Windows 10: Securing the future of AI and machine learning at Microsoft

Brink · Feb 8, 2019

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are making a big impact on how people work, socialize, and live their lives. As consumption of products and services built around AI and machine learning increases, specialized actions must be undertaken to safeguard not only your customers and their data, but also to protect your AI and algorithms from abuse, trolling, and extraction.

We are pleased to announce the release of a research paper, Securing the Future of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at Microsoft, focused on net-new security engineering challenges in the AI and machine learning space, with a strong focus on protecting algorithms, data, and services. This content was developed in partnership with Microsoft’s AI and Research group. It’s referenced in The Future Computed: Artificial Intelligence and its role in society by Brad Smith and Harry Shum, as well as cited in the Responsible bots: 10 guidelines for developers of conversational AI.

This document focuses entirely on security engineering issues unique to the AI and machine learning space, but due to the expansive nature of the InfoSec domain, it’s understood that issues and findings discussed here will overlap to a degree with the domains of privacy and ethics. As this document highlights challenges of strategic importance to the tech industry, the target audience for this document is security engineering leadership industry-wide.

Our early findings suggest that:

1. Secure development and operations foundations must incorporate the concepts of Resilience and Discretion when protecting AI and the data under its control.

AI-specific pivots are required in many traditional security domains such as Authentication, Authorization, Input Validation, and Denial of Service mitigation.

Without investments in these areas, AI/machine learning services will continue to fight an uphill battle against adversaries of all skill levels.

2. Machine learning models are largely unable to discern between malicious input and benign anomalous data. A significant source of training data is derived from un-curated, unmoderated public datasets that may be open to third-party contributions.

Attackers don’t need to compromise datasets when they are free to contribute to them. Such dataset poisoning attacks can go unnoticed while model performance inexplicably degrades.

Over time, low-confidence malicious data becomes high-confidence trusted data, provided that the data structure/formatting remains correct and the quantity of malicious data points is sufficiently high.

3. Given the great number of layers of hidden classifiers/neurons that can be leveraged in a deep learning model, too much trust is placed on the output of AI/machine learning decision-making processes and algorithms without a critical understanding of how these decisions were reached.

AI/machine learning is increasingly used in support of high-value decision-making processes in medicine and other industries where the wrong decision may result in serious injury or death.

AI must have built-in forensic capabilities. This enables enterprises to provide customers with transparency and accountability of their AI, ensuring its actions are not only verifiably correct but also legally defensible.

When combined with data provenance/lineage tools, these capabilities can also function as an early form of “AI intrusion detection,” allowing engineers to determine the exact point in time that a decision was made by a classifier, what data influenced it, and whether or not that data was trustworthy.

Our goal is to bring awareness and energy to the issues highlighted in this paper while driving new research investigations and product security investments across Microsoft. Read the Securing the Future of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at Microsoft paper to learn more.
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Source: Securing the future of AI and machine learning at Microsoft - Microsoft Secure

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Brink · Feb 8, 2019

Microsoft experimenting with next tech trend: AI and machine learning

Microsoft is determined not to miss out on artificial intelligence (AI), the next big trend in technology that will, over time, filter into how everyone uses hardware, software, and the internet.

Unlike mobile, which the company missed (and continues to miss) by a mile, Microsoft has been working hard to get on top of AI, both in terms of research and integrating it into products.

One of the main reasons Microsoft has had so much success in AI research so far is down to Microsoft Research, the 1,000-strong arm of the company that deals specifically in scientific research, even if it isn’t part of Microsoft’s core business.

The top scientists at Microsoft Research made a list of predictions for 2016 and many of them focus on AI as a big trend for the coming year, showing that it’s a big focus for the company.

Elsewhere Microsoft’s thinking has swayed towards AI, including a series of high-profile acquisitions and a whole section of the company — called Garage — dedicated to building apps, many of which have artificial intelligence or machine learning built-in.

All of these acquisitions add knowledge to the Microsoft teams and bring products that bear the company’s name onto devices, especially those made by Apple or that run Android.

Microsoft has been working hard to keep up with Google, and others when it comes to AI. In the future, this could be one of the battlegrounds from which technology companies either win or lose customers. Here are the ways Microsoft is competing...
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Read more: Microsoft is experimenting with the next big tech trend: AI and machine learning WinBeta

Cliff S · Feb 8, 2019

Microsoft experimenting with next tech trend: AI and machine learning

Just a thought, what warnings will Windows Skynet give us in the future:

Brink · Feb 8, 2019

Free edX Course - Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI)

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Wondering what Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is all about? Where does data science leave off? And where and how does machine learning apply?

AI will likely define the next generation of software. Given all the talk and confusing terminology out there, we’ve got the perfect overview course for those of you who are just getting started. See what’s really going on with AI and explore the concepts and technologies behind it. Join expert Graeme Malcolm, and spend 3-4 hours each week over four weeks to start using AI to build your own intelligent apps.

There are no programming prerequisites for this course, but Python experience might help, as would an understanding of variables, loops, branching, and other software basics.

Discover how machine learning can be used to build predictive models for AI. Learn how software can be used to process, analyze, and extract meaning from natural language and to process images and video to understand the world the way we do. Find out how to build intelligent bots that enable conversational communication between humans and AI systems.

This course will help you learn how to:

Build simple machine learning models with Azure Machine Learning.

Use Python and Microsoft cognitive services to work with text, speech, images, and video.

Use the Microsoft Bot Framework to implement conversational bots.

Note that the practical elements of this course are based on Microsoft Azure and require an Azure subscription. Instructions for signing up for a free trial subscription are provided with the course materials, or, if you already have one, you can use your existing Azure subscription.

Take your first steps in this exciting, fast-evolving field. Get hands-on, build your own apps and bots. Participate in hands-on activities such as building statistical models to predict health issues, or creating an image-analysis app for still photos or videos.

Watch now by clicking here!

At the end of the course, we provide follow-up resources that can help you determine next steps in your path towards mastering AI.

ML Blog Team
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Source: Free edX Course - Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Cortana Intelligence and Machine Learning Blog

See also: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI) | edX

Windows 10: Securing the future of AI and machine learning at Microsoft

Securing the future of AI and machine learning at Microsoft

Securing the future of AI and machine learning at Microsoft

Securing the future of AI and machine learning at Microsoft

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