AI Will Take Many Cybersecurity Jobs, But It's Not a Complete Disaster
Artificial intelligence is coming for some cybersecurity jobs, but Rohit Ghai, CEO of RSA Security, is hopeful that it won't be catastrophic for those working in the industry.
"We must accept that many jobs will disappear, many will change, and some will be created," Ghai said at the RSA Conference in San Francisco this week. (Despite sharing a name, the RSA Conference is separate from RSA Security.)
To illustrate his point, Ghai noted that more than 10 of the biggest security vendors and 50 startups have announced AI products recently.
"So as not to spook us humans, most of these capabilities have been positioned as a co-pilot model," said Ghai. In this scenario, humans work alongside AI tools that take on the bulk of tedious work, though it "sugarcoats a scary truth" that the human role in cybersecurity is changing.
"For cybersecurity this is just as well because we don't have enough human talent in the first place," joked Ghai.
Anxiety over AI disrupting jobs has been of major concern amid the rise of AI models like ChatGPT. Researchers at Goldman Sachs say these tools could replace up to 7% of US jobs. Transcribers, accountants, and even writers are among some of the jobs AI could impact.
Looking at RSA Security's main business of verifying and controlling identity, Ghai outlined a co-pilot model where AI would handle easy, day-to-day decisions with humans overseeing the AI and handling exceptions that go beyond the AI's purview. After AI takes over that work, humans would still have an important role: "training, supervising, regulating, ethics, and monitoring the AI." Developing new AI algorithms and ensuring that the data used to train AIs is high quality are also human jobs in Ghai's view, similar to other careers
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