Let There Be Light

On May 16th, 1960, a new kind of light existed that nobody had ever seen before. This kind of light has unique properties and doesn’t exist in nature and as far as we know, it had never existed anywhere in the universe since it began, 13.8 billion years ago.

Theodore Maiman had successfully fired the first-ever laser at the Hughes Research Laboratory, having beaten off competition from many other research teams including Bell Labs, IBM, MIT, and Columbia University.

In a way, Albert Einstein deserves some of the credit for the development too, as he laid some of the seminal theoretical foundations way back in 1917. However, in even in 1960, producing a functioning laser was deemed too far-fetched by many of Theodore’s peers and he himself was on the brink of giving up until one day a salesman from General Electric showed him some xenon flashtubes. With the largest ones being strong enough to ignite steel wool when pressed against the tube, it was exactly what Maiman needed to make his design work.

Using a synthetic pink ruby crystal grown by the Line Division at Union Carbide as an active laser medium he built the first functional laser.

Initially, the many people didn’t really understand the technology and struggled to find practical uses, having been labelled “a solution looking for a problem”.

General ignorance about the technology wasn’t helped by initial newspaper’s publishing hysterical headlines about the invention of “Death-Rays” although, perhaps ironically, one of the first uses of the ruby laser was for range-finding by the military.

Inexorably, more and more applications have been found and developed until now, whereby modern electronics would be unthinkable without lasers, where so many advances in applications across all spheres from communications to medicine simply couldn’t have happened without Maiman’s perseverance.

His confidence in his area of expertise allowed him to work through moments of doubt and bring his idea to fruition. If there’s one thing to take away from this story, it’s that we shouldn’t be too quick to abandon our ideas or strategies prematurely. Sometimes, you just need to encounter your own ‘salesman’ to shed light on what you’ve been missing, for things to click into place.

1-Use a screen privacy filter. Use a privacy filter that fits over your screen, limiting the viewing angle and making it difficult for others to see your screen from the side.

2-Position your device strategically. Sit or stand in a corner or against a wall to minimize the chance of someone looking over your shoulder.

3-Adjust screen brightness and contrast. Lower your screen brightness and increase contrast to make it harder for others to view your screen from a distance.

4-Use a virtual keyboard. Use an on-screen virtual keyboard for entering passwords and sensitive information to prevent keyloggers from capturing your keystrokes.

5-Use a password manager with auto-fill. Use a trusted password manager that can auto-fill your login credentials, reducing the need to type passwords in public.

6-Be aware of your surroundings. Stay vigilant and keep an eye on people around you, ensuring that no one is attempting to view your screen or passwords.

7-Tilt your screen. Adjust the angle of your device’s screen to make it harder for others to see, especially when entering passwords or sensitive information.

8-Use a physical barrier. Place a bag, coat, or another object around your device to create a physical barrier, making it more difficult for others to see your screen.

9-Sit with your back against a wall. If possible, choose a seat with your back against a wall, which will minimise the chances of someone walking up behind you and viewing your screen.

10-Password masking. Enable password masking on your device, which will show asterisks or dots instead of actual characters when entering passwords, making it harder for onlookers to guess your password.

If you need to complete a sentence or get creative when writing some content but don’t have the time or are struggling to come up with new ideas, using the “/autocomplete” command in ChatGPT can help. Here’s how:

“/autocomplete” is a command can be used to generate text that completes the sentence you provide. For example, if you are trying to write a product description, you can type in the partial sentence and use the “/autocomplete” command to generate suggestions for how to complete the sentence.

Here’s a simple example:

– Let’s say you’re launching a new product and struggling to come up with a catchy name. You can use “/autocomplete” to generate a list of potential names based on a few keywords. Here’s how:

– Type /autocomplete” in the chat box and hit enter.

– In the following prompt, enter some keywords related to your product. For example, “innovative,” “technology,” “modern,” etc. ChatGPT will then generate a list of potential product names based on your keywords, such as “InnovaTech,” “ModTech,” “TechGenius,” etc.

– You can then choose your favourite name from the list or use them as inspiration to come up with your own unique name.

– Using “/autocomplete” in this way can be a helpful tool for generating ideas and inspiration when you’re stuck or need a quick boost of creativity.

