Risk Headlines

Sourced from various risk news articles across the web

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A.I. Certain to Cause Job Losses – Richard Branson

Billionaire Richard Branson has publicly expressed his concerns regarding the advent of A.I. in the job market. “I think with the coming on of A.I. and other things there is certainly a danger of income inequality”, he explained. In order to mitigate the risk of income inequality somewhat is for governments around the world to provide a universal basic income. However, this presents itself with new risks such as the world economy developing into a “nanny state” – basically meaning an extreme reduction in labour productivity such that it stifles economic growth. The second risk is the loss of privacy or even freedom due to the governments control over people’s salaries.

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Robots in Dangerous Underwater Mining Missions

The risks associated with deep sea diving are insurmountable without the proper gear and adequate training. Technical divers (>60m) have to face these risks on a daily basis when on jobs such as underwater mining missions. Apart from the divers, any deep sea project has great risk of failure due to the harsh conditions below. To mitigate the risks somewhat, a Canadian company called Nautilus Minerals are building giant underwater mining robots to do the job. The level of detail required to build these things is unimaginable to most, and so the success of the company remains to be seen.

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Harvard Loses a Billion on Brazilian Tomatoes

Harvard need a lesson in risk management! This is surprising considering it is one of the best universities in the world and home to many highly intelligent individuals. Harvard fell short on investment risk, over a billion dollars short. They invested in an agricultural plantation that produces mostly tomatoes in a poor community in Brazil. The hope was that these poor people would grow the tomatoes to make and sell tomato paste, and Harvard would profit off that, but the project turned out to be a total disaster. Apparently, this is not the first time they’ve failed to capitalize on an investment. Some have gone as far as to say that they are recklessly using donor money.

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Cisco Cyberattack

Over 200,000 Cisco networks were hacked last Friday, affecting ISPs all over the globe. Apart from disruptions in service on that day, the extent of the damage is still unclear. However, experts are suggesting that the manner in which these hackers attacked tells us that it’s not serious. It appears that these hackers are amateurs and that hit the Cisco networks just for show. Mounir Hahad, head of Juniper Threat Labs at Juniper Networks, adds: "This doesn't look like a serious cyberattack by a well-organized and funded threat actor [nation-state]. The vulnerability is severe enough to cause a lot of damage and implant a man-in-the-middle agent, but it doesn't look like the attacker took advantage of it. I suspect this is the work of a hacktivist group with sympathy toward the U.S., which had no intention to inflict serious damage." Damage aside, there are clear vulnerabilities at Cisco and a cyber-risk assessment must be done.

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