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Flickr CC/Kārlis Dambrāns

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

Our AI Odyssey

| Nov. 26, 2021

The powerful effects of artificial intelligence are already being felt in business, politics, medicine, war, and almost every other domain of twenty-first century life. For all of its positive potential, the technology presents significant risks that are best addressed sooner rather than later.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Exploring a World of AI Hackers

| Spring 2021

Bruce Schneier warns that AIs are becoming hackers. They're able to find exploitable vulnerabilities in software code. They're still not very good at it, but they'll get better. It's the kind of problem that lends itself to modern machine learning techniques: an enormous amount of input data, pattern matching, and goals that permit reinforcement. We have every reason to believe that AIs will continue to get better at this task and will soon surpass humans. They'll even come up with hacks that we humans would judge creative.

Analysis & Opinions - WIRED

Hackers Used to Be Humans. Soon, AIs Will Hack Humanity

| Apr. 19, 2021

Bruce Schneier warns that artificial intelligence will eventually find vulnerabilities in all sorts of social, economic, and political systems, and then exploit them at unprecedented speed, scale, and scope. After hacking humanity, AI systems will then hack other AI systems, and humans will be little more than collateral damage.

Solarwinds Chairman & CEO Kevin Thompson, left, and CFO Bart Kalsu celebrate

AP/Richard Drew

Analysis & Opinions - The New York Times

Why Was SolarWinds So Vulnerable to a Hack?

| Feb. 23, 2021

Bruce Schneier explains how the modern market economy, which aggressively rewards corporations for short-term profits and aggressive cost-cutting, is also part of the problem: Its incentive structure all but ensures that successful tech companies will end up selling unsecure products and services.

Video - SNF Agora Institute

Election 2020 — Securing the Vote

| Oct. 16, 2020

The 2020 election is happening amidst unprecedented disagreement about election security, as the coronavirus pandemic challenges traditional in-person voting. On the one hand, the incumbent president claims that postal voting will lead to widespread electoral fraud. On the other, Democrats argue that the U.S. postal system is being deliberately degraded to make it less likely that mailed ballots will be counted in time. Both political scientists who work on voting, and information security specialists, who think systematically about the failure modes, attack surfaces, and threat models of large information systems, can help us understand—and mitigate—the likely failures of large-scale voting systems operating under unexpected circumstances in a context of increased fear over manipulation.