The AI Software taking the internet by a storm – ChatGPT

 

ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot launched by OpenAI, a research laboratory in California in November 2022. It is built on top of OpenAI's GPT-3 family of large language models, and is fine-tuned with both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques.

ChatGPT was launched as a prototype on November 30, 2022, and quickly garnered attention for its detailed responses and articulate answers across many domains of knowledge. Following the release of ChatGPT, OpenAI was reportedly valued at 29 billion USD.

Since its launch, ChatGPT has become an extraordinary hit. Essentially a more elaborate chatbot, the AI program can churn out answers to the biggest and smallest questions in life, and draw up college essays, fictional stories, emails, poems and even job application letters. It does this by drawing on what it has gleaned from a staggering amount of text on the internet, with careful guidance from human experts. Ask ChatGPT a question, as millions have in recent weeks, and it will do its best to respond – unless it knows it cannot. The answers are confident and fluently written, even if they are sometimes stunningly wrong.

The AI is built on a large language model or LLM, which is fed hundreds of billions of words in the form of books, conversations and web articles, from which it builds a model, based on statistical probability, of the words and sentences that tend to follow whatever text came before. It is a bit like predictive text on a mobile phone, but scaled up massively, allowing it to produce entire responses instead of single words.

It has a remarkable ability to interact in conversational dialogue form and provide responses that can appear surprisingly human. Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF) is an additional layer of training that uses human feedback to help ChatGPT learn the ability to follow directions and generate responses that are satisfactory to humans.

As with every invention, ChatGPT comes with some limitations; it is specifically programmed not to provide toxic or harmful responses. So, it will avoid answering those kinds of questions. Another important limitation is that the quality of the output depends on the quality of the input. In other words, expert directions (prompts) generate better answers. Then also, ChatGPT has no handle on the truth, so even when answers are fluent and plausible, there is no guarantee they are correct.

OpenAI acknowledges these limitations and says “we plan to make regular model updates to improve in such areas. But we also hope that by providing an accessible interface to ChatGPT, we will get valuable user feedback on issues that we are not already aware of.”

You can try it on chat.openai.com

Cybersecurity service providers, professionals to be licensed

 

The Cyber Security Authority says it has commenced processes to start licensing cybersecurity providers, cybersecurity establishments and the accreditation of cybersecurity professionals.

This move according to the acting Director General-CSA, Dr. Albert Antwi-Boasiako, forms part of efforts to collaborate with government to enhance Ghana’s cyber resilience amid the increasing rate of cybercrimes worldwide.

Speaking at a public consultation on the licensing and accreditation framework, Dr. Albert Antwi-Boasiako, explained that the move is necessary to ensure cybersecurity service providers offer their services in accordance with approved standards and procedures in line with industry best practices.

He went on to say that the engagement is meant to solicit inputs from industry players before the framework is submitted to the o CSA board for approval, which is expected to happen before end of the year for full implementation in January 2023.

This, Dr. Antwi-Boasiako believes would build confidence in this emerging profession and create more opportunities for skills acquisition, training and development in this critical sector “for our use and to meet the critical skills-shortage in this sector globally”.

Presenting the draft framework during the public engagement that saw about 100 cybersecurity professionals in attendance, Functional Lead-Legal and Compliance at the CSA, Madam Jennifer Mensah, said despite digital transformation generating a lot of prosperity and wealth for the world economy, cybercrime has increased at a greater rate.

“The work of cybersecurity establishments, cybersecurity service providers and cybersecurity professionals has been very, very important in securing our digital critical infrastructure and digital services. However, there are some concerns that there may be certain cybersecurity service providers, cybersecurity establishments and professionals who may be less credible and less competent, adopting substandard processes in rendering services to the detriment of Ghana’s digital economy. Hence the need for licencing and accreditation to regulate the industry’s intrusive nature,” she stated.

