A VISITING professor in cyber security and digital forensics at York St John University will warn this evening of the challenges posed by the ‘Internet of things’ and artificial intelligence.

Professor David Rogers, a mobile phone and Internet of Things (IoT) security expert, will give an inaugural lecture in the De Grey Lecture Theatre at 5.30pm.

A university spokeswoman said he would discuss future trust in IoT and connected economies, and how to help prevent artificial intelligence systems from easily being ‘gamed by adversaries'.

Prof Rogers, who has been working with the UK government to ensure future consumer IoT products and services are designed and built to be secure by default, said: “In the future, how will it be possible to trust anything at all? What we read, what we see and what we do – how will we know that any of it is real? How will we prove that something is false or that we didn’t do something?”

“From products to restaurant reviews and endorsements, our perceptions are being twisted by falsehoods which are sometimes algorithmically generated; pictures can be manipulated and false data trails created relatively easily.

“Combined with the use of so-called “dark patterns”, rudimentary artificial intelligence is already shaping what we do, nudging humans into behaviours that are desired by the shepherds of such automated systems.

“As our future shifts to one which humans delegate management of data gathering, leaving machines to trust data from other machines, which in turn lead to machine-based decision trees based on that data, how quickly can manipulation of critical elements of what is relied upon be turned into economic disaster?”

The lecture is open to the public by phoning 01904 876654 to book a place.