AI Cyber Lunch: Bruce Schneier on "The Coming AI Hackers"

Name: AI Cyber Lunch: Bruce Schneier on "The Coming AI Hackers"
Start: 2022-10-26T12:00:00-0400
End: 2022-10-26T13:00:00-0400

Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

What will happen when AI systems learn to hack our economic, social, and political systems—and even our brains?

Join the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program for an AI Cyber Lunch Seminar featuring Bruce Schneier, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and Fellow at both the Belfer Center and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Drawing on his essay, "The Coming AI Hackers," Schneier will discuss the implications of a world of AI hackers and point towards possible defenses.

Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served. Please note the change in location to Allison Dining Room.

Registration: In-person attendance is limited to current Harvard ID holders. No RSVP is required. Room capacity is limited and seating will be on a first come, first served basis.

Members of the public are welcome to attend virtually via Zoom. Virtual attendees should register using the button below; upon registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link.

Recording: Please be advised that this seminar will not be recorded.

Accessibility: Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

Date: Wed, Oct 26, 2022 Time: 12:00pm - 01:00pm Location: Taubman Building - Allison Dining Room, 5th Floor

Hacking is inherently a creative process. It's finding a vulnerability in a system: something the system allows, but is unintended and unanticipated by the system's creators -- something that follows the rules of the system but subverts its intent.

Normally, we think of hacking as something done to computer systems, but we can extend this conceptualization to any system of rules. The tax code can be hacked; vulnerabilities are called loopholes and exploits are called tax avoidance strategies. Financial markets can be hacked. So can any system of laws, or democracy itself. This is a human endeavor, but we can imagine a world where AIs can be hackers.

AIs are already finding new vulnerabilities in computer code and loopholes in contracts. We need to consider a world where hacks or our social, economic, and political systems are discovered computer speeds, and then exploited at computer scale. Right now, our systems of "patching" these systems operate at human speeds, which won't nearly be enough.