""This is the largest impact on the energy system in the United States we've seen from a cyberattack, full stop," says Rob Lee, CEO of the critical-infrastructure-focused security firm Dragos. Aside from the financial impact on Colonial Pipeline or the many providers and customers of the fuel it transports, Lee points out that around 40 percent of US electricity in 2020 was produced by burning natural gas, more than any other source. That means, he argues, that the threat of cyberattacks on a pipeline presents a significant threat to the civilian power grid. "You have a real ability to impact the electric system in a broad way by cutting the supply of natural gas. This is a big deal," he adds. "I think Congress is going to have questions. A provider got hit with ransomware from a criminal act, this wasn't even a state-sponsored attack, and it impacted the system in this way?""
"In this future, teachers assisted in marking and lesson planning by LLMs would be left with more much-needed time to focus on other elements of their work. However, in a bid to cut costs, the "teaching" of lessons could also be delegated to machines, robbing teachers and students of human interaction.
"Of course, that will be for the less well-off students," Luckin says. "The more well-off students will still have lots of lovely one-to-one human interactions, alongside some very smartly integrated AI."
Luckin instead advocates a future in which technology eases teachers' workloads but does not disrupt their pastoral care - or disproportionately affect students in poorer areas. "That human interaction is something to be cherished, not thrown out," she says."