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) ------ Check out our conferences at https://www.apidays.global/ Do you want to sponsor or talk at one of our conferences? https://apidays.typeform.com/to/ILJeAaV8 Learn more on APIscene, the global media made by the community for the community: https://www.apiscene.io Explore the API ecosystem with the API Landscape: https://apilandscape.apiscene.io/

1. Paolo Malinverno
Growth Advisor
APIs in 2030: the Risk of
Technological Sleepwalk
Consider the intended and unintended
consequences of API usage
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2. 2

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
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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)
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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
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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
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7. This content is restricted
When AI Goes Wrong
https://jokesoftheday.net/joke-Google-s-pizza/2017051897
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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/
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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
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10. So, do developers
still matter?
More than ever
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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?
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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
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13. Who Do You
Want to Be?
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