Daily Digest on AI and Emerging Technologies (22 January 2025)

Governance and Legislation

 

All the AI risks we cannot see

(Vaibhav Garg – Observer Research Foundation – 21 January 2025) Artificial intelligence (AI), both generative and discriminative, has many use cases across sectors, domains, and customers. Developers who aim to build associated solutions rarely begin by developing an AI model from scratch; instead, they rely on model repositories or Model Lakes to leverage pre-trained models and libraries like HuggingFace, PyPi, and Kaggle. This is not necessarily unique to AI; generally, developers leverage a significant amount of third-party code when building proprietary products. In the cybersecurity context, these third-party components become a hidden risk for product teams. Attackers recognise the complexity of addressing this risk and often use third-party components as a way to infiltrate entities. For example, a recent and prominent example of such an attack was by an actor attempting to exploit a backdoor in the XZ Utils utility used by a variety of Linux distributions. AI libraries can similarly be compromised, for instance, by using unsafe serialisation. This problem may be exacerbated for AI libraries based on more opaque technologies; for example, attackers may be able to embed malware into model weights. – https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/all-the-ai-risks-we-cannot-see

Unlocking the North Star for AI Adoption, Scaling and Global Impact

(Cedrik Neike, Almar Latour, Cathy Li, Aidan Gomez, Anais Rassat – WEF – 21 January 2025) AI adoption is growing rapidly, with 65% of organizations experimenting with generative AI. However, the journey from experimentation to large-scale impact remains a significant hurdle. Only 16% of companies are prepared for AI-enabled reinvention, and 74% face critical barriers to scaling AI solutions. To bridge this gap, the World Economic Forum unveils findings and solutions from its Industries in the Intelligent Age white paper series and unveils AI use cases showcasing adoption and scaling possibilities for the growth of the global economy. Following these findings, the Forum launches the Frontier MINDS—a program to spotlight and accelerate the most impactful AI solutions capable of revolutionizing industries and addressing society’s grand challenges, enabling organizations worldwide to scale AI in ways that maximize positive impact. – https://www.weforum.org/meetings/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2025/sessions/media-briefing-unlocking-the-north-star-for-ai-adoption-scaling-and-global-impact/

Crypto at a Crossroads

(Jennifer Johnson, Denelle Dixon, Lesetja Kganyago, Brian Armstrong, Anthony Scaramucci, Spriha Srivastava – WEF – 21 January 2025) From possible regulatory shifts in the US to the uneven adoption of central bank digital currencies around the world, the prospects for digital assets are shifting rapidly. What is the outlook for these assets and how could policy changes impact the financial system? – https://www.weforum.org/meetings/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2025/sessions/crypto-at-crossroads/

State of Play: Chips

(Rodrigo Liang, Yin Fan, Amandeep Singh Gill, Christina Kosmowski – WEF – 21 January 2025) The insatiable demand for semiconductor chips is surging, powered by a future where hyperconnected environments are the norm. In this world, every interaction – from the touchscreens of a smart city to the whispers of connected homes and the holograms of wearable tech – relies on advanced chips for limitless connectivity. As the digital landscape grows more intricate, how will industries evolve to meet the escalating need for technologies that are not only faster and smarter but also secure, productive and infinitely scalable? – https://www.weforum.org/meetings/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2025/sessions/state-of-play-chips/

