Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity: A Socio-Technical Framing

Rapid progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is presenting both opportunities and threats that promise to be transformative and disruptive to the field of cybersecurity. The current approaches to providing security and safety to users are limited. Online attacks (e.g., identity theft) and data breaches are causing real-world harms to individuals and communities, resulting in financial instability, loss of healthcare benefits, or even access to housing, among other undesirable outcomes. The resulting challenges are expected to be amplified, given the increased capabilities of AI and its deployment in professional, public, and private spheres. As such, there is a need for a new formulation of these challenges that considers the complex social, technical, and environmental dimensions and factors that shape both the opportunities and threats for AI in cybersecurity. Through an exploration and application of the socio-technical approach, which highlights the significance and value of participatory practices, we can generate new ways of conceptualising the challenges of AI in cybersecurity contexts. This paper will identify and elaborate on key issues, in the form of both gaps and opportunities, that need to be addressed by various stakeholders, while exploring substantive approaches to addressing the gaps and capitalizing on the opportunities at the micro/meso/macro levels, which in turn will inform decision-making processes. This paper offers approaches for responding to public interest security, safety, and privacy challenges arising from complex AI in cybersecurity issues in open socio-technical systems.