Cybersecurity Summit: Exploring AI: Current Trends and Future Directions

In his presentation, Richard Diver will talk about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming cybersecurity, offering enormous potential but requiring diversity in design and testing. AI systems improve with ease of use, responding better to human language inputs rather than complex prompt engineering. Asking clear, conversational questions helps set the scene for AI to deliver valuable insights. However, AI is unpredictable, and errors occur, such as in the "strawberry example," where a system misunderstood the request due to lack of proper training.

Design and testing require diversity which is critical to ensuring that AI can manage broad inputs and generate reliable outputs. Today, AI’s role in security includes architecture choices, model training/tuning, and limiting inputs/outputs to reduce risks.

Looking ahead, AI agents with memory and automation will play a larger role, but humans must maintain critical thinking and individual defenses, as AI tools can also be weaponized. In summary, human instinct will guide the future of AI in cybersecurity.

Richard Diver is the author of the recently published book, Guardians of AI: Building innovation with safety and security, and the Drawing Cybersecurity weekly newsletter.

Following the presentation, there will be a general question and answer period.

Our Presenter

Richard Diver is the technical lead of Story Design for Microsoft Security. His role is split between the developing the ongoing narrative of Secure Future Initiative (SFI) and AI safety and security.

He has worked in technology for almost 30 years and held multiple roles from support, engineering, and architecture to consulting, sales, and now marketing. With deep technical expertise, Richard has experience in multiple industries, worked across the globe with some of the largest and complex organizations, governments, and military customers.

Sponsored by the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts (EDC) and Bay Path University, offering an online undergraduate degree in cybersecurity, with majors in digital forensics, incident response, information assurance, risk management, and the Master of Science in Cybersecurity.