Following “AI Godfather” Dr Geoffrey Hinton’s departure from Google to talk about the dangers of AI, we look at what the threats could be and what this could mean for businesses.

Departure From Google

Dr Geoffrey Hinton was dubbed as the “AI Godfather” because of his pioneering research on neural networks and deep learning which paved the way for current AI systems like ChatGPT. However, his resignation from Google recently was accompanied by some chilling warnings in a statement to the New York Times and subsequent media interviews where he noted that he now regretted his work. Some of the points he’s been reported as making about the dangers of AI are that:

• The dangers of AI chatbots are “quite scary”.
• AI chatbots may soon be more intelligent than humans. For example, with digital systems, all copies of them can learn separately but share their knowledge instantly, so they can know much more than any one person.
• “Bad actors” could use AI for “bad things”, e.g. giving robots the ability to create their own sub-goals.

Recent Open Letter

Dr Hinton’s resignation comes not so long after the recent “Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter” signed by many high-profile figures in the tech industry including Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and even some DeepMind researchers. The letter called upon “all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4″, which is the next and even more powerful incarnation of OpenAI’s LLM.

The letter made the point that, “Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive, and their risks will be manageable.” It highlighted a series of questions to consider about the risks of AI, including:

• “Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth?“

• “Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones?“

• “Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete, and replace us?“
• “Should we risk loss of control of our civilisation?”

Although these questions seem dramatic, the main point of the letter is that a kind of ‘time out’ is needed because of the speed at which AI is developing.

Not everyone agrees, however, that a 6-month moratorium on AI development is feasible or the right way to go and, in fact, Dr Hinton has been reported as saying that he doesn’t think that AI development should be halted.

What Are The Main Worries About The Threats Of AI?

In addition to those risks highlighted by the questions in the open letter and by Dr Hinton’s reported comments in the press, some of the main worries about the potential threats that AI could pose, include:

• Job displacement. As AI and automation become more advanced, there is concern that they will replace human workers in many industries, leading to job losses and economic instability.
• Bias and discrimination. AI systems can learn to make decisions based on biased or incomplete data, which can result in discriminatory outcomes, particularly in areas such as hiring, lending, and criminal justice.
• Privacy and security. AI systems can be used to collect and analyse vast amounts of personal data, raising concerns about how that data is used and protected.
• Autonomous weapons. There is concern that the development of autonomous weapons powered by AI could lead to the escalation of conflict and the loss of human control over military decision-making.
• Existential risks. Some researchers and thinkers have raised concerns about the long-term risks of advanced AI, including the possibility of superintelligence that could pose an existential threat to humanity.

These threats could impact individuals, organisations, and society as a whole, which is why many now think that it’s important to carefully consider the ethical and social implications of AI as it continues to develop and be deployed in various contexts.

Already Deployed

The fact is that AI is becoming ubiquitous and is increasingly deployed in many systems in various industries. For example, AI algorithms are used in video-streaming platforms, recruitment (for application filtering), by insurance companies to calculate premiums, and in medicine as part of scanning and diagnosis, to name just a handful.

Some Are More Sceptical

Many IT industry figures, however, are sceptical about the idea that AI algorithms could surpass human intelligence any time soon. For example, some of the points made include:

• Chatbots are known to draft their responses token by token to predict the next word in a response, whereas when humans speak, they express more fully formed ideas. Therefore, understanding the difference between human and machine intelligence is important when separating a likely future from hype.
• The fluency of chatbots doesn’t prove that they can reason or achieve understanding in the same way as humans.
• AI chatbots, for example, are limited to narrow tasks and can’t interact with the physical world to complete more varied assignments as humans can do as a result of their intelligence.
• We are really still at the starting point for AI and the current ‘constructivist’ approach needs to be developed further so that systems can model causality autonomously, in an effective and efficient manner in order to be more ‘intelligent.’
• It’s important not to confuse intelligence with sentience, a fact that Google engineer Blake Lemoine discovered when he was sacked for suggesting that the Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) AI system bot was somehow sentient. True human intelligence is linked to sentience, which is one of the reasons why AI may not be able to surpass what we know as human levels of ‘intelligence.’

