Robot Race

Welcome back to the Bastion Brief Newsletter! I hope you had a wonderful week and can take some time to relax this weekend. Check out the YouTube and Twitch channels for our latest cyber security content.

In this week's newsletter let's chat about the robot race taking place across the marketplace. You have heard about the focus on robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) being developed to accomplish tasks.

Amazon has just purchased iRobot as they believe every home will have robots integrated into daily tasks within the next decade. It's a massive purchase for a few reasons. First, they are aiming at the data housed within the company centered around mapping homes for high traffic areas or heat maps. Secondly, they gained skilled engineers that can improve current working robots in their delivery environments. While a large initial investment, I believe this one will pay off for them due to the dominance robotics will play for many industries.

What do you think of when you consider a future where robots operate in society?

Challenges like teaching robots with AI to learn games, pick items in a warehouse, take part in food processing, or be part of a manufacturing process have already been accomplished by developers. We are at a massive milestone where robotics and AI will begin to be integrated into important systems to support humanity. Robots designed to manage highly controlled environments like vertical farms or agriculture hubs, robots delivering packages or food to homes, and robots tasked with cleaning our environment will extend the capabilities of humans. Massive systems like transportation, energy, or supply chains will benefit from the addition of highly skilled robots. The added infusion of AI into these systems will allow them to constantly improve over time if executed correctly.

This situation has a few implications for security as we again must trust big companies with our confidential data, that in the past has been mishandled. When technology development moves faster than policy, its often hard to determine what should and shouldn't be legal in the marketplace. The ability to pinpoint heat maps in the home may be valuable data for energy companies. The data collected centered around high traffic areas in the home may lead to new product development for smart home devices. In reality, the technology may be shared to expand the robotic fleet or even sold to data hungry companies looking for an edge in their market.

My tips for managing the robot race:

1. Be careful of new robotic or AI technology that promises the latest capability. While they may be extremely helpful in five to ten years, there are many products that are situational at best. "Greatest new robot vacuum!"... well, that's until it's on a solid surface or battling pet hair. There will be many products developed that just don't quite get the job done because the tech is not refined enough. Try to avoid large price tag items that sound great but miss the mark. I have no doubt they will reach top performance after a few years of testing.
2. Understand the data your products collect within the home. A heat map or high traffic area may not sound threatening, but what about a complete mapping of your home? Could a skilled team extract that data for use in a robbery? The usage statistics tracked by these robots may give developers key insight to keep you purchasing products based on habits. While I do not think these products are the dangerous IoT devices that breach privacy repeatedly (cough... looking at you Ring products), they could grow to being powerful tracking tools for big tech companies.
3. Pay attention to safety standards for new robotic products. Proper storage practice for these products with high power batteries should be followed to keep you and the devices healthy. Provide feedback and be skeptical of robots or AI being integrated into systems that have massive safety implications. Let companies do proper testing and then wait for user feedback before you jump into trends. There will be many more accidents and harm caused by the progress in this industry.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this week's edition of the Bastion Brief. Please consider following us across the major platforms @bastionbrief. Catch you next week with another edition that helps you build a defensive position around your tech use!