There were a lot of interesting talks, and the program is worth a skim. I was in panel 6. I identified a hypothetical risk that the recent rush to deploy generative AI, with its associated pressure on the electric power and water distribution systems, brings with it. Roughly, with the rise of so-called "industry 4.0" (think smart toaster, but for factories), our critical infrastructure systems are becoming tightly woven together. Besides the increasing dependence on the electric grid there is a growing dependence across sectors on data centers and the internet driven to a large degree by generative AI. What this means riskwise is that faults and failures in one of these systems can "percolate" much more quickly to other infrastructure systems--essentially there are more paths a failure can follow. What in the past might have been a localized failure of one or a few components in one system can become a region-wide multi-sector cascading failure. So for instance a local power failure at a substation might take down a data center that runs the SCADA system used to control a compressor station in the natural gas distribution system, which then might go sideways or fail and cause a natural gas shortage at a natural gas fueled power generator, and so on and so on. Obviously it was always possible for faults and failures in one system to cause faults and failures in another. What's new is that the growing set of new pathways increases the probability that such a jump occurs. What I called out in the talk is that as this interweaving trend continues, we will eventually cross a percolation threshold, after which the faults in these infrastructure systems will take on a different (and in my view much more dangerous) character.

#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #PowerSector #NaturalGas #electricity #risk

#introduction Hello fedi! Used a "lurking" account for about a year now, decided to start over properly. #Risk, #compliance, #security, #privacy guy by day, #foss, #cats, #pizza, #grunge by night. #Polish #European

So far, I found this place to be what a healthy community should look like - inclusive, diverse, and passionate. Just a bunch of wonderful humans exchanging knowledge, thoughts, and views, without the toxicity, tribalism, or algorithms.

Let's see what troubles we get into! ❤️

#Power without friction always ends the same, because friction was the safeguard.

No guard rails enable silent drift; no pushback amplifies blind spots, and no consequences invite decay.

Without guard rails, decision speed increases but accuracy collapses, so small errors snowball into systemic failures and people stop speaking up because #risk feels fatal.

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Insurance Companies Are Terrified to Cover AI, Which Should Probably Tell You Something https://futurism.com/future-society/insurance-cyber-risk-ai #AI #insurance #blackbox #risk #AIExclusions

Airbus has issued a recall for the A320 affecting more than half the global fleet (6000+ planes) due to a software issue. Apparently the fix is reverting to an earlier version of the flight control software:

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/airbus-issues-major-a320-recall-after-flight-control-incident-2025-11-28/

#aviation #risk #airbus

“Redwashing is the gap between a company’s marketing and its reality. A company cannot ‘redwash’ its operations by sponsoring a community festival while simultaneously ignoring its duty to obtain consent on a project.”

#Indigenous #FPIC #legal #law #risk #OSC #CSA #TSX #industry #majorprojects #development

https://www.windspeaker.com/news/windspeaker-news/ignoring-indigenous-consent-poses-real-financial-risk-investors-securities

Also #delisting #WestWorld is an absolute #DickMove and doing so should make #HBO unable to ever hire anyone working for them, because they violated a de-facto unwritten rule in #ShowBiz, and that is paying staff based upon success because many don't get paid upfront or only a tiny portion.

• Oftentimes the same #actors and #directors are also invested in a show or movie, if not coughing up substatial amounts of the financing to the point that they can keep a series afloat when the studio is having issues (looks at 2000s MGM in anger and disappointment)...

And this ain't limited to big budget productions, but is normal down to theaters, where actors sometimes get paid their cut of the ticket sales post-play.

• This is in part due to the financial #risk of said productions and also to incentivize top acts to stay and perform their best.

And yes, #MovieProduction was #VentureCapital before #VC firms or even their founders existed!

48% of cybersecurity leaders didn’t report major incidents last year, citing fear of punitive responses (40%) and financial or reputational fallout (44%), per VikingCloud’s survey.

https://www.cfodive.com/news/many-material-cybersecurity-breaches-go-unreported-vikingcloud/760827/ #Cybersecurity #Tech #CyberAttacks #Compliance #Risk

Do you get it now? Without #dueprocess, #everyone is at #risk. How are you going to prove your #citizenship otherwise?

Driving with a case of COVID raised the odds of having a car crash about as much as being at the legal threshold of DUI or running a red light, according to an analysis of pandemic-era public health and transportation records from seven states.

#driving #risk #DUI #COVID #COVID19 #COVIDIsStillHere #COVIDIsNotOver #MaskUp

Nevertheless, I think there needs to be a space to talk about systemic risk, because it's quite real and has predictable consequences. Folks like to call the latter "black swan events", but if you've chosen not to be aware of a set of issues and then one comes to pass, was it really unpredictable?

Anyway, I'm grateful to Mar Hicks (@[email protected]
mastodon.social) for co-organizing this event and making space for these kinds of conversations. The attendees and other speakers were very thoughtful and engaged and it was a great experience.

#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #PowerSector #NaturalGas #electricity #risk