AI Market Domination

It’s worth remembering also that generative AI, for example, is a rapidly growing market where some early players have gained a lead (i.e. OpenAI with ChatGPT) and where it may be in the interests of other big tech companies to slow AI development down so they can catch up and compete. Some also think that there is already the need to review the AI market to make sure that no single firm will dominate the market and that the benefits are available for all. For example, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said that it will be looking at the impact of AI on competition, with a view to creating “guiding principles” to protect consumers as AI develops. Also, in the US, the heads of Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic have met US Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss similar issues.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The rapid growth of AI and the personal experience of many people with generative AI through ChatGPT, coupled with a lack of understanding of how AI actually works, commercial influences, and alarming hype fuelled by reports such as those about Dr Hinton’s resignation, the open letter, and other tech commentators have said, have led to a focus on the threats of AI. The fact is that just as AI could result in job losses, privacy issues and the circulation of misleading information, it will also transform the way businesses compete, drive substantial economic growth, and could deliver many more benefits than negative outcomes. Regulation, the setting of guiding principles, and a degree of collaboration between big players, governments, and other interest groups could all help to minimise the threats and many see the proposed 6-month moratorium as an unlikely solution to what is essentially progress, a new kind of industrial revolution, and a rapidly growing and changing new market that holds exciting potential opportunities for businesses as well as threats.

Google has announced the rollout of ‘Passkeys,’ which it describes as “the easiest and most secure way to sign-in to apps and websites” and a major step toward a “passwordless future.”

Working Toward A Passwordless Future : FIDO & Passkeys

Passkeys comes out of the work that Google’s been doing with the FIDO Alliance, an open industry association, formed in February 2013, to develop and promote authentication standards to “help reduce the world’s over-reliance on passwords”. ‘FIDO’ (Fast IDentity Online) sign-in credentials refer to a set of open and scalable authentication standards that aim to reduce reliance on passwords and enhance the security of online services.

Also, in May last year, Apple, Google and Microsoft announced that they were joining forces to support a common passwordless sign-in standard to allow websites and apps to offer consistent, secure, and easy sign-ins across devices and platforms. At the time, the joining of forces between the tech giants enabled users to automatically access their FIDO sign-in credentials (also known as a “passkey”) on many of their devices, even new ones, without having to re-enrol every account and employ FIDO authentication on their mobile device to sign-in to an app or website on a nearby device, regardless of the OS platform or browser.

Passkeys

Passkeys are the latest step in the passwordless sign-in journey and offer users a way to sign-in to apps and sites the same way they unlock their devices: with a fingerprint, a face scan, or a screen lock PIN. Although passwords and 2-Step Verification (2SV) will still work for Google Accounts, Google says that Passkeys are available for Google Accounts today and can be easily set up by visiting g.co/passkeys.

Advantages

There are several key advantages of passwordless sign-ins over traditional password-based authentication methods, which are:

• Increased Security. Passwordless sign-ins provide better security than traditional password-based authentication methods. Passwords can be guessed, stolen, or even obtained through phishing attacks. On the other hand, fingerprint and face scan biometrics are unique to each individual and much harder to replicate. Passkeys, unlike passwords, can’t be written down or shared, and are resistant to popular online attacks like phishing or social engineering, thereby making it much more difficult for someone to impersonate the user where Passkeys are used.
• Convenience. Passwordless sign-ins can provide a more convenient and streamlined user experience. Users don’t need to remember complex passwords, and they can quickly and easily authenticate themselves using their biometric data or a simple screen lock PIN.
• Reduced friction. Passwordless sign-ins can reduce friction in the login process, which can help to increase user engagement and retention. Traditional passwords can be time-consuming and frustrating to enter, especially on mobile devices with smaller screens.
• Improved user experience. Users don’t need to worry about forgetting their password or resetting it, which can lead to a smoother and more enjoyable user experience overall.
• Lower support costs for Google. Password-related support requests can be a significant cost for organisations, particularly if users forget their passwords or need to reset them frequently. Passwordless sign-ins can help to reduce these support costs by eliminating the need for password-related support requests.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Finding solutions to keep one step ahead of cybercriminals whilst maintaining or increasing convenience for users, avoiding the damage caused by data breaches whilst staying competitive and increasing user engagement and retention, is an ongoing challenge for big tech companies like Google. The passwordless future has been a vision for some time and the expansion of the FIDO Alliance standards and Apple, Google and Microsoft joining forces have accelerated the steps to date, and the introduction of Passkeys. As outlined above, there are many advantages to not relying on passwords, not least the increased security and convenience, although, as Google acknowledges, the change to Passkeys will take time and passwords and 2SV will still work for Google Accounts. For businesses in today’s digital world, any extra security is welcomed, and Passkeys have the potential to help with customer retention by making it easier to login to apps and websites. For Google, Microsoft, and Apple, having shared standards that they’ve developed that are widely used also simplifies things, will reduce costs going forward, and is another way to help them retain their powerful market positions.