“National security considerations are driving regulations in the sector, demanding that all these stakeholders are in good standing. Therefore, there is a need for government to regulate the sector through the Cyber Security Authority to ensure compliance,” she added

Meanwhile, a directive for the Protection of Critical Information Infrastructures (CIIs) was launched by the Authority on October 1, 2021 to assist CII owners in registering with the Authority and guide them to protect their critical systems.

And, according to Deputy Communications and Digitalisation Minister Ama Pomaa Boateng during her address at the National Cyber Security Awareness Month launched earlier this week, from January 2023 all Critical Information Infrastructure Owners, whether in the private sector or public institutions, will be required to undergo mandatory compliance checks and audits to ensure the protection of Ghana’s critical systems.

“This audit and compliance action will be in line with regulations aimed at reinforcing the resilience and response capacities of these institutions against cyber-threats and incidents, as well as to ensuring a resilient, secure economy. This will help protect our critical systems from rising malicious cyber activities in the global landscape. They are also important to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of controls/measures put in place to meet requirements of the law,” she said.

Designated CII owners who fail to comply with the regulatory measures to protect the country ‘s critical databases and systems will be sanctioned in accordance with the Cybersecurity Act, she added

The Cyber Security Authority says it has commenced processes to start licensing cybersecurity providers, cybersecurity establishments and the accreditation of cybersecurity professionals.

This move according to the acting Director General-CSA, Dr. Albert Antwi-Boasiako, forms part of efforts to collaborate with government to enhance Ghana’s cyber resilience amid the increasing rate of cybercrimes worldwide.

Speaking at a public consultation on the licensing and accreditation framework, Dr. Albert Antwi-Boasiako, explained that the move is necessary to ensure cybersecurity service providers offer their services in accordance with approved standards and procedures in line with industry best practices.

He went on to say that the engagement is meant to solicit inputs from industry players before the framework is submitted to the o CSA board for approval, which is expected to happen before end of the year for full implementation in January 2023.

This, Dr. Antwi-Boasiako believes would build confidence in this emerging profession and create more opportunities for skills acquisition, training and development in this critical sector “for our use and to meet the critical skills-shortage in this sector globally”.

Presenting the draft framework during the public engagement that saw about 100 cybersecurity professionals in attendance, Functional Lead-Legal and Compliance at the CSA, Madam Jennifer Mensah, said despite digital transformation generating a lot of prosperity and wealth for the world economy, cybercrime has increased at a greater rate.

“The work of cybersecurity establishments, cybersecurity service providers and cybersecurity professionals has been very, very important in securing our digital critical infrastructure and digital services. However, there are some concerns that there may be certain cybersecurity service providers, cybersecurity establishments and professionals who may be less credible and less competent, adopting substandard processes in rendering services to the detriment of Ghana’s digital economy. Hence the need for licencing and accreditation to regulate the industry’s intrusive nature,” she stated.

“National security considerations are driving regulations in the sector, demanding that all these stakeholders are in good standing. Therefore, there is a need for government to regulate the sector through the Cyber Security Authority to ensure compliance,” she added

Meanwhile, a directive for the Protection of Critical Information Infrastructures (CIIs) was launched by the Authority on October 1, 2021 to assist CII owners in registering with the Authority and guide them to protect their critical systems.

And, according to Deputy Communications and Digitalisation Minister Ama Pomaa Boateng during her address at the National Cyber Security Awareness Month launched earlier this week, from January 2023 all Critical Information Infrastructure Owners, whether in the private sector or public institutions, will be required to undergo mandatory compliance checks and audits to ensure the protection of Ghana’s critical systems.

“This audit and compliance action will be in line with regulations aimed at reinforcing the resilience and response capacities of these institutions against cyber-threats and incidents, as well as to ensuring a resilient, secure economy. This will help protect our critical systems from rising malicious cyber activities in the global landscape. They are also important to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of controls/measures put in place to meet requirements of the law,” she said.

Designated CII owners who fail to comply with the regulatory measures to protect the country ‘s critical databases and systems will be sanctioned in accordance with the Cybersecurity Act, she added.