Samsung has recently banned the use of generative  AI tools after a massive chunk of sensitive data leaked through its possible use. 

Why did Samsung take this step? Before delving into this, let’s understand what Generative AI actually is.

Generative AI is a branch of artificial intelligence that enables machines to generate new content, such as text, images, music, and even videos. This field involves designing machine learning models that can be trained on large datasets of existing content to learn patterns and generate new content on their own. Generative AI has numerous exciting applications, from automated content generation to creative artwork and even writing full essays or books.

One type of generative AI algorithm is the language model, which learns to predict the likelihood of a sequence of words based on previous words in a text. These models are often trained on large amounts of text data, such as articles from the internet or books. Once trained, they can generate new text based on a given prompt or even continue writing a text that was started by a human.

Another type of generative AI algorithm is the GAN, or Generative Adversarial Network. In this approach, two neural networks work together: a generator network that tries to create realistic-looking content, and a discriminator network that tries to distinguish the generated content from real content. The generator network keeps refining its output until it can fool the discriminator, resulting in high-quality generated content.

What’s the potential of generative AI?

Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize many industries and allow humans to work more efficiently by automating content creation and other tasks. 

However, as mentioned earlier, there are also concerns about the potential misuse of the technology. Therefore, researchers and developers in this field must continue to balance the benefits of generative AI with potential security risks and ethical concerns.

Risks Associated with Generative AI

Malicious use: Advanced generative AI could be used to generate realistic-looking fake videos, images, or text on a large scale, making it harder for people to tell the difference between what is real and what is fake. This could be used for different purposes, such as fake news, identity theft, and even cybercrime

Privacy invasion: Generative AI algorithms can be used to generate content that can reveal personal information about individuals. For example, the algorithm could generate high-quality images of people's faces, potentially allowing someone to generate an image of a person who has never even been photographed

Intellectual property theft: Generative AI can be used for content creation, which can lead to Intellectual Property theft. This may be achieved by generating fake content that appears to be original and submitting it as original work to obtain a patent or copyright protection

To mitigate these risks, researchers and developers are seeking ways to create generative AI that is secure, transparent, and traceable. However, there is still much work to be done, and the security concerns surrounding generative AI will continue to be a topic of concern as the technology continues to advance.

Now, let’s come to Samsung banning the use of generative AI tools.

Samsung Ban

After a month of accidental internal sensitive data leakage from Samsung to ChatGPT, Samsung has now cracked down on tej use of generative AI services. As per reports, it is temporarily banning the use of generative AI tools on company-owned devices such computers, tablets, phones and even on non-company-owned devices that run on internal networks. The restrictions would not only be on ChatGPT, but services that use the technology such as Microsoft’s Bing and generative AI services like Bard from Google.

The ban by Samsung was mainly reported by Bloomberg.  “The company is reviewing measures to create a secure environment for safely using generative AI to enhance employees’ productivity and efficiency,” a Samsung spokesperson cited in an interview. “However, until these measures are ready, we are temporarily restricting the use of generative AI through company devices.”

So, the concluding question is that are generative AI services a real boon or a partial bane too?