Most of us are hardwired to hate not speaking directly to a human when we have a problem—following years of irritating voicemail systems. However, perhaps the only thing worse is being on hold for an uncertain amount of time due to overwhelmed call centres.

Chatbots have come a long way and can now quickly handle most queries within minutes. Where a human is required, the reduced demand through using virtual agent technology (VAT) means customers can get the assistance they need more quickly.

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly increased the adoption of VAT as businesses seek to maintain customer service through such a challenging time.

According to IBM’s study, 99 percent of organisations reported increased customer satisfaction by integrating virtual agents. Human agents also report increased satisfaction and IBM says those “who feel valued and empowered with the proper tools and support are more likely to deliver a better experience to customers.”

68 percent of leaders cite improving the human agent experience as being among their key reasons for adopting VAT. There’s also economic incentive, with the cost of replacing a dissatisfied agent who leaves a business estimated at as much as 33 percent of the exiting employee’s salary.

IBM claims that VAT performance in the past has only been studied through individual case studies. The company set out, alongside Oxford Economics, to change that by surveying 1,005 respondents from companies using VAT daily.

Businesses wondering whether virtual assistants are worth the investment may be interested to know that 96 percent of the respondents “exceeded, achieved, or expect to achieve” their anticipated return.

On average, companies which have implemented VAT have increased their revenue by three percent.

IBM is one of the leading providers of chatbots through its Watson Assistant solution. While there’s little reason to doubt the claims made in the report, it’s worth keeping in mind that it’s not entirely unbiased.

Watson Assistant has gone from strength-to-strength and appears to have been among the few things which benefited from the pandemic. Between February and August, Watson Assistant usage increased by 65 percent.

You can download a full copy of IBM’s report here.

(Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash)

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The foreboding report is titled ‘The Malicious Use Of Artificial Intelligence’ and was co-authored by experts from Oxford University, The Centre For The Study of Existential Risk, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and more.

Three primary areas of risk were identified:

Digital security — The risk of AI being used for increasing the scale and efficiency of cyberattacks. These attacks could be to compromise other systems by reducing laborious tasks, or it could exploit human error with new attacks such as speech synthesis.

Physical security — The idea that AI could be used to inflict direct harm on living beings or physical buildings/systems/infrastructure. Some provided examples include connected vehicles being compromised to crash, or even situations once seen as dystopian such as swarms of micro-drones.

Political security — The researchers highlight the possibility of AI automating the creation of propaganda, or manipulating existing content to sway opinions. With the allegations of Russia using digital means to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections, and other key international decisions, for many people this will be the clearest example of the present danger.

Here are some of the potential scenarios:

• Chatbots which mimic the writing styles of friends or family members to gain trust, and could even mimic them over a video call.
• A cleaning robot which goes inside a government ministry daily, but has been compromised to detonate an explosive device when a specific figure is spotted.
• A state-powered AI system that identifies anyone who contradicts government policy, and promptly flags them for arrest.
• The creation of a fake video of a high-profile figure saying, or doing, something controversial which leads them to lose their job.

As with most things, it will likely take a disaster to occur before action is taken. The researchers are joining previous calls for AI regulation — including for a robot ethics charter, and for a ‘global stand’ against militarisation — in the attempt to be more proactive about countering malicious usage.

In the report, the researchers wrote:

“The proposed interventions require attention and action not just from AI researchers and companies but also from legislators, civil servants, regulators, security researchers and educators. The challenge is daunting and the stakes are high.”

Some of the proposals include:

• Policymakers collaborating closely with technical researchers to investigate, prevent, and mitigate potential malicious uses of AI.
• Researchers and engineers considering misuse of their work.
• Identifying best practices.
• Expand the range of stakeholders and domain experts involved in discussions of these challenges.

The full report (PDF) is quite a chilling read, and highlights scenarios which could be straight out of Black Mirror. Hopefully, policymakers read the report and take heed of the experts’ warnings before it becomes necessary.

What are your thoughts about the warnings of malicious AI?

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