Caveat Live: FBI & KU Cybersecurity Conference on AI Ethics and Trusted Systems

FBI and KU Cybersecurity Conference Overview

• 🎙️ This episode features the first live recording of the Caveat podcast, hosted by Ben Yelin at the FBI and KU Cybersecurity Conference at the University of Kansas.
• 🤝 The conference, now in its third year, has grown significantly, bringing together the FBI and regional cybersecurity professionals to discuss critical issues.

Trusted Systems and Research

• 💡 Dr. Perry Alexander, a professor at the University of Kansas, researches trusted systems and the verification of computing systems using formal methods.
• 🔒 His work includes developing applications like Elkim, a Linux kernel integrity measurer designed to detect zero-day attacks by analyzing the kernel itself.
• 🚀 Dr. Alexander also discussed the commercialization of Elkim into a company called Invery, which has rewritten the application in Rust and secured seed funding.

AI, Ethics, and Policy

• 🧠 Professor John Symons discussed the crucial role of ethics in cybersecurity and AI, emphasizing that value judgments are not purely technical.
• ⚖️ He highlighted the need for deliberation and reflection on the social impacts of technology, noting that while technical solutions exist for bias and fairness, the effects on social norms and relationships are still being understood.
• 💬 Symons explored the philosophical distinctions between human relationships and potential AI interactions, particularly concerning special obligations and the AI's inability to choose between different kinds of value.
• 🤖 The discussion touched on the challenges of regulating AI, the difficulty in predicting cyber weapon impacts, and the need for computing professionals to engage in policy discussions.

Challenges and Advice

• ⚠️ Dr. Alexander expressed concerns about the difficulty of keeping up with adversaries in cybersecurity and the rapid pace of technological change outpacing legal and regulatory systems.
• 📚 Both guests emphasized the importance of a diverse education for students, encouraging them to learn broadly, solve problems, and engage with disciplines outside their own.
• 🎶 Dr. Alexander shared how his background in trumpet performance and music discipline influenced his professional approach, teaching him resilience and incremental improvement.
• 🤝 The conversation also delved into social agency and the philosophical definition of agency, distinguishing it from technical definitions and exploring how AI can have causal impact in the social world without necessarily possessing human-like reasoning or moral responsibility.