In the past year, artificial intelligence has seen a meteoric rise, with its impact being felt far and wide. When it comes to artificial intelligence in cloud computing, AI's ability to not only analyze tremendous amounts of data, but learn from it as well, creates revolutionary potential for nearly every industry.

In today's blog, we'll take an indepth look at the impact of artificial intelligence in cloud computing, the benefits and challenges, and how AI cloud technology can be used to transform your business.

How Artificial Intelligence in Cloud Computing Affects Businesses

When looking at the relationship between AI and cloud computing, we can liken it to the relationship between the brain and the body. 

Artificial intelligence is like the brain - it's immensely powerful, and can coordinate many functions without even consciously thinking about it. Cloud computing is like the body. It is the tool that the brain uses to get things done. 

Pairing AI and cloud technology together brings a variety of benefits to businesses in nearly any industry. Here are a few ways AI cloud solutions are making an impact.

Automating Tasks

For many IT departments, routine operations take up a large chunk of their work day. AI can free up more time by automating cloud infrastructure tasks like server provisioning, scaling, and configuration. Many other processes like decisions on when to scale resources up or down, back up data, conduct security checks, and even disaster recovery can be delegated to AI. By eliminating the need for human eyes to perform mundane tasks, human skill is freed up to work on bigger picture ideas. 

Advanced Data Insights

Cloud technologies generate and track vast amounts of data, and AI technologies are making it easier than ever to take advantage of that data to make predictions and decisions. AI and cloud technology can be used to sort through far more data and analyze patterns and trends than humans alone. AI is also great at identifying redundancies and optimizing your data and improving performance. With optimized data, your company can better understand its customers, market trends, and improve organizational efficiency. 

Enhanced Security

AI cloud solutions have also helped companies invest in strengthening their security features. AI has proven adept at preventing cyber attacks by identifying suspicious activities and detecting unusual data patterns indicative of security breaches. Artificial intelligence in cloud computing is also used to automate incident responses, reducing downtime and minimizing the impact of threats.

Optimizing Resources

One of the primary advantages of cloud computing is the ability to scale up or down resources. AI is great at helping predict the need for future resource needs by analyzing historical data and workload patterns. By optimizing your cloud environment based on projected needs, you can reign in costs by decreasing resource usage when needs dictate it.  

Challenges of AI in Cloud Computing

There are many practical benefits that can be achieved through merging AI and cloud technology. But as with any newly adopted technologies, there are always a number of challenges that individual companies must face as they begin to embrace AI and cloud technology. 

Some of these challenges include:

Security/Privacy Concerns

AI requires large amounts of data to learn from, data that often contains sensitive personal information about your customers. It's imperative for both customers and your company that you make every reasonable effort to protect that data from breaches. 

Potential for Bias

There are several ethical concerns with AI and cloud technology, including biases that may result from the data the AI was trained on. Bias in AI can corrupt the AI's decision making abilities, leading to potentially discriminatory outcomes. Businesses must be aware of potential bias, and make efforts to mitigate this. 

Technical Limitations

AI is still an emerging technology, and while it is capable of many amazing things, it is also important to understand its limitations. AI is based on probabilities, not calculations. For this reason, AI models should be expected to sometimes provide erroneous results, exhibit biases, or breakdown in other unexpected ways. Adopting AI cloud solutions requires investing in highly skilled professionals who can manage AI cloud solutions and respond to challenges. 

Effect on Human Workforces

While AI can automate many tasks, businesses should not look at it as an outright way to replace their workforce. Employees must be equipped with skills to utilize AI in a way that enhances their skills and increases productivity. Businesses that adopt AI in a way that enhances their workforce, rather than tries to replace it, will gain the most significant advantage.

AI Regulations

As AI continues to become part of the fabric of society, regulations and legal issues around the technology will continue to evolve. Obtaining and remaining in compliance around data security and privacy issues involving AI technologies may require professional legal counsel. 

Legal Implications of AI in Cloud Computing

In addition to the concerns mentioned above, there are a number of legal concerns with using AI technology and cloud computing. Some of these include:

Type of AI Used

AIs can be trained using either Large Language Models (LLMs) or machine learning models. Disclosing the type of AI used can mitigate potential legal risks down the line. 

Data Ownership

Does the vendor (the company providing the AI tech) own the data that a user inputs, as well as the data returned as output? Does the vendor retain the right to use the customer's data to improve the AI model? These are critical questions to answer before moving forward with artificial intelligence in cloud computing. 

Confidentiality

Is the vendor required to keep inputs and outputs you generate confidential?

IP Infringement

AI technologies built using LLMs are trained on massive sets of data, which can include copyrighted works. This can potentially result in generating text and results strikingly similar to copyrighted material, which may not be considered fair use of the copyrighted works.

Similar Outputs

Because AI is trained on massive amounts of data, it's important to inform clients that outputs may not be wholly unique, and can be similar to other outputs generated by other clients.

Third Party Providers

Any involvement of 3rd party features or components used in the AI service should be disclosed to clients, as well as any flow down terms and conditions. 

Potential Restrictions to Consider

Legal agreements involving AI cloud solutions should specify:

• Restrictions on using output to train the vendor's or a competing AI platform

• Restrictions on use of AI outputs for decision making, without proper human oversight

• Preventing abuse of AI technologies to discriminate, harm, or harass others

• Indemnification for copyright or trademark infringement from use of the AI model

• Obligations to keep inputs or outputs confidential

Conclusion

Just as the brain needs the body, AI and humans need each other to realize their full potential. Together, they form an impactful duo, full of immense possibilities, and formidable challenges. However, navigating this dynamic and evolving landscape requires a deep understanding of the evolving technical, legal, and ethical issues.

SVT Law Advisors is committed to helping organizations adopt AI and cloud computing technology smoothly and efficiently. We have been at the intersection of business, law and technology in Silicon Valley for over 25 years. We are committed to serving our clients with high quality solutions to legal issues involving all aspects of technology law, including artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

If you're looking for help adopting AI cloud solutions, let SVTech Law Advisors guide you with comprehensive legal counsel. Contact SVTech Law Advisors today.