Did CrowdStrike Just Expose Just How Fragile The Future Of AI Is?

Spoiler Alert: Few.

Last week, CrowdStrike, a global cybersecurity company, managed to bring the entire world to its collective knees. And it did it with one simple failed software update.

The root cause was a failed system upgrade to its Falcon security software. The result caused thousands of flight cancellations, 911 systems going offline, point-of-sale systems crashing and hospitals being forced to cancel surgeries. The worst outcome of all (at least in my house) was Starbucks mobile ordering going offline!

I’m kidding, of course, but it was no joke for thousands of individuals and companies whose schedules were ground to a halt. It begs some larger questions. How vulnerable are our computer systems? If a glitch in a software update was able to cause global chaos, what could cybercriminals be capable of?

I posted the following on Twitter/X on Friday of last week:

Which brings me to the biggest question of all: have we become entirely too overconfident in what the future of AI could mean?