The Future of the AI Diffusion Framework

(Sam Winter-Levy – Just Security – 21 January 2025) On Jan. 13, in one of its final acts, the Biden administration launched its most ambitious attempt yet to shape the future of AI. In its “Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion,” the first of a flurry of AI rules and executive orders released last week, the Biden administration tried to set the global terms for the market in advanced AI chips — the critical technology needed to build and run powerful AI systems. The rule is the administration’s answer to what will be a defining question for U.S. foreign policy and economic strategy in the coming years: how widely should the United States share its AI technologies? The regulation is an extraordinary assertion of U.S. power over information technology, an attempt to increase the baseline of security standards at AI data centers worldwide, and another salvo in the United States’ escalating AI competition with China. With President Donald Trump’s return to office, many of these eleventh-hour regulations will face significant scrutiny and potential rollback, especially in the face of a concerted lobbying campaign by U.S. industry. But as the new administration reviews its AI policy inheritance, it may find that the fundamental challenges that drove the design of the diffusion framework — balancing the protection of America’s technological edge with the promotion of U.S. systems and governance standards worldwide — remain as pressing as ever. In the coming days or weeks, the Trump administration will almost certainly walk back or adjust elements of the rule. But if it jettisons the framework in its entirety, it will need to design an alternative approach to plugging the gaps in its export controls on China without hindering the global rollout of U.S. AI infrastructure — and soon. – https://www.justsecurity.org/106545/the-future-of-the-ai-diffusion-framework/

GDPR Fines Total €1.2bn in 2024

(James Coker – Infosecurity Magazine – 21 January 2025) GDPR fines issued across Europe totaled €1.2bn ($1.26bn) in 2024, according to new figures published by law firm DLA Piper. These figures represent a 33% decrease in GDPR fines issued by European regulators compared to 2023, when €2.9bn ($3.1bn) in penalties were handed out. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/gdpr-fines-total-2024/

Most European Privacy Teams Are Understaffed and Underfunded

(Phil Muncaster – Infosecurity Magazine – 21 January 2025) More than half of European data protection professionals believe budgets will decline in 2025, while a similar share expects technical privacy teams to remain understaffed, according to ISACA. The global IT professional association polled 351 members in the region working in privacy, to better understand the challenges the industry faces. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/european-privacy-understaffed/

UK’s New Digital IDs Raise Security and Privacy Fears

(James Coker – Infosecurity Magazine – 21 January 2025) The UK government has announced plans for a digital ID wallet, enabling British citizens to store all government-issued documents on a single location on their smartphones. However, security experts have raised significant security and privacy concerns around storing so many sensitive documents in a single location. The new ID wallet is designed to increase the security and convenience of using identification documents for everyday purposes such as proving age and claiming benefits, according to the government. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/digital-id-security-privacy-fears/

Trump’s TikTok Executive Order and the Limits of Executive Non-Enforcement

(Alan Z. Rozenshtein – Lawfare – 21 January 2025) TikTok’s tech partners face massive legal risks by relying on Trump’s promises not to enforce the ban law, as courts rarely protect defendants who count on executive non-enforcement. – https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/trump’s-tiktok-executive-order-and-the-limits-of-executive-non-enforcement

Frontiers

Aftershocks: Disruptive Growth in Low Earth Orbit Creates New Policy Challenges

(Ruth Stilwell – Centre for International Governance Innovation – 21 January 2025) The emergence of large constellations of small satellites has disrupted the field of space safety services and changed how we think about the risk of collisions in space. The risk from space debris is compounded by the growing congestion from operational satellites in low-Earth orbit, particularly between 300 and 700 km above the Earth. These satellites have created an opportunity for commercial operators to assume roles that were once the exclusive domain of military or other state actors. While increasing commercial interest in providing the essential safety functions of space situational awareness and conjunction alerting may increase the pace of innovation, and emerging technologies may enable new approaches to reduce collision risk on orbit, there are associated core governance issues of safety, sustainability and security in outer space that must be considered. – https://www.cigionline.org/publications/aftershocks-disruptive-growth-in-low-earth-orbit-creates-new-policy-challenges/

Security

Phishing Risks Rise as Zendesk Subdomains Facilitate Attacks

(Alessandro Mascellino – Infosecurity Magazine – 21 January 2025) A new report by security researchers has revealed how Zendesk’s platform can be exploited to facilitate phishing attacks and investment scams, such as romance baiting schemes. The findings emphasize social engineering vulnerabilities that could allow malicious actors to impersonate trusted companies and put users at risk of data theft and financial loss. – https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/zendesk-subdomains-facilitate/

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