Security
Nick Morgan was a really cool guy. I know so little about security that his talk was really informative. I really don't know how I feel about red teaming LLMs just being able to solve everyone's problems. I know this is personal opinion, but I cannot forsee a longterm future in LLMs, specifically generations after 2023/24. The compute required for these models is unsustainable for the environment, the companies, and the infrastructure. None of that points to longterm cybersecurity solutions. I guess you should always plan for every future. Mythos and similar products are really awesome. Crazy tech. I think it approaches an over-reliance on the agents for security work. Which seems like a dangerous field for a lack of expertise.
How to teach this course
Ohhhhh boy. Do I have thoughts on this.The best part of this class has been development every week. Especially that it creates something that is portfolio worthy by the end of the class. The big tension I think is the difference of academia and industry. But I think that is actually a good thing at times, because it fosters curiosity and critical thinking on beliefs the industry holds with an iron grip. The hype cycle can't exist in a classroom environment. Which is great for objectivity. Those are the strong suits of this class. Meeting industry people is really cool in my opinion as well, but I don't know how much of that is really that close to course content. I think having some industry people is really cool. I don't know about every week.
In terms of new ideas, I think the course can take inspiration from more liberal arts courses. A really valuable part of this course is the readings. It fosters that critical thinking in my opinion. Maybe we can move to a bi-weekly schedule, switching between an industry speaker and a socratic discussion on some readings. One idea is also coming up with ideas for AI-related policies or products and having the class discuss different parts of them. I think that would be really fun and engaging. With an ever-changing landscape, staying up to date is less important than being able to think critically.