Article by Marcus Siu

One doesn’t need to look far at all to see how A.I. has grown, especially generative A.I. Just within five days of its November 2022 launch, one million users downloaded ChatGPT, a natural language processing tool driven by A.I. technology that allows one to chat or interact and have human-like conversations with their computer devices and smartphones. In addition, it is able to design, produce new content and even create synthetic data, or deepfakes through machine learning. There are now an estimated 100 million active users using ChatGPT, making it the fastest growing app ever and making. A.I. accessible to the masses and will certainly change the world as we know it.

It was also the recurring principal theme at the RSA Conference last month. At this stage, A.I. is just “the beginning of the beginning of the beginning” as many of the RSA panelists describe it. It will not only play an integral principal role in world of cybersecurity, but all facets of science and technology in our environment. Though, A.I. has been around for awhile, this year looks like when it will suddenly emerge as the most disruptive technology creating an A.I. revolution.

What were the most disruptive dual use advancements in science or technology in the last fifty years?

That was the supreme question that Hugh Thompson, the RSA Program Committee Chair and RSA Opening Keynote speaker, presented not only to his live audience, but also to a small survey of various scientists, technologists, and cybersecurity experts whom he deeply respected who are experts in their field prior to his keynote.

Since he had such a small sample size and wanted to get absolute certainty for his answer, he decided to ask ChatCGP-4, which is a premium version of ChatGPT.

“And what it said was number one on the list was the introduction of the Internet…I think maybe we would agree with that…dual use technology… and very helpful…we used all the time…but also has a set of shadows of it that that we deal with every day”, Thompson continued. “Number two ironically, especially coming from ChatCGP-4…was the proliferation of A.I.”.

Thompson couldn’t have said it much better with such clarity. With A.I. being such an integral tool for security professionals, it will also be one for its adversaries; the cybercriminals.

“I would argue in history where science and technology is advancing very, very quickly. Whenever that happens you get the light of the advancement, meaning all of the good that can come from it, but unfortunately, whenever you have a bright light it casts a very deep shadow”, Thompson warned.

“We are the shadow experts. We study the shadow. We understand the shadow. We try and mitigate the shadow. We try and put other lights in the shadow to get rid of the shadow. There is never been a more important time for that.”.

Preparing for the conference, Thompson and the RSAC Vice President, Content & Curation, Britta Glade, worked early on in the process on which content would be used for the conference. With well over 2400 submissions in a very competitive year, it was very difficult to filter down, not just in terms of quantity, but in quality. Unsurprisingly, most of the sessions revolved around A.I.

“Topics like this AI availability, Generative AI availability, Quantum Computing Advancements…What does it do? How can we prepare? “We’ve got what I would argue is the best program we’ve ever had at RSA conference.”, Thompson exclaims.

There was even a session called “Face the Music: Cybersecurity and the Music Industry” where leaders from the music industry, law enforcement, and academia all collaborated and discussed A.I. intelligence and cyber-enabled threats to the music industry. Keynote panelist and Grammy-winning country music star Chris Stapleton also weighed in on the topic of generative AI in music, discussing how bad actors now have the capability to easily steal artist IP and what both legislators and the security industry can do to help.

Even the movie industry has to deal with it, as well. It is pretty evident that even actor Christopher Lloyd, who played eccentric inventor Emmett ‘Doc’ Brown in the Back to The Future trilogy, would know. He was on also on stage to discuss his Hollywood blockbuster experience along with real quantum computing and cryptography experts.

With the onset of A.I., the challenges of how to leverage and harness the power of this technology along with the accessibility of generative large language model technologies, such as ChatGPT, it looks like we are indeed in a brand new world in cybersecurity, for better or worse.

Overall, this year’s successful RSA Conference attracted well over 40,000 attendees, including 650+ speakers, 500+ exhibitors and 500+ members of the media. Throughout the week, attendees networked on the expo floor and participated in keynote presentations, track sessions, tutorials, seminars and special networking events.