Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] Welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation. Hello, listeners, and welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show. 0:14 My-- As a monthly regular on the show, my final guest needs no introduction, but here it is. 0:20 His research and teaching interests focus on creating new technologies for land, sea, and air robots and intelligent user interfaces. He joins us each month to talk this month about AI and cybersecurity. 0:33 Please welcome back Josh Peschel, Assistant Professor at-- of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State University. Josh, welcome back to the show. Hey, Peggy. It's good to be with you today. 0:48 So, Josh, you know, let's talk about, uh, the emergence of artificial intelligence and what I really wanna talk about, all these faster speeds, and I would love to get your take on how are we securing all this stuff with all-- everything that's going on. 1:05 So I think most of the big players in the IoT space, they should have some kind of security connection protocols in place. 1:13 And if you start looking around at the different device architectures and the way this stuff is set up, you've got your devices, whether that's your cameras or your cars, and you've got your gateways, and you've got your data systems where your cloud lives, and you have a lot of really in-place security protocols that sit on top of those communication networks, whether they're going over Wi-Fi or low-energy Bluetooth is the big thing. 1:34 Um, 1:35 but it gets tricky when you start talking about artificial intelligence and pushing the computation and the decisions further away from where those data centers are onto those actual devices like cameras and cars and things like that. 1:51 And so, uh, being able to secure better those actual devices that are actually out there physically sensing information for people, I think is a key thing. 2:00 And what I tell people most often is beware the BYO IoT, the bring your own IoT devices. 2:09 Those types of networks, putting devices that don't always come from the big players onto networks can introduce a set of vulnerabilities that even though that's a great technology that maybe came out of the maker space or it was some cutting-edge, uh, implementation, uh, that BYO IoT can potentially be dangerous. 2:30 So make sure that you know what you're doing with your networks. 2:33 I don't know if you were able to hear segment one, but I talked about one in five Deloitte respondents said that cyber risk concerns made their companies decide not to l-launch an AI initiative, and that sixteen percent canceled an AI initiative that was already in progress due to cybersecurity concerns. 2:52 So if somebody was already interested in kind of all this emerging technology but is hesitant to adopt it because of security concerns, what do you say to them? 3:05 Well, I usually tell people there's-- when it comes to technology, there's really nothing wrong with being paranoid. 3:10 And if you go all the way back [laughs] to the history of a lot of tech companies, you know, you look at Intel, when you look at somebody like their former CEO, Andy Grove, and he says there's nothing wrong with being paranoid. 3:19 Uh, it's kind of how you survive in the business. But I think that as the manufacturers have that perspective, that who knows who's coming along that might, uh, bump you out. 3:27 I think as the end user, since te-technology is so ubiquitous, I don't think there's a, I don't think there's a problem with being a little, uh, paranoid as well. 3:35 I, I, I think that if I was gonna advise somebody, I would say that the big hurdle in all of this to really take into account is, is the cost and the lifetime of the hardware. 3:45 That if you're gonna spend a lot of money on something, make sure that hardware is secure and doesn't need to be replaced a year from now as some of these changes happen. 3:53 So if people are a little bit shy for adoption, I think it probably has, um, you know, more to do with that. But if you do put it in place, I think that it's reasonable to, to tell companies that, 4:04 uh, making sure that the data are quality controlled, I think that's important, and that it's not unreasonable to think about 4:12 if somebody actually does get access to your data, having a plan in place to, to be able to deal with that. I, I usually tell people that your, your... 4:21 If you're a municipality or if you're in smart ag, you're, you're probably more likely to get a FOIA request than a hack. 4:27 But making sure that, that there's some type of data management plan in place if something were to happen, protecting the integrity of the data, that, that's something that you should consider in your overall cybersecurity strategy because people can use-- Sometimes data, we have lots of examples, people can use actual valid data for very nefarious reasons. 4:48 So I would say there's nothing wrong with being paranoid. Well, let's talk about particularly what advice would you give agriculture, that you know that really well, I mean. So what-- for those who might be in... 5:00 And right now, the ag market is really going through some tough times. I'm sure you're seeing it right there with the weather and everything. 