Exploring Information Security

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The future of AI and security

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly changing the landscape for all of our society. It will significantly change our way of life over the next 10 years similar to how computers and mobile devices impacted our lives. If you’re not getting familiar with it now you may get left behind. This website is really only possible because of AI and more specifically ChatGPT. I’m able to crank out articles and information way faster than if I were creating the website entirely by myself.

I note all the pages I’m creating with the help of ChatGPT at the bottom so people know when it’s me and when it’s AI. I’ll be doing the blog posts and AI will be helping me build out all the other pages. You’ll probably notice the difference pretty quickly. I’m noting because I expect laws to come out in the future that require disclosure if AI was used in the creating of content. This is similar to how bloggers had to disclose if they were getting money from an entity as part of a post or other content on their website. Let’s dive into the predictions.

The government will regulate AI

As mentioned above the government will step in to ensure AI is being used in an ethical way. I’m curious how using AI to create things will hold up in court around topics such as copyright and data usage. I was hesitant to create an entire website and other documentation using AI because I don’t know if it would be considered plagiarism or copyright infringement. Amazon recently came out and limited self-publishing books to three a day. I think there are unforeseen things that will end up in discussion around AI and it’s use that will require regulation.

With any document being able to be feed into AI there’s a question for companies around sensitive data being leaked. This can be intellectual property and more concerning people’s personal information. As we see incidents where AI is leaking this type of information the government will step in and adjust laws an regulations, if not make new ones.

Creators will shift from writing to editing

This includes people like developers who are already using ChatGPT to write code. While AI is not any good at secure code review it can help developers get started with writing their own code. This can be a good thing as long as developers use it as a starting point and don’t just shove it right into production.

There’s no reason not to use ChatGPT as a first draft for things. I’ve written security policies for a company with just a couple hours of using ChatGPT and editing the output. This can be a good thing for smaller companies who don’t have a security team. Also, ChatGPT is able to write things in a much easier to understand format. Reading company policies may get a bit easier. Which leads into the next predication.

This will disrupt documentation

If you’re in Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) or some other discipline within security that focuses on documentation it’s a good idea to start getting familiar with ChatGPT. There are people already out there using it and their output is going to be significantly more than anyone not using ChatGPT. GRC will need fewer people to complete their work. The ones who embrace it will stay because their productivity level is higher.

Summary

AI is a step forward and I think it’s going to help in a lot of ways. Yes, there will be some bad things and misuses that occur but overall it’s progress for our society. People creating within the tech space will see the biggest benefit. It will reduce the amount of time it takes to get a written piece of code or document out the door.

As far as securing the data their will be the usual growing pains when a new technology becomes easily accessible to everyone. Guardrails and guidelines will need to be put around the data as leaking the data is the biggest concern for AI. It’s benefits though could be significant and so security will again have to balance innovation with keeping people’s information safe.

This blog post first appear on Exploring Information Security