Announcing the Existential InfoSec Forum

By calebp, Wim van der Schoot @ 2023-07-07T21:08 (+90)

We're pleased to announce the first Existential InfoSec Forum, a half-day event aimed at strengthening the infosec community pursuing important ways to reduce the risk of an existential catastrophe. 

The forum will feature talks from infosec leaders across AI labs, policy and research, small group discussions and interactive workshops on real-world infosec challenges.

This event will significantly emphasise AI as it coincides with a big push at Defcon for AI model red-teaming. We think this is an exciting opportunity to share insights and updates from a rapidly developing space — both for those working in infosec in priority areas for existential risk reduction and those newer to the field.

Event Details

Date: 10 August 2023

Time: 2 pm – 8 pm PDT, including dinner

Location: Las Vegas

The conference will take place just before DEFCON 31 and will be a short walk from the main DEFCON venue (though the event is not affiliated with DEFCON). Wim van der Schoot is running the event with support from EA Funds and the Partner Events team at CEA.

Why Attend?

The forum is designed to:

• Facilitate knowledge transfer among attendees, improve understanding of the existential infosec landscape, and develop professional skills.
• Connect attendees to active infosec practitioners working on existential risk for feedback, identify potential job opportunities, and foster mentorship relationships.
• Enhance situational awareness of attendees to help them make more informed decisions and identify ecosystem gaps and opportunities.
• Mitigate risks associated with transitioning to direct work in infosec through a supportive network, which can help identify job opportunities.

Who Should Attend?

• People already engaged in infosec within high-priority areas for existential risk reduction.
• Infosec professionals interested in transitioning into priority areas for existential risk reduction.
• Policy professionals, members of the national security community, and others working on regulating AI who would benefit from connecting with x-risk-conscious infosec practitioners.
• Software engineers (or others with a strong background for skilling up in infosec) who are interested in working in a high-priority infosec role for existential risk reduction in the next two years.

Tentative Event Schedule

2 pm – 3:30 pm: Keynote talks (speakers include Jason Clinton, Anthropic CISO, and others from frontier labs, government agencies, think tanks and researchers)

3:30 pm – 4:30 pm: Networking break

4:30 pm – 6 pm: Breakout sessions/workshops, e.g. AI infosec policy, AI cybersecurity capabilities and evaluations, how to defend against nation-states, and building a career in infosec.

6 pm – 7 pm: Drinks reception

7 pm – 8:30 pm: Closing dinner

Please complete this form before 20 July to register your interest in attending. Note that we can only invite some people who register due to capacity limitations, but early registration will increase your chances of receiving an invitation.