As AI continues to be advocated and pushed into a variety of spheres of human endeavors, some are stopping to consider the ramifications. And, yes, there are ramifications! I feel funny even mentioning it, but fiction writers dealt with this kind of thought process decades ago, as they envisioned a world governed by AI type beings. Think for example, Skynet. Or HAL 9000. Or on a less threatening level, Wall-E. The idea and use of AI is not really new, for example a book was written back in 1872, called Erewhon that is considered one of the first books to begin dealing with AI.
When it comes to the field of digital forensics and incident response (DFIR), that same process is underway. SANS recently promoted a vast exercise which pulled in thousands of practitioners to utilize AI across their discipline and produce results, whether good or bad. Brett Shavers is writing much on the topic and other DFIR professionals are beginning to address the topic. I even just learned that SANS has now crafted their courses to include an entire section on AI. This is a topic that is not going away anytime soon.
But, what are the drawbacks? What are the effects that we should be keeping in mind? Well, several studies are coming out that show the adverse effects of reliance upon AI across several fields of endeavor. This includes medical specialists and computer scientists. It should at least make you think about how AI is going to affect your own industry or expertise.
One of the sad facts is that the effects of any new technology are not often examined until those effects are already in action. Take the automobile for example. The typical driver just takes it for granted that they can jump in their car, turn a key and off they go to the destination of their choice! But, under the simple process of opening a door and turning a key lies an entire mechanical system, of which the typical driver is entirely unaware. What some of these studies are starting to show is that as humans utilize AI, they lose those necessary skills to continue to perform their actual duties.
For example, 70% of nurses and 77% of physicians are worried about losing their skills because of “over-reliance on AI systems.” If that is true for the medical field, then it should be a shadow that lies over every other field beginning to use AI, including DFIR! To follow up on those fears, new evidence is developing that shows the fear is justified! To quote Nature, “Researchers are now discussing how to preserve important human expertise in the age of AI.”
The study speaks of a cohort of physicians in Poland who specialize in endoscopy. Among them, they had performed over 2,000 colonoscopies, but when given an AI tool that reviewed and classified the images gathered, the results turned frightening. The rate of discovery of adenoma or precancerous lesions dropped a full 6 percentage points! Now, the doctors are alarmed, but what about the patients? They are relying on the “system” to discover and subsequently treat life threatening diseases just like this, but then to learn that the physician’s skill in identifying such lesions degrades with the use of AI, what hope do they have left? One can only extrapolate that the continued use of AI will only further degrade the physicians’ abilities and thus adversely affect the patients’ health.
Sorry for the seeming digression there, but the exact same truth can be applied to Cyber Security practitioners. As AI continues to be pushed into the world, we really need to stop and consider its full consequences to the humans in the loop. Yes, that is a play on words. AI is known to lie, to create fake links and information, to hallucinate. When it comes to DFIR we need to ensure that our core skills remain intact. That we do not over rely on AI to conduct our examinations. We can not afford to become a “push the button” field, where all we do is “turn the key” and expect results.
DFIR practitioners are the mechanics of the industry, we must know how it works, what happens when we perform our examinations. We must understand how hackers work, how their tools work and AI will not fill those shoes.
Resources: https://www.brettshavers.com/
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