In this Spotlight Podcast, we speak with David Brumley, the Chief Executive Officer at the security firm ForAllSecure* and a professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Brumley is a noted expert on the use of machine learning and automation to cyber security problems. In this podcast, we talk about the growing demand for security automation tools and how the chronic cyber security talent shortage in North America and elsewhere is driving investment in automation. Every so often, a technology comes along that seems to perfectly capture the zeitgeist: representing all that is both promising and troubling about the future. In the 1960s, you think of plastic, which was a pillar of a massively expanding consumer culture in the United States that put "convenience" above all else.

This is part of our Road Trip 2017 summer series "The Smartest Stuff," about how innovators are thinking up new ways to make you -- and the world around you -- smarter. A Las Vegas driver asks me this after I tell him I'm headed to Defcon at Caesars Palace. All week, a cloud of paranoia looms over Las Vegas, as hackers from around the world swarm Sin City for Black Hat and Defcon, two back-to-back cybersecurity conferences taking place in the last week of July. At Caesars Palace, where Defcon is celebrating its 25th anniversary, the UPS store posts a sign telling guests it won't accept printing requests from USB thumb drives. You can't be too careful with all those hackers in town.

This is part of our Road Trip 2017 summer series "The Smartest Stuff," about how innovators are thinking up new ways to make you -- and the world around you -- smarter. A Las Vegas driver asks me this after I tell him I'm headed to Defcon at Caesars Palace. All week, a cloud of paranoia looms over Las Vegas, as hackers from around the world swarm Sin City for Black Hat and Defcon, two back-to-back cybersecurity conferences taking place in the last week of July. At Caesars Palace, where Defcon is celebrating its 25th anniversary, the UPS store posts a sign telling guests it won't accept printing requests from USB thumb drives. You can't be too careful with all those hackers in town.

I'm seated in a giant ballroom where vast rows of chairs face seven glowing supercomputers. Each liquid-cooled rack of servers is lit with a different color. Though they stand on a dais at the Paris Las Vegas resort as still as statues, the computers are locked in heated battle with each other. "The race for third is very tight," says Hakeem Oluseyi, an astrophysicist, in a rousing voice. ForAllSecure's team Mayhem stands as a silent sentinel in the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge.