Apidays New York 2024 - APIs in 2030: The Risk of Technological Sleepwalk by Paolo Malinverno, The Business of Technology

Keynote 2: APIs in 2030: The Risk of Technological Sleepwalk
Paolo Malinverno, Growth Advisor - The Business of Technology

Apidays New York 2024: The API Economy in the AI Era (April 30 & May 1, 2024)

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Transcript

1. Paolo Malinverno Growth Advisor APIs in 2030: the Risk of Technological Sleepwalk Consider the intended and unintended consequences of API usage 1
3. A Bit of History: API Days and Paolo API Days Paris, Dec 2018, The State of the API Industry API Days Paris, Dec 2022, The next five years of the API Economy API Days London, September 2023, Meeting Relentless Business Change in a post API Economy World 2018 2022 2023 2
4. A Bit of History: API Days and Paolo API Days Paris, Dec 2018, The State of the API Industry API Days Paris, Dec 2022, The next five years of the API Economy 2018 2022* 2023 API Days London, September 2023, Meeting Relentless Business Change in a post API Economy World (*) two weeks after ChatGPT was launched by San Francisco–based OpenAI (the creator of the initial GPT series of large language models; DALL. E 2, a diffusion model used to generate images; and Whisper, a speech transcription model) 3
5. 1. The rise of business technologists / non techie automation 2. The key consumption of sustainability APIs 3. ‘Increased use of AI APIs, at scale’ 4. The usage of APIs into digital twins 5. The way AI powered human-like virtual beings (Digital Humans) will consume APIs Right One and Half Years Ago, Here’s What I Got… The Metaverses / Intraverses, however: a. I warned about the unpredictable roles of gazillionaires in charge of social networks b. The usage of immersive technologies and the concept of Web3 have come a long way c. ‘Certainly the metaverse is still evolving a lot, too far away to make API assumptions for’ Not so right 4
6. The API Economy in the AI Era All companies want to leverage AI technologies to make their applications more innovative • Access to AI functionality (e.g. LLMs) mostly happens through APIs AI starts changing existing applications, for good Consequences on applications are much longer-ranging than being able to talk to applications (if you are English speaking) or throwing our keyboards away • Applications will learn, and eventually take decisions on behalf of their users There is no AI without APIs 5
7. This content is restricted When AI Goes Wrong https://jokesoftheday.net/joke-Google-s-pizza/2017051897 6
8. Open Finance Matures, Worldwide Not a new trend, its maturity varies wildly depending on where you are in the world The US market is somewhat an exception, as end consumers have largely pushed the opening of financial data so far • Still, regulations are starting in the US too ◦ such as the one coming from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for the Rule on Personal Financial Data Rights The requirement of banking customers to share data between institutions and initiate transactions from outside the banks is simply too strong Open Banking is finally ramping up the slope of enlightenment in Gartner Hype Cycles 2024 is likely to be the year when critical mass is reached, worldwide and here in the US https://www.linkedin.com/events/leapfrogfinancialpowerhouseswit7179179921812926465/theater/ 7
9. Non-techie / Non -human consumption of APIs spikes Generative AI is already helping developers design, document, and test the APIs they need to provide • With some training, it will help developers to find the APIs they need to consume Today, low-code platforms already allow non-techies to compose new applications with APIs Non-techies (business technologists) outnumber programmers by a factor of 10 Less human (but reasonably techie) API consumers: • Chatbots • Connected consumer devices (e.g. fridges) and Digital customers • LLMs and lots of other AI technology 8
10. So, do developers still matter? More than ever 9
11. It is of utmost importance that the usage of AI APIs is properly governed If you provide AI APIs • Refuse to inject bias in them • Take into account non humans will consume them • Not all consumption will be benign • Use API Gateway policies and API Security to enforce proper and ethical consumption of them If you consume AI APIs • Assess the risks of the APIs giving you skewed results. Ask yourself five key questions: a. Is this real AI? AI washing is generally safe b. Who financed the development of the API c. Can you train the algorithm with your own data? d. Can you trust the results of this API? e. What are the downstream consequences and risks of skewed results? 10
12. Don’t Sleepwalk Into AI It does not run the world (yet), and there’s much more than AI happening • Think platform engineering, open banking, multigateway… Start (or keep) infusing AI capabilities into your applications at a comfortable pace for your company’s risk tolerance Consciously decide whether non-human consumption is acceptable or not for your APIs • Frequently, it won’t be a black and white decision AI is not like any other technology: it takes decisions • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qJBEYzNuj0 11
13. Who Do You Want to Be? 12