Author: The Conversation
A massive IT outage is currently affecting computer systems worldwide. In Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, reports indicate computers at banks, media organisations, hospitals, transport services, shop checkouts, airports and more have all been impacted. Today’s outage is unprecedented in its scale and severity. The technical term for what has happened to the affected computers is that they have been “bricked”. This word refers to those computers being rendered so useless by this outage that – at least for now – they may as well be bricks. The widespread outage has been linked to a piece of software called CrowdStrike…
A major IT outage has hit businesses across the world, grounding planes as well as affecting banks and the healthcare sector. George Kurtz, CEO of IT security firm Crowdstrike, said it had traced the issue to a “defect found in a single content update” for the security software it provides for the Microsoft Windows operating system on computers. Microsoft said the issue was caused by an “update from a third-party software platform” and that the “underlying cause” had now been fixed. The Conversation spoke to Professor Alan Woodward, an expert in cybersecurity at the University of Surrey, about what went…
by Layckan Van Gensen, Stellenbosch University Leanne Manas is a familiar face on South African televisions. Towards the end of 2023 the morning news presenter’s face showed up somewhere else: in bogus news stories and fake advertisements in which “she” appeared to promote various products or get-rich-quick schemes. It quickly emerged that Manas had fallen victim to “deepfaking”. Deepfakes involve the use of artificial intelligence tools to manipulate images, video and audio. And it doesn’t require cutting-edge technical know-how. Software like FaceSwap and ZaoApp, which can be downloaded for free, mean that anybody can create deepfakes. Deepfakes were initially used…
BY Anjana Susarla, Michigan State University; Casey Fiesler, University of Colorado Boulder, and Kentaro Toyama, University of Michigan 2023 was an inflection point in the evolution of artificial intelligence and its role in society. The year saw the emergence of generative AI, which moved the technology from the shadows to center stage in the public imagination. It also saw boardroom drama in an AI startup dominate the news cycle for several days. And it saw the Biden administration issue an executive order and the European Union pass a law aimed at regulating AI, moves perhaps best described as attempting to…
by Hovig Tchalian, University of Southern California When a rare bottle of Scotch whisky sold for $2.7 million or R50.5 million in November 2023, I was stunned, but I wasn’t surprised. The whiskey market has been booming for some time. Bourbon brands like Pappy Van Winkle from Buffalo Trace distillery are selling for astronomical prices in the secondary market. Japanese whiskies, which have become popular over the past decade, now fetch prices up to 50 times higher what they did a decade ago. And in July 2022, a single Ardbeg whisky barrel, aged since 1975, with enough liquid for about…
BY M. Hadi Amini, Florida International University Depending on which late-model vehicle you own, your car might be watching you – literally and figuratively – as you drive down the road. It’s watching you with cameras that monitor the cabin and track where you’re looking, and with sensors that track your speed, lane position and rate of acceleration. Your car uses this data to make your ride safe, comfortable and convenient. For example, the cameras can tell when you’ve been distracted and need to bring your attention back to the road. They can also identify when you are speeding by…
by Christopher Adam, University of Oxford The high cost of making cross border payments on the African continent has driven governments on the continent to seek options of settling trade and other transactions in local currencies. This has given birth to the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System which is scheduled to go live in 2024 under Kenya’s leadership. Development economist Christopher Adam, who has studied the exchange rate policies of African countries, answers some key questions. Why are African countries exposed in the international currency market? Three main reasons. First, African economies are small and as such are highly dependent…
BY Alexander Claus Winkler, Rhodes University “Drone fishing” is a relatively recent innovation in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles. Some recreational anglers are using personal drones to fly baited lines into hard-to-reach areas of water, or to look for good fishing areas. Recreational fishing is a popular sport and hobby in South Africa, which has a 2,850km shoreline. The most recent estimate of the number of marine shore based anglers is about 400,000. The group of researchers I’m part of, who study linefish (fish caught using hook and line) became aware over the past 10 years or so of…
by Niusha Shafiabady, Charles Darwin University Artificial intelligence is changing the world – and one of the main areas it will affect in the short-to-medium term is the workforce. AI algorithms imitate real-world systems. The more repetitive a system is, the easier it is for AI to replace it. That’s why jobs in customer service, retail and clerical roles are regularly named as being the most at risk. That doesn’t mean other jobs won’t be affected. The latest advances in AI have shown all kinds of creative work and white-collar professions stand to be impacted to various degrees. However, there’s…
by Adam Behr, Newcastle University In 2023, to still be working on Beatles music … to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s an exciting thing. Not surprisingly, Paul McCartney was positive about the appearance this week of what has been trailed as the “last” Beatles song, Now and Then. Much has been made of AI being part of the production. Machine learning was used to recognise John Lennon’s voice, and then isolate it from other sounds – a piano, a television in the background, electrical hum – to make it usable in a new recording.…