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The Morning Download: Tim Berners-Lee Envisions a Better Web
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Tim Berners-Lee, left, on stage with Gartner's Chris Howard in Orlando, Fla., Oct. 22, 2019 PHOTO: TOM LOFTUS/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Good morning, CIOs. The World Wide Web was invented in 1989. Thirty years later, the Web’s inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, was onstage telling several thousand IT executives that people need a new framework for governing the communities that have formed online.
Speaking at the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo in Orlando, Fla. on Monday, Mr. Berners-Lee said such a framework should reflect values that promote the good of humanity, balancing civility and free speech.
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He encouraged the 9,000 attendees of the conference to build technology that helps address sustainability, promotes corporate responsibility to the broader community and“respects all people no matter where they come from.”
Highlights:
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He suggested that engineers should make “systems which serve a purpose, but at the same time serve humanity.”
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Frustrated with social networks? “Do not imagine social networks of today is what we will have in future,” he said.
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The World-Wide-Web has yet to be true to its name, he said, calling for “affordable global connectivity.”
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To address the problem of hate speech, Mr. Berners-Lee suggested that we need to draw a line around what’s acceptable, and provide a process in which people can appeal decisions, possibly up through the courts.
Read on for more coverage from the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo.
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The Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo in Orlando, Fla., on Monday. PHOTO: STEVEN ROSENBUSH/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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How CIOs can prepare for a downturn. Chief information officers are finding their costly digital-modernization plans challenged by the possibility of a global downturn, which many economists predict could happen within the next few years. How information-technology leaders can prepare for economic slowdown was the subject of discussion on Monday in a keynote kicking off the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo.
“Globally, many economists and CFOs believe we are heading towards another set of economic downturns,” Val Sribar, a Gartner senior vice president, said in the keynote. “If they’re right...how would you respond?”
CIO Journal took the question to IT executives.
“It’s easy to get caught up when times are good and spend (in) excess. We’d rather not do that,” said Richard Scott, chief information officer at Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC.
Mr. Scott said he’s constantly looking at areas where technology can be used to reduce inefficient processes. When it comes to emerging technologies, the company is a “fast follower” and invests in technologies when they’re proven out, he said.
“Let the others make the big expensive mistakes, and then we’ll come in and be able to move quicker to get more out of those technologies,” Mr. Scott said in an interview at the conference.
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Freddie Mac named Frank Nazzaro executive vice president and chief information officer. PHOTO: FREDDIE MAC
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Freddie Mac CIO aims to modernize IT, cut costs. Freddie Mac’s acting chief information officer, Frank Nazzaro, is taking on the role permanently as the mortgage-finance company looks to digital technology to increase loan approvals for a wider group of qualified home buyers. “The overarching goal of this work is to improve velocity, reduce cost and increase quality throughout the mortgage process,” Mr. Nazzaro tells CIO Journal's Angus Loten. Mr. Nazzaro has served as acting CIO since May, taking over from Stacey Goodman, who became CIO of Prudential Financial Inc.
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75%
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The percentage of organizations surveyed by Gartner that have increased customer experience technology investments in 2018
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Artificial Intelligence: Risk Analysis
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Svetlana Sicular, vice president analyst at Gartner Inc., speaks about the hype cycle for artificial intelligence at Gartner's IT Symposium/Xpo in Orlando, Fla. PHOTO: SARA CASTELLANOS/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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IT executives are finding novel uses for AI but there are several risks with the technology, analysts at Gartner said Monday at the research firm's IT Symposium/Xpo in Orlando.
By 2022, 30% of organizations using AI for decision-making will come up against "shadow AI" as the biggest risk to effective and ethical decisions, according to Gartner. Shadow AI refers to data outside the ownership of the IT department that is used to build AI models.
The concept is gaining popularity as more AI tools become available to employees without formal training in data science or artificial intelligence, according to Gartner. "While this can be a productivity bonanza...there is also a challenge with unleashing these powerful tools on an untrained audience," researchers wrote in a Gartner paper on the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2020.
By 2023, over 75% of large organizations are expected to hire AI specialists in behavior forensics, privacy and customer trust to reduce brand and reputation risk, according to Gartner.
By 2022, 30% of all cyberattacks will involve "poisoning" the training data that is used to build AI systems, stealing AI models and infiltrating AI models with samples that cause it to make the wrong decisions, Gartner said. It will be important for IT executives to think about creating systems that can detect anomalies in machine learning algorithms, said Brian Burke, research vice president at Gartner.
Gartner predicts that by 2022, 30% of organizations will have invested in explainable artificial intelligence, which refers to technology that can explain how AI algorithms come to their conclusions. Technology vendors are unveiling software to try to address problems with transparency in AI algorithms, as WSJ CIO Journal has previously reported.
