The U.S. Commerce Department’s report released Monday endorses “open-weight” generative AI models, highlighting their potential to enhance accessibility for small businesses and researchers. It advises against restrictions on these models without thorough market impact investigations and emphasizes the need for government monitoring of associated risks. The report aligns with President Biden’s executive order on AI, aiming to balance innovation with safety measures.
While I’m on AI, Enterprise security teams are taking steps to mitigate risks associated with AI-enabled applications. An analysis by Netskope shows that more organizations are using blocking controls, data loss prevention tools, live coaching, and other mechanisms to protect against users sending sensitive data to AI apps. However, there is less focus on addressing risks associated with the data received from GenAI services. Organizations can mitigate these risks through vendor contracts, enforcing the use of corporate-approved GenAI apps, and logging and auditing return datasets.
Why do we care?
When the report highlighted the value for small businesses, my ears perked up. There’s an obvious value broadly in managing data and risk for any size business, yet I hadn’t seen research that indicated that the licensing model itself might have this competitive advantage.