“On February 4, in Part 1 I wrote an email to our local, community forum in response to a concern that Gilbert shared about AI. In my response I provided a brief introduction (yes, that l-o-n-g email was in fact “brief” for the given subject matter) to the history of data analysis, the transition from basic statistical analysis to machine learning and to Generative AI.” –kai

 

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Friends & Neighbors,

In succession to my prior email, I provide a few of my own concerns and why I am intentionally not engaging in anything AI driven, at least where I have a choice, sharing with you how you can do the same. Many of these suggestions are just good on-line security protocols anyway, so it’s worth the read.

MY CONCERNS
Large Language Models (LLM) are what give ChatGTP and others like it the ability to process and respond to written and verbal input in a very natural, human-like manner. Before LLMs, machine learning (the foundation for AI) was engaged by a programmer whose code invoked data analysis and answer. Now, anyone, with or without a programming background can engage these incredibly rich models and receive incredibly rich answers, or so it seems.

This is the stuff that science fiction writers and filmmakers have been teasing us with for nearly a century–computer programs that process information far faster than any human, write like us, talk like us, and might soon look like us. Here we are, AI rising, and as in the movies there are those who celebrate the coming of this digital wonderment, and those who are very, very concerned (BTW, the ones who are concerned always get to say “I told you!” when the robots attack).

The positives are many-fold:
– the ability to model complex biological functions, and
– discover cures for challenging diseases;
– analysis of datasets so vast that traditional computer programs would take years to arrive to a similar conclusion;
– weather, societal, and financial predictive analytics; and
– write, test, and fix computer software code

… to name a few (more at Cousera).

The negatives are equally bold:
– evade sophisticated security systems;
– generate text, audio, and images nearly indistinguishable from the real thing;
– given foundation to tremendous deception
– dissolve privacy;
– replace human-to-human connection;
– replace the need to read, write, … or think at all;
– place too much power in the hands of companies and governments using these tools for profit and control, not the greater good.

In Part 3 I will explore this further, but for now …

HOW TO REDUCE YOUR AI EXPOSURE
As shared above, these are just good on-line practices anyway, amplified for the sake of reducing exposure to bad players using AI to do bad things.

1) NEVER click on email links …

… in any email that claims to be from your insurance company, bank, doctor, or IRS. If you believe you have receive an email from a vital, valid company, go to their website directly (in your web browser), log in, and the exact same information and action item given to you in the email will be there, waiting for you to read or act upon, if valid.

Scenario:

1. Bob receives an email that appears to be from his bank.
    
2. The email says, “Bob! Your bank account is out of funds! Log in now to transfer money!”
    
3. Bob does NOT click on any link in the email, but instead goes directly to the bank’s website, logs in, and:
   • It was valid, the same alert is waiting for him; or
   • It was a scam and there is nothing for him to do.

If Bob had clicked on the link, it might have likely taken him to a copy of the bank’s website and asked for his bank account or credit card. And that’s bad. (There are ways to validate the source of an email, but it is too difficult to explain over email. I’ll teach this in a class at the Community Center later this spring.)

2) NEVER answer the phone if you don’t recognize the number.

If it is a legit call, they will leave a message. You can call back if legit.

Here’s the scary part–Generative AI is now being used to fake the voice of humans, and worse, a relative or friend. In fact, one of my students’ mother received a call from what sounded like her youngest son, saying he was in trouble and needed money. But the call was not from his number, and it just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t him. It was an AI.

Don’t be afraid to say, “Can I call you back?” and then call the number you KNOW is the number of your friend, relative, doctor, attorney, or insurance agent. This puts you in charge.

3) Change your web browser and disable AI search queries.

Chrome, Edge, and Safari are less than ideal, restrictive to your on-line privacy. Remove them from your computer. Chrome was designed by Google for the purpose of harvesting your personal information to be sold to the highest bidder. Don’t use it. Edge was built by Microsoft. Need I say more? And Safari is antiquated, slow, and provides very little control over its security and functions. Apple won’t let you uninstall it, but you can choose to not use it.

Instead, use Firefox. It has been around for two decades and is 100% open source, meaning the code is 100% transparent (which means you can’t hide ill intending code without it being discovered). Firefox is fast, updated regularly, and provides a plethora of options for customization and a host of security features.

1. Download and install Firefox.
    
2. Set Firefox as your default browser.

    
   

3. You will be given the option to copy your bookmarks from your old browser (Chrome, Edge, or Safari), either on install and first activation, or from within Firefox Preferences.
    
4. In the *Preferences* or *Settings* (depends on your operating system), do the following:
    
   • Under *General* disable “[ ] Use AI to suggest tabs and a name for tab groups”

      
     

   • Under *Search*, at the bottom Add the custom search engine “https://noai.duckduckgo.com/%s” (yes, “%s” at the end is important)

      
     

   • Save as “No AI”, or whatever you want to call it.
   • Go back to the top of the Search page and select “No AI” as your default Search Engine.

      
     

DuckDuckGo has been rising for ten years as a preferred alternative to Google, Yahoo, and Bing. It is a private company that builds products that do NOT harvest your information. Rather, they make their income on private ads.

This is an interesting article, “AI search is facing a user revolt and DuckDuckGo’s 90% ‘no AI’ vote explains why” That’s right–90% of DuckDuckGo users stated they do NOT want AI in their search engine results. So, DuckDuckGo built a separate search engine without AI. It’s clean, simple, and reminds us of the way the world used to be, a long, long six months ago.

Finally, three more things you can do to increase your on-line security.

1. Set Firefox security to Strict:

    
   

2. Install the extensions “uBlock Origin” and “DuckDuckGo Privacy”:

    
   

3. Regularly clear your web browser cache:

 

There are a number of other things you can do to reduce your exposure. With this second “brief” introduction, I hope this helps keep all of you a bit safer, on-line.

Cheers!
kai