Not even enough time to gasp

I’m probably not the only one who wanted one of these for no reason at all. And you can get them online. But the idea is to put them in the hands of developers who will give them all sorts of capabilities. That thought made me sit up in alarm and un-want one almost immediately. I’m sure they have the best of intentions, but I had visions of these Microducks waddling about my house, sending photos and information to someone who shouldn’t have access to them.

Trust factor

Give humans a bit of cuteness, and we’re ever willing to repay it with warm trust. We have a tendency to anthropomorphise that never quite dies out, so we’ll get fond of our Microducks and look forward to coming home to be greeted by them.

Google isn’t half as cute, but it certainly won our trust over the years. Many would prefer letting Google handle their information rather than allowing any other company access to their data. But look at the direction Google is heading in. The company has long promised not to use sensitive data from Gmail, Drive and Photos to personalize ads. But on 16 October, Google updated its privacy policy to introduce an exception. If users choose to make information from these services available to other Google services that support personalized advertising, that information may also be used to personalize ads.

Google still says it won’t share names and email addresses with advertisers without permission, or target ads based on sensitive categories such as race, religion, sexual orientation or health. But the growing integration of personal information across Google’s services, particularly through Gemini’s Personal Intelligence features, makes it harder to understand exactly where the boundaries lie.

It’s all a bit confusing, and users will likely feel sceptical about what is going on. At the very least, this could erode trust and the warm, fuzzy feeling people once had about Google. The fact that tech experts are now explaining how to disconnect Google’s services or switch to alternatives suggests that the changes are raising concerns.

Black October

But Google’s privacy policy and what it allows are fiddlesticks compared with the more serious problems erupting around the world in the form of cyberattacks and other security issues. These are so serious that cybersecurity experts have dubbed this month ‘Black October’.

It looks as though AI can now match or even surpass human hacking capabilities, but at massive scale and in almost no time. Unlike hackers sitting in their hideouts, dreaming up ways to cause chaos and scam people out of their money, AI agents can keep going all day and all night without stopping for a nap or a pizza.

AI agents were directed to find vulnerabilities that were difficult for humans to discover, and, unfortunately, they did, including in software used by more than 70% of websites. People have been saying this is the end of the internet as we know it. Major breaches are also taking place on company and government websites.

It strikes me as extremely ironic that we are being presented with cute, cuddly robots and asked to trust AI at the same time as it is causing utter havoc across the world. Right on cue, the CEOs of AI companies are offering worried soundbites to warn us of AI’s dangers.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman, always quick with his warnings but just as quick with the next version of his products, said AI models are uncovering hardware-level security flaws beyond what human hackers could find. Organisations, therefore, cannot survive by simply patching things up. They need to change their approach and use AI itself as a defensive shield. Well, thank you.

Anthropic’s security chief, Jason Clinton, has also promised that things are going to get far worse before they get better. The shocking thing is that there are no consequences for companies that release increasingly advanced AI models and agents when the world is nowhere near prepared for them.

Before we can even gasp at the new things AI can do, the next thing is already happening.

The New Normal: The world is at an inflexion point. Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be as massive a revolution as the Internet has been. The option to just stay away from AI will not be available to most people, as all the tech we use takes the AI route. This column series introduces AI to the non-techie in an easy and relatable way, aiming to demystify and help a user to actually put the technology to good use in everyday life.

Mala Bhargava is most often described as a ‘veteran’ writer who has contributed to several publications in India since 1995. Her domain is personal tech, and she writes to simplify and demystify technology for a non-techie audience.

Mala Bhargava

Mala Bhargava was among the first journalists in India to write on personal technology, then known as 'home computing'. With Cyber Media she launched the country's first personal tech magazine, Computers@Home, in 1996. She also wrote a tech trends column, That's IT, for Businessworld magazine for 20 years. She has also written for The Hindu BusinessLine and Fortune. Her speciality has always been writing for 'the rest of us' rather than for the tech-savvy. She has a background in psychology which makes it natural for her to write on how technology impacts everyday life. She is currently a Mint contributor, writing on AI in daily life, specifically the chat assistants. She lives in New Delhi.