Tag Archive for: Privacy
ChatGPT’s Use In Medicine Raises Questions Of Security, Privacy, Bias
Despite mounting evidence that generative AI is poised to revolutionize medical care, patients … [+]
Generative AI, the prompt-based artificial intelligence that can generate text, images, music and other media in seconds, continues to advance at breakneck speeds.
Less than six months ago, OpenAI launched its generative AI tool, ChatGPT. A mere four months later, the company released GPT-4, a massive leap forward in processing speed, power and ability.
Every industry has taken notice. Healthcare, in particular. Observers were mildly impressed when the original version of ChatGPT passed the U.S. medical licensing exam, though just barely. A couple of months later, Google’s Med-PaLM 2 aced the same test, scoring in the “expert” category.
Despite mounting evidence that generative AI is poised to revolutionize medical care, patients hesitate to embrace it. According to a recent Pew Research poll, 6 in 10 American adults say they’d feel “uncomfortable” with their doctor relying on artificial intelligence to diagnose disease and provide treatment recommendations.
Today’s iterations of generative AI aren’t ready for broad use in healthcare. They occasionally fail at basic math, make up sources and “hallucinate,” providing confident yet factually incorrect responses. The world is watching closely to see how quickly OpenAI, Google and Microsoft can correct these errors.
But those fixes, alone, won’t address the two biggest concerns patients reported in the Pew survey:
- Technological risks, including security, privacy and algorithmic bias.
- Ethical concerns about the interplay between machines and humans.
This article examines the first set of fears. The next, on May 8, will cover the ethical ones, including AI’s impact on the doctor-patient relationship.
Are patient fears valid?
Americans have long-held suspicions about new technologies. Recall how bank customers in the 1970s resisted using ATMs, fearing the machines would eat their cards and mishandle their money. Indeed, cashpoint errors were common at first. But when banks made tweaks and the roots of people’s tech-driven fears stopped materializing, the fears themselves…
Computer scientist confronts worldwide challenge of online security and privacy – News Center
A University of Texas at Arlington computer security researcher has received a prestigious federal grant to determine what technologies and methods work best to attain and retain online security and privacy.
Shirin Nilizadeh, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, received a $200,000 National Science Foundation grant to study social media discussions and better understand what concerns are about online security and privacy, what technologies and tools they suggest to each other to use and whether they are effective. Nilizadeh called this a “worldwide challenge.”
“People care about their online security and privacy everywhere,” she said. “And sometimes, due to societal and political movements, they become more cautious or aware of the problems, where they go online and on social media, and proactively discuss their concerns and ask for tools and methods that can help protect them.
“We can help as a research community to see what’s working and what isn’t. We can take these research findings to design and develop better online safeguards and to improve the existing security and privacy-preserving systems if they are not secure, effective and efficient.”
Hong Jiang, chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, said Nilizadeh’s research could further the security of social network tools.
“Everyone is connected to social networks,” Jiang said. “Studying social networks’ discussions and understanding what security measures people are looking for and using allow researchers to develop and provide such measures to improve online security and privacy.”
Previous Nilizadeh work showed that social media users extensively discussed the security and privacy threats of video communication tools more people started working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This work showed how misinformation about security and privacy spread on social media platforms.
Nilizadeh…
IDCARE warns new privacy laws could exacerbate ransomware attacks – Strategy – Security
National identity support service IDCARE is critical of the federal government’s increased penalties for privacy breaches, saying they could encourage companies to pay ransoms in an attempt to keep a breach secret.
It made the comments in a submission [pdf] to the federal government’s review of the Privacy Act.
Breach frameworks seem “less about informing and supporting a person to take-action who has been placed in a potentially vulnerable position, but more about a need for ‘tick a box’ reporting to regulators and to protect other interests”, IDCARE said in its submission.
That leaves Australian businesses vulnerable to ongoing ransom attacks, the organisation said.
“In terms of ransomware attacks, Australia is open for business … there is little disincentive for these criminals to keep targeting Australian businesses and government agencies,” the submission said.
Fear of the recently-introduced penalties – up to $50 million for a serious privacy breach, one-third of the turnover for an affected company, or three times any financial benefit obtained through data misuse – makes things worse, IDCARE’s submission said.
“This is further exacerbated by the conflicting nature of compliance and notification environment,” it said.
“Pay a million dollars or face a breach that may cost $50 million. Don’t pay and have your customer data exploited in the most abhorrent and public way in an attempt to send a clear signal to future organisations that this will be the consequence if their demands are not met.”
While making the payment of ransoms a specific offence could discourage companies from paying, IDCARE said “there are many complexities to this”, including unnamed insurance companies that encourage the payment of a ransom, if that is the cheapest way for a victim company to recover their data.
IDCARE also warns that the government’s proposed amendments to the Privacy Act will have the “perverse outcome” of making privacy compliance “much more litigious”.