For example, Cambridge, Mass.-based software company Pegasystems Inc. developed a “transparency switch” about two and a half years ago, said Don Schuerman, the company’s chief technology officer. The feature tells customers when certain algorithms become too opaque when, for example, they’re using AI to figure out how to engage with customers.
“We’re seeing lots of uptick and interest from our customers around how to do that,” Mr. Schuerman said at the Gartner conference.
— Sara Castellanos
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“You’d have to ask him.”
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— CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz, speaking at WSJ Tech Live 2019, on why he thinks President Trump referenced his company in a phone call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky
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UPS is striking deals with medical groups to launch its commercial drone delivery services. PHOTO: UPS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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UPS strikes agreements to use drones to deliver medical supplies. The deliver giant is striking a series of drone-delivery agreements with health-care groups, the first since it has announced since it won U.S. regulatory approval to operate commercial drone flights, The Wall Street Journal's Jennifer Smith reports. The plans include expanding the use of drones to deliver cargo such as medical samples and supplies on hospital campuses in Utah and elsewhere, and an agreement with CVS to evaluate the use of drones for home delivery of prescriptions and other products.
Google grabs ex-Microsoft exec to run G Suite. Google continues its hiring spree of cloud executives from competitors. The company’s latest hire is former Microsoft executive Javier Soltero, who will run the G Suite business and report to Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, who joined the unit last year after two decades at Oracle. (CNBC)
Peter Thiel goes after late-stage startups. Peter Thiel’s venture-capital firm Founders Fund is raising nearly $3 billion, much of which will be poured into late-stage startups that have remained private for years. (WSJ)
Facebook antitrust case grows. State attorneys general and federal investigators met with public policy and legal experts on Monday to begin hashing out the legal grounds for an antitrust case against Facebook. A similar meeting focused on Google is also in the works, after law-enforcement officials last month launched an investigation into claims that the two social-media giants are stifling competition and harming consumers. (WSJ)
Facebook flags state-run media. Ahead of the 2020 U.S. election, the social-media giant says it is taking steps to identify social-media posts by outlets that are wholly or partially under government control. In a conference call Monday, the company said it has already taken down dozens of suspicious Facebook and Instagram accounts, pages and groups targeting users in the U.S., North Africa and Latin America. (WSJ)
WeWork weighs SoftBank rescue. Facing a looming cash crunch, the co-working company’s board is expected to meet Tuesday to discuss emergency-financing options, including a takeover bid by SoftBank that would inject $5 billion into the embattled startup. The deal would accelerate a $1.5 billion equity investment planned next year by SoftBank, which is offering to buy more than $1 billion in stock from existing investors and employees. (WSJ)
Assange denied hearing delay. A U.K. judge on Monday refused a request by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to postpone a Feb. 24 hearing related to his extradition to the U.S. The U.S. Justice Department indicted Mr. Assange in a computer-hacking conspiracy and is seeking extradition into U.S. custody. (WSJ)
Hikvision feels the pain of U.S. trade blacklist. Chinese surveillance equipment maker Hikvision Digital Technology has warned that being placed on a U.S. trade blacklist could potentially hurt business. Hikvision is the world’s largest supplier of surveillance equipment. (South China Morning Post)
Microsoft buys Canadian startup to boost 365. Microsoft Corp. did not reveal the amount it paid for Mover, which offers technology that makes it easier to migrate files between various cloud services. (TechCrunch)
Islamic State turns to teen-friendly TikTok. Islamic State militants have been posting short propaganda videos to TikTok, the social network known for lighthearted content popular with teenagers. The videos—since removed, in line with the app’s policy—featured corpses paraded through streets, Islamic State fighters with guns, and women who call themselves “jihadist and proud.” (WSJ)
Apple starts selling assembled-in-India iPhones. Assembling the iPhone XR locally helps Apple avoid India's high import duties, making the device more affordable for local buyers. (Reuters)
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Everything Else You Need to Know
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Californians are facing a potential second round of pre-emptive power outages, with the state’s largest utility working to prevent its equipment from sparking wildfires. Hot, gusty winds are forecast later this week. (WSJ)
Prime Minister Boris Johnson was set to put his Brexit deal to a vote in Parliament on Tuesday, in the first test of whether he has won over enough lawmakers to his plan to pull the U.K. out of the European Union. (WSJ)
European air-safety regulators have officially shelved the idea of lifting the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX jets simultaneously with the U.S., a setback to American regulators’ desire for a coordinated global response. (WSJ)
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was headed toward re-election, overcoming recent scandals to defeat his conservative rival. (WSJ)
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