produce energy.

Diabetes is a chronic condition in which cells are unable to break down glucose into energy. This is due to insufficient production of insulin or the insulin produced does not function properly. The former, which is much more common, is called type 2 diabetes, and the latter, is type 1 diabetes.
During pregnancy, it is possible for blood glucose levels to reach levels that the insulin produced is insufficient for all of it to be moved into cells (gestational diabetes).

Many people have raised blood glucose levels that are not high enough for a diagnosis of diabetes (prediabetes), which is a wake-up call that the person is en route to diabetes.

Data from National Health and Morbidity Surveys
The prevalence of diabetes in Malaysia’s National Health and Morbidity Survey in 1986 was 6.3%. This increased to 8.2% in the National Health and Morbidity Survey in 1996 and 17.5% in the National Health and Morbidity Survey in 2015.

At the current rate of increase, about one in five Malaysians will be diabetic in 2020. The findings from NHMS 2015 of the overall prevalence of diabetes were:

• There was an increase in overall prevalence with age, with an increasing trend from 5.15% in the 18-19 years age group to a peak of 39.1% in the 70-74 years age group
• The overall prevalence in females was 18.3% and 16.7% in males
• Indians had the highest overall prevalence at 22.1%, followed by Malays at 14.6%, Chinese at 12.0% and Other Bumiputras at 10.7%.
Of the known diabetics, the findings included:
• The prevalence of known diabetes was 8.3% with an increasing trend from 0.7% in the 20-24 years age group reaching a peak of 27.9% in the 70-74 years age group
• The prevalence of known diabetics in the urban areas was 8.7% and 7.2% in the rural areas
• The prevalence in females was 9.1% and 7.6% in males
• Indians had a prevalence of known diabetes at 16.0%, followed by the Malays at 9.0%, Chinese at 7.7% and Other Bumiputras at 6.8%
• 25.1% claimed that they were on insulin therapy and 79.1% on oral anti-diabetic medicines within the past two weeks
• 82.3% had received diabetes diet advice from healthcare personnel
• Healthcare professionals had advised 69.6% to lose weight.
• Healthcare professionals had advised 76.8% to become more physically active or start exercising.
• 79.3% sought treatment at Health Ministry facilities (59.3% at clinics and 20.0% at hospitals) and 18.7% at private facilities (15.1% at clinics and 3.6% at hospitals);
• About 1.5% self-medicated by purchasing medicines directly from pharmacies; and 0.5% were on traditional and complementary medicine.
Of the undiagnosed diabetics, the findings included:
• The prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes was 9.2%, with an increasing trend from 5.5% in the 18-19 years age group reaching a peak of 13.6% in the 65-69 years age group
• Prevalence was 9.2% in females and 9.1% in males;
• Indians had a prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes at 11.9%, followed by the Malays at 9.8%, Others at 8.6%, Other Bumiputras at 8.1% and Chinese at 7.7%.
Of the pre-diabetics (the term used in NHMS 2015 was impaired fasting glucose), the findings included:
• The prevalence was 4.7%;
• There were no statistical differences by age groups, gender and between urban and rural areas;
• Indians had a prevalence of pre-diabetes at 7.7%, followed by Malays at 5.2%, Others at 4.3% and Chinese at 3.8%.
Going forward

Whenever experiencing symptoms such as increased thirst, frequent urination (especially at night), significant fatigue, weight loss, muscle loss, itching in the genitals, recurrent fungal infections, delayed wound healing, and blurred vision, individuals should seek medical attention promptly.

Type 1 diabetes can develop over weeks or even days.

Overweight, obesity, and inactivity often associate with Type 2 diabetes. The overweight comprises 37.3% of the Malaysian population and the obese 12.9%. The estimation shows that 51.6% of the population is physically inactive. Many people with type 2 diabetes are unaware they have the condition because the early symptoms are often non-specific.

The complications of diabetes are multitude and include an increased risk of heart disease and stroke; damage to nerves; damage to the retina in the eyes; kidney disease and failure; foot ulcer; erectile dysfunction; sexual hypo function in women; miscarriage and stillbirth.

Due to delayed detection, diabetics are more likely to present for the first time with complications. The increase in the number of diabetics seeking treatment will increase the country’s health expenditure substantially. Diabetic complications will further increase this.

With about 80% of diabetes patients currently seeking treatment at Health Ministry facilities, the burden to the country will be substantial.
The medical profession recently received directives from the Health Ministry on Ebola virus disease management. This is important for preparedness, although there is no reported case of Ebola infection in Malaysia, as the mortality from Ebola infection is around 50%.

According to the World Health Organization, Malaysia has no operational policy /strategy /action plan for diabetes and the reduction of physical inactivity.
This incongruence is difficult to understand particularly when the diabetes epidemic in the country continues unabated.