Robots and artificial intelligence are programmed to make decision in a flash of a second that would take humans much longer.
But what happens when they get it wrong?
Artificial intelligence learns, detects and analyses far faster than the human mind, but still misses obvious mistakes.
That’s why we still need human managers to oversee automated processes, because when they go wrong, it’s in a big way.
AI experts tell the Obama story as an example.
In 2013, a hacker compromised a trusted Twitter news account and announced to the world that then president Obama had been killed in a terror attack on The White House.
Billions lost in minutes
Just five minutes later, the news account corrected the announcement along with the White House.
There was no terror incident and no one, especially the president, had been injured.
But the damage was done.
A sophisticated computer tracking key words for Wall Street had spotted the story and sent the data out to traders. Billions was wiped off the market in those few minutes.
A human operator may have held the news awaiting confirmation, but the computer read the keywords from a trusted source and did what it was programmed to do and told the markets.
Now, fintech and AI are converging.
Financial institutions want us to trust our money to their systems. The only certainty about their security is any program or protocol written by a human can be hacked by someone else.
Big Brother is watching you
Someone always wants money the easy way, and the easiest way to make money is to take it from someone who already has it. It has always been so and probably always will.
Scammers, hackers and fraudsters are out there waiting to pounce.
Technology has made spending and shopping easier and more secure, but for a shopper who shuns a loyalty card in favour of privacy, the online world is a whole universe of horror.
Leaving a cookie trail is bad enough, but GPS linked smartphones with Apple Pay or a similar app can reveal far more about your habits, places you visit and spending patterns than any loyalty card.
Where you are, what you buy and those other items lurking on your wish lists give far more away about you and allow retailers and banks to watch your life unfold.
Big Brother is coming and he knows your every move.
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