Still remember the movie “The Terminator”, where a self-aware Artificial Intelligence (AI) cyborg named Skynet takes control of the world and launches an attack on humanity, thrusting humans into a desperate scramble for survival? The “Godfather of AI”, Geoffrey Hinton, was afraid this scenario may materialize sooner than previously anticipated. Hinton, whose work on neural networks serves as the foundation for modern AI systems, announced his departure from Google recently and regretted his lifetime’s work as it can be hard to stop “bad actors from using it for bad things”. His concern echoes other prominent AI experts who have signed an open letter to call for a pause on giant AI experiments more powerful than GPT-4.
Indeed, applications powered by GPT-4, such as the latest version of ChatGPT, have made great strides. However, ChatGPT lacks common sense and logical reasoning capabilities, which means that it cannot reason without previously established knowledge. Even though the field of AI development is advancing rapidly, creating a “terminator” is a long way off. Nonetheless, AI represents the unstoppable trend of the future and can be as disruptive as the Industrial Revolution, as it holds the potential to greatly improve productivity. Therefore, it is important for governments across the globe to start mulling AI-related regulations to minimize any potential negative effects.
In fact, cybersecurity concerns arising from the development of AI have already surfaced. As much as ChatGPT can fuel excitement, applications like ScamGPT or HackGPT can also be created by malicious actors to generate highly convincing phishing emails that are difficult to distinguish from genuine ones, and fake news that makes it impossible to tell what is true anymore. Coupled with the proliferation of 5G-connected devices on networks, ensuring data security is becoming increasingly challenging. Cybersecurity firms may even have to leverage AI models that are specifically designed to detect harmful content generated by other AI models. As the threat landscape evolves, demand for more advanced and sophisticated cybersecurity solutions is set to grow, benefiting leading cybersecurity firms such as Palo Alto Networks.
Looking back, “The Terminator” movies end on a hopeful note, implying that humanity will ultimately succeed against the negative consequences of its technological progress. With the potential emergence of Skynet, will the real world have the same ending?
Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks is a global cybersecurity leader, providing best-of-breed cloud platforms and world-class threat intelligence to 80,000 partners, even working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The company was founded by Nir Zuk, an Israeli whiz kid who learned computer security by writing computer viruses when he was 16. Later, mandatory military service in Israel saw Nir recruited by a special unit seeking programmers. Self-taught and highly passionate about computer science, Nir has continued to bring innovation to the information security industry for more than 20 years.
Palo Alto Networks’ first product was a next-generation firewall that could detect and prevent advanced cyber threats; this disrupted the industry for nearly a decade. As corporate customers moved network infrastructure from physical to the cloud, Palo Alto Networks expanded its scope in tandem to include cloud-based solutions on its Prisma Cloud platform. This includes workload protection, network security, infrastructure entitlement management and operations. Now with emerging Generative AI, cyberthreats have the potential to become even more prevalent. AI is however a double-edged sword and Palo Alto Networks is using it to combat cybercrime. The company has integrated AI into its platforms where machine learning and analytics are leveraged to automate IT operations.
Aside from organic growth and innovation, Palo Alto Networks has been acquiring startups to fill product gaps and stay ahead of competition. Over the past five years, Palo Alto Networks has spent about US$4 billion, nearly 10% of its market cap, on 17 acquisitions. By integrating these newly acquired solutions, Palo Alto Networks has helped customers bolster their ability to build secure applications & networks and improve their security, all through a single unified cloud platform. With its commitment to staying ahead of the latest cyberthreats, Palo Alto Networks continues to be a formidable force in the ever-evolving world of cybersecurity and looks to be the first US$100bn cyber company.