Google has announced that Gmail has introduced blue checkmarks next to select senders’ names to help users identify messages from legitimate senders.

Will Work If You’ve Adopted ‘BIMI’

The new checkmark verification symbols work in accounts where users have adopted Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI). The BIMI system, introduced in 2021, allows users to display logos in their emails that recipients can see to authenticate the email.

How Does BIMI Work?

For a brand’s logo to be displayed, the email must pass DMARC authentication checks, and the sender publishes a standardised DNS record which contains a URL to a logo that may require proof that the logo has been validated with a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC). An organisation publishes a BIMI record containing these URLs and a supporting mailbox provider (MBP) checks the sending domain’s DMARC policy to verify that it is included in the BIMI validation in order for the logo to be used and displayed.

Why The Blue Checks?

Google says that the use of blue checks enables “Strong email authentication” which “helps users and email security systems identify and stop spam, and also enables senders to leverage their brand trust.”

Google says that this “increases confidence in email sources and gives readers an immersive experience, creating a better email ecosystem for everyone.”

When And Who?

The rollout for blue ticks was scheduled for 1–3 days and started on May 3, so should already be visible. Google says that the blue tick feature is available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers, and to users with personal Google Accounts.

Will It Be Like Twitter’s Blue Ticks?

It’s difficult not to make the comparison between this and Twitter’s ill-fated blue tick/blue check system (and which resulted in some derision and confusion) where checkmarks now simply seem to indicate paying customers, rather than authenticated users. Unlike Twitter’s system, however, there’s no fee for setting up BIMI and Google’s blue ticks, plus it doesn’t come with the controversy of the takeover that put Elon Musk in the news in a less-than-positive light. Instagram also has a blue tick system.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Last year Google was making the news over the amount of spam emails in Gmail and back in November, it was keen to point out that its systems were blocking huge amounts of bogus and spam emails – 15 billion in a day! Given that phishing emails and email-borne malware are prevalent and major email threats and that social media companies have acted to try and stop impersonators, it makes sense that Google would follow suit. Using an already recognised symbol that’s now widely associated with trust, a blue tick, also makes sense, and if the system (in association with BIMI) enables businesses to quickly and easily show customers that their emails can be trusted, it could help senders to leverage their brand trust, maintain and grow their marketing relationships with customers, and stand out from the crowd.

In this insight, we look at the new online form where customers can report online rip-offs that’s been developed as part of the new government campaign “The Online Rip-Off Tip-Off” to help shoppers spot and avoid misleading online practices.

The Online Rip-Off Problem

According to a recent poll of over 2,000 UK adults by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), 7 out of 10 people said they’d experienced misleading online practices, 85 per cent believe the businesses these practices are being dishonest with their customers, and 83 per cent say they’re less likely to buy from them in the future as a result.

Also, in another OnePoll survey of 3,700 UK adults in March this year, 67 per cent of respondents said cost-of-living pressures have made them more desperate to find the best deals, and 71 per cent said they believed they thought they were ‘saving money’ by purchasing deals that are on offer, some of which may not be genuine. The poll also showed that 1 in 4 (24 per cent) of UK consumers said they’d fallen victim to sneaky online sales tactics, 23 per cent didn’t realise tactics such as ‘15 mins left of sale’ (pressure selling) or ‘buy now’ can sometimes be false or misleading, and 68 per cent thought these types of misleading tactics should be banned.

The Biggest Concerns

The CMA survey also revealed that of those who had experienced misleading online practices, the biggest concern was about hidden charges (85 per cent of respondents), followed by subscription traps (83 per cent), fake reviews (80 per cent), and pressure selling (50 per cent).

