Top 5 stories of the week: Copy-paste is archaic, chatter around ChatGPT and Bing Chat continues

With the economy cooling, there isn’t as much news coming out of Big Tech as there was in the latter half of 2022. Instead — as evidenced by our top stories this week — tech leaders, experts, analysts and readers alike have been delving into more broad-reaching (sometimes even philosophical) topics.

For starters, are you still using CTRL+C and CTRL+V to copy-paste? (We’ll admit we were guilty of that here.) In our top story, guest author Rosie Chopra of Magical argues for copying-pasting methods worthy of modern-day 2023. Another of our guest authors, Olivier Gaudin, calls for the C-suite to take ownership of code — which, he says, is ultimately any organization’s most critical asset.

And, of course, there was no muting the chatter around generative AI, including ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Our security editor Tim Keary wrote of Blackbird AI’s new AI assistant for security analysts, and prolific guest author Gary Grossman explored the implications of Bing Chat’s Sydney chatbot — which has made some pretty creepy and cryptic statements.

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And finally, our AI editor Sharon Goldman went beyond the hype, novelty, skepticism and outright hysteria surrounding generative AI in her column The AI Beat.

Interested in reading more? Here are the top five stories for the week of February 20.

Decades of technological innovations have transformed almost every area of business. But for some reason, most of us are still using CTRL+C and CTRL+V to move information from one place to another.

While this method was indeed revolutionary when invented by Xerox computer scientists Larry Tesler and Tim Mott nearly 50 years ago, it is extremely inefficient today.

In our top story of the week, guest author Rosie Chopra of Magical calls for a more intelligent copy-paste method for the modern era, underscoring the fact that the existing way no longer meets the demands of business. Why are workers performing the repetitive, mind-numbing task of transferring thousands of pieces of data (numbers, text, images and more) from documents and websites into cells, fields and platforms when they could be working on more important projects?

Source code is the foundation of every modern enterprise, Olivier Gaudin emphasizes in our second top story of the week. So why isn’t the C-suite taking ownership of code and making it a priority on par with things like sales, marketing, security, finance and HR?

To strengthen this critical strategic asset and maximize their business results, organizations must focus on code at the highest level. This transition will address a major problem that has gone unchecked for years: Code ownership. Someone has to be responsible for stewarding source code and software.

Because today, who really owns source code often remains unclear.

Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT was unveiled in November 2022, there’s been a lively debate about the potential impact that generative AI will have on enterprise security.

Security editor Tim Keary this week wrote about Blackbird AI, which uses generative AI to counter offensive intelligence operations. Notably, the defensive AI and risk intelligence provider announced RAV3N Copilot, an AI assistant for security analysts. 

The tool uses generative AI to create narrative intelligence and risk reports to offer defenders greater context for security incidents. It can automatically generate executive briefings, key findings and mitigation steps to help security teams manage security incidents more efficiently. 

New York Times reporter Kevin Roose had a close encounter of the robotic kind with a shadow-self that seemingly emerged from Bing’s new chatbot — Bing Chat — also known as “Sydney.” News of the interaction quickly went viral and now serves as a cautionary tale about AI, guest author Gary Grossman writes in this top story of the week.

What does this interaction with Sydney — which suddenly professed its love for Roose and pestered him to reciprocate — say about the future of AI? And what should we do to ensure that the technology doesn’t evolve beyond humankind’s control?

Finally, AI editor Sharon Goldman outlined in her AI Beat column the reasons why she didn’t spend her week trying out Microsoft Bing’s AI chatbot or talking about how Sydney — the internal code name of Bing’s AI chat mode — made her feel, or whether it creeped her out.

Instead, she indulged in some deep thoughts (and tweets) about her own response to the Bing AI chats that were published by others. Also, she emphasizes, topics like AI regulation and governance are far more critical.