5:06 So AI is a great opportunity to really see things and-- but what advice would you give them? 5:12 Especially, you know, and then maybe we can talk about security, but what advice are you giving the industry for looking at AI, both from AI in general and then trying to protect things from a security perspective? 5:25 So you're absolutely right as, as it relates to the, the profitability issues in agriculture. Sometimes the margins are, are really thin. And so I, I give them similar advice about the, the latest and greatest hardware. 5:38 The-- I think we've talked in the past about the models for cell phones aren't the models for agriculture. 5:44 You can't expect everybody to be dropping fifteen hundred bucks every, every year on a particular device because the demand isn't just gonna be there. 5:52 And, and in a lot of ways, that's because, uh, you know, pigs don't have the same profit margins as pixel phones. They, they don't. And so just like crops, the region-- the, the return on interest, uh, investment, uh, 6:05 really depends on what specific dataUh, I think that will yield that producer, whether they're growing corn or sorghum or pigs or cattle or, or what have you. 6:15 So they, they really have to look at it in terms of if the data itself or a commodity, what return on investment is it gonna give them for what they're trying to do? 6:23 If they're trying to go into biofuels, then that's something that may yield a larger return. Maybe it's pigs, not so great right now. 6:31 So it's a little bit of wait and see, and the strategy has to be tailored to the specific type of production that they're, they're involved with. 6:37 But my big advice is to be wary of a lot of expensive hardware and to wait for the really strong software solutions that I think will be coming in time. 6:51 And talk about from a securities perspective, is that the same advice then? Is the idea is that wait, you stay on the sidelines till the prices come down, or it's the same thing, you've gotta... 7:03 You're gonna have to get in it at some point, and you're also gonna have to be very vigilant about watching and doing things from a security perspective? 7:13 Well, I, I think for, for producers, if you're looking at ma-making major infrastructure investments, that's-- it's maybe like once every ten years. So when they get in it, they're gonna be in it for a long time. 7:24 If we look at some of the trends with regard to security on the hardware, if you look at mobile devices, you've got people like Apple that are putting, uh, secure co-processor chips on the devices that store your fingerprints or your face. 7:37 But I think, you know, if, as we-- just as we looked for privacy and integrity for people, I think you also have to look for that for the agricultural products. 7:45 If we're using something with cameras, the, the rise of deep fake videos and fooling of imagery, I think that's something that needs to be taken into account because if your cameras are the ones making the decisions, you need to be able to have a way in which that, that could be overcome. 8:00 Now, that's, that's probably a little bit in the future. That's not gonna happen tomorrow. But these are things that, that could perhaps be dealt with in software a little bit later on. 8:08 And, and again, I, I go back to my, you know, BYO IoT beware, uh, because there's a lot in the people in the maker space who can offer something at a little bit lower price, but, uh, perhaps it's not as secure. 8:23 So go with somebody reputable, just like you would for your regular infrastructure investments. So Josh, it's always great to talk to you. 8:31 T-- Joshua Peschel, Assistant Professor of Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State University. As always, where can our listeners learn more about what you're doing? 8:42 So if you wanna look at our specific research group, it's just peschelgroup.org. And if you want to check out great things that are happening in Iowa State, uh, you can look at our website, abe.iastate.edu. 8:52 Hey, Josh, thank you so much. We appreciate it. Look forward to talking to you again. Thank you again. Thanks. All right, listeners, we are out of time for this segment and the show. 9:03 I hope you guys who are gonna celebrate this week have a great holiday week. And, uh, remember, we are broadcast live every Tuesday at twelve PM Central. 9:12 Check out our new article on the website at connectedworld.com or any of our past archives of the show at thepeggysmedleyshow.com. And if you wanna tweet at us or any of our guests, please do so @ConnectedWMag. 9:25 We'd love to get your comments. We wanna see what you have to say. And check out my recent blog 'cause it's a doozy. [upbeat music] I'm telling you, there's a lot of crazy drivers out there. 9:33 This is The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation. And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. Have an awesome week. 9:59 Constructek TV, your fierce advocates for construction. 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