New Online Form To Report Rip-Offs

To help tackle this problem, back in February, the CMA launched “The Online Rip-Off Tip-Off” campaign, fronted by Consumer Champions Martin Lewis, and his Money Show co-presenter Angellica Bell, to make consumers aware of these misleading online practices and provide tips on how to avoid them (see www.gov.uk/ripoff-tipoff).

As part of the latest phase of this campaign, the CMA has now launched a new digital reporting form where consumers can report the sneaky online sales tactics they’ve encountered.

‘Red Lines’ Letter For Businesses

In the interest of tackling the online rip-off problem from both angles, the CMA has also published a letter to UK businesses detailing its ‘online red lines’ on misleading price reduction and urgency claims – which are a type of pressure selling. The letter provides examples of where common online tactics may be misleading consumers or applying unfair pressure. The advice in the letter is targeted at all businesses that sell or promote products online to UK shoppers, so businesses can avoid or stop sales practices that could break the law.

Consumers Can Now Call Out Offenders

Angellica Bell said: “We know that the rising cost-of-living is putting a strain on shoppers across the UK. Some online businesses are using sneaky sales tactics to make us part with our money when household budgets are already stretched. We all feel the pressure of securing bargains, making us more susceptible to being ripped off. It’s frustrating when this happens and it’s time we call out these online retailers and report them to the CMA.”

Just The Tip Of The Iceberg

George Lusty, Senior Director for Consumer Protection at the Competition and Markets Authority, commented: “Now more than ever, every penny counts, and the CMA is concerned that some businesses are using underhand tactics designed to part shoppers from their cash.  This poll is just the tip of the iceberg as we believe the true number of victims of these rip-offs is much higher as they are often extremely difficult to spot.

That’s why businesses using urgency and price reduction claims need to consult the CMA’s new advice. It outlines what businesses need to do when designing their online shopping experiences to be sure they comply with the law.”

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The cost-of-living crisis is making it easier for consumers to fall victim to pressure selling, sneaky online sales tactics and a variety of online rip-offs. This two-pronged campaign from the CMA encompassing the letter for businesses identifying what tactics are unacceptable, and the form for consumers to report them may at least go some way to helping to reduce some sharp online practices that are hitting consumers at a time when they can least afford it. It may be the case for some businesses that they are not fully aware that the tactics they are using are misleading and possibly illegal and, therefore, the letter published for businesses could help them to design online shopping experiences that are compliant and fair. However, the CMA notes that the true number of victims of these rip-offs is likely to be much higher than even their research has shown, as they are often extremely difficult to spot.

Cloud-based CRM company Salesforce has announced the launch of its ‘Green Code,’ a new initiative which it says will help reduce carbon emissions associated with the software development lifecycle.

The Software Development Lifecycle Carbon Emissions Problem 

The Green Code has been developed to tackle the environmental impact caused by the process of developing, deploying, and maintaining software applications. For example, this impact comes from the energy consumption of the servers and other computing equipment used during these activities, as well as from the manufacturing and disposal of this equipment. Software development involves a range of activities, including designing, coding, testing, and deployment and each of these stages requires computing power and energy, which can result in significant carbon emissions e.g., running servers and data centres requires large amounts of electricity, which in turn generates greenhouse gas emissions, and disposing of e-waste can require carbon-emitting requires energy and resources as well as contributing to environmental pollution and health hazards.

The IT Sector Emissions 

As highlighted by Salesforce, the IT sector is responsible for up to 3.9 per cent of global emissions (almost as much as the airline and shipping industries) with these emissions expected to rise as organisations increasingly rely on software to drive their operations and accelerate their digital transformation.

Salesforce’s own research shows that although the IT sector is a major carbon producer,75 per cent of technologists want to develop software applications that do less harm to the environment, but nearly half simply don’t know how.

What Is The Green Code? 

The Green Code initiative is a set of new sustainability best practices to help anyone from UX designers and software developers to system architects and IT operations managers to work towards net zero. The idea is that offering practical recommendations for designing apps and writing code that have less of an impact on the environment is a powerful leverage point that remains largely untapped and could help make a significant impact toward decarbonisation.

Four Key Areas

The Green Code focuses on the four key areas of:

– Design & UX: Helping designers to reduce energy use while providing a better user experience by making sustainability a design requirement.

– Architecture: Helping software architects to choose an architectural pattern and deployment model for software development that leads to cost savings and reduces environmental impact.

