Artificial intelligence is changing cybersecurity. It’s a two-edged sword that can help both cyber criminals and cyber defenders. While the bad guys seem to hold the advantage for now, we can turn the balance in the good guys’ favor by investing in better, AI-supported cybersecurity practices. That’s the opinion from a new “rapid expert consultation” report co-authored by Nadya Bliss, executive director of the Advanced Capabilities for National Security Institute at Arizona State University. The rapid expert consultation is a product of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. “The way that I tend to think about it is, it used to be that you had to be a pretty sophisticated attacker to launch a sophisticated attack, and now that is no longer true,” Bliss says. “This is not something we can sweep under the rug. We have to address this shift to protect our digital systems.” Below, Bliss answers questions about what AI means for our daily lives as well as our national security landscape. Note: Answers edited for length and clarity. Question: What are the key takeaways from the report that came out this week? Answer: A big takeaway from the report is that AI is fundamentally transforming cybersecurity. In the short term, AI is likely to benefit the attacker, just because of the nature of the beast. An attacker only has to be right once, and a defender has to be correct all the time. But in the long term, we are incredibly hopeful that this is an opportunity to have more secure systems and give more users tools to protect their systems automatically. Q: The average household has bank accounts, passports and private medical information moving around in these software environments. What is your best advice for this current moment? A: If you think about