AI and Cybersecurity: Making Sense of the Confusion

The purpose of artificial intelligence (AI) is to create intelligent machines. It is used in multiple domains, including finance, manufacturing, logistics, retail, social media, healthcare, and increasingly, cybersecurity. The current discourse about AI and cybersecurity often confuses the different perspectives, as if the intersection of disciplines is monolithic and one-dimensional. Therefore, we need a common language for discussing the various and disparate intersections of AI and cybersecurity that clarifies the differences. I see three parts to the discussion: AI in the hands of defenders, AI in the hands of attackers, and adversarial AI.