– Development: Helping to develop sustainable code I.e., software code that uses less energy, leading to significant emissions reductions, particularly when deployed at scale.

– Operations: Focusing on e.g., locating capacity in the right regions and scheduling workloads during high renewable energy periods can help companies can reduce their carbon emissions.

The Importance Of Leveraging Green Code Best Practices 

Suzanne DiBianca, EVP, and Chief Impact Officer at Salesforce points out that, “By leveraging these ‘green code’ best practices, technologists and organisations can approach the challenge of sustainability in IT to drive meaningful efficiencies and cost savings across their IT enterprises while accelerating their sustainability journeys.” 

Srinivas Tallapragada, President, and Chief Engineering Officer at Salesforce said, “With Green Code, we’re hoping to inspire software teams and the entire IT sector to prioritise sustainability, just as they do performance, security, and accessibility.” 

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation? 

Salesforce makes the point that minor changes can translate into big impacts for a company’s carbon footprint and that it looks, from their research, as though most technologists want to develop software applications that do less harm to the environment, but they lack any guidance on how to do so. Producing these ‘Green Code’ best practices, therefore, is a way to help make a positive difference in what has thus far been a relatively untapped and overlooked but crucial area. For businesses and organisations in the IT sector, following these best practices could help them on the road to sustainability and if widely adopted could be one way to help the IT sector to become less of a carbon emissions producer.

1954 : Silicon Makes A Splash

On 10th May 1954, Gordon Kidd Teal created a sensation at an Institute of Radio Engineers conference when he presented silicon transistors for the first time by announcing they were ready for production and available for sale.

Why The Big Deal?

Originally, germanium was mainly used to develop transistors. It was easier to work with but had some major limitations, one of those being their operational temperature ranging from 0°C to 70°C. Silicon transistors allowed higher operational temperatures of -55°C to 125°C, meaning they could be relied upon in many more environments and applications. Not only that but silicon has better stability and is much more abundant (and cheaper).

This was made possible due to a high-purity semiconductor silicon supplied by DuPont, a company that developed ‘Teflon’ among other things having first grown huge by being a major gunpowder and explosives supplier for the US Military.

Bell Labs

The first silicon transistor was developed at Bell Labs (the organisation directly created by Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone). However, they failed to identify and exploit this opportunity, and did not attempt to produce it commercially. This cost them dearly, as today, Texas Instruments (TI) are credited with the production of the first commercial silicon transistor.

The first commercial silicon transistor was developed by Teal, who (having left Bell Labs) was hired to lead a research lab for TI. Teal hired a team of scientists and engineers overseen by Will Adcock, a chemist, tasked to work on silicon transistors. Their efforts led to a breakthrough, adding to TI’s long list of notable inventions. One of those being Jack Kilby’s (another TI employee) Integrated Circuit in 1958 which unfortunately was forsaken in favour of Noyce’s more mass production friendly version.

Teal continued working for TI until his retirement, only taking a short leave of absence for 2 years to become the first Director of the National Bureau of Standards Institute for Materials Research in Washington D.C. He died in 2003 with an estimated net worth of $1 – $8 million.

Texas Instruments continued to flourish outcompeting other companies in the semiconductor space and acquiring many of their competitors along the way. One of their recent acquisitions being that of National Semiconductor in 2011 for $6.5 billion. As of writing this, the company is valued at around $147 billion.

TI’s success can be attributed, among other things, to their keen eye for talent. Hiring experts like Gordon Kidd Teal (who were on the cusp of major breakthroughs) has helped the company capitalise on opportunities that other companies have failed to identify.

All this goes to show that a company’s innovation is unlimited because it can be developed internally by training or sourced by hiring key personnel or by corporate acquisition.

Facebook’s parent company Meta has warned of a rise in ChatGPT-related malware across its platforms, designed to lure users into downloading malicious apps and browser extensions. Meta says that since March it has found around 10 malware families and more than 1,000 malicious links being promoted as tools featuring ChatGPT.

Meta’s Chief Information Security Officer Guy Rosen said: “This is not unique to the generative AI space. As an industry, we’ve seen this across other topics popular in their time, such as crypto scams fuelled by the interest in digital currency. The generative AI space is rapidly evolving and bad actors know it, so we should all be vigilant.”