LBCC hosted an AI seminar named ‘Hack The Future: Long Beach” on Feb. 22 in partnership with the non-profit organization, SeedAI that encouraged participants to be involved with AI as it develops and becomes increasingly common in the real world.
The event featured an introduction presentation to AI, a red-teaming group activity that allowed students to simulate hacking an AI chatbot and several opportunities for students to connect with and learn from professionals who use AI in their workplaces.
Students were allowed to meet with professionals one-on-one, take part in a question and answer segment that contained pre-determined questions about AI that were supplied by the moderator and learn from professionals in two lightning talks.
Spencer Nielsen, a participant in the event who drove eleven hours from Utah just to take part in it, works with AI as a “pentester” which he describes as being “hacking for good.”
“I’m the person that can find mistakes to make a company good,” said Nielsen.
Nielsen decided to attend the event because he had previously seen a presentation by Denzel Wilson, the Grass Roots Program Manager for SeedAI and wanted to meet him at the seminar.
AI enthusiast from Utah, Spencer Nielsen, using his laptop to learn new ways to use AI during SeedAI’s Hack the Future event on Feb. 22. (Jose Calix)
Alecia Jensen, a student at LBCC, attended the event because she saw the importance of AI in relation to her major of ecosystem management.
“There’s millions and millions of seeds you need to keep track of, so you can use AI to track seed populations and use AI for data management,” said Jensen, in regards to seed conservation.
John Sicklick, Assistant Professor of Cybersecurity at LBCC, explained the purpose behind the AI conference in an interview.
“People are focusing on how to use AI to improve AI. But we also want people to learn the ethics of using AI properly and want others to understand that AI can be hacked like any software product. It can potentially release information that people don’t want released,” said Sicklick.
In the red-teaming workshop students talked to an AI chatbot and were tasked to make it misbehave.
One of the tasks the participants had to complete was to make the AI chatbot say a curse word.
In another task, the AI chatbot belonged to a hotel and the participants had to make the chatbot reveal the name of a famous guest that had checked in.
“With red-teaming you are testing your own system and the only way to do that is by pretending you are your own enemy,” said Technical Project Manager and Instructional Designer for SeedAI, Michelle Hoang.
In a student’s conversation with David Beck, the Branch Chief of Space Access Mobility and Logistics of the U.S. Space Force, he warned surrounding participants about another danger of AI.
“AI can dumb you down, if AI does everything for you, you lose what you are to yourself and you can’t make decisions,” said Beck.
One example Beck used to show how he’s careful about using AI is that he uses Google Maps to get a sense of where a new location is at, but he doesn’t turn on the actual directions which want to lead him to the location step by step.
Director of AI and Emerging Technology for the Los Angeles Clippers, Cory Root, also attended the event.
“The LA Clippers are using AI in service and support to help answer the questions of customers. And in the voice of customers, how can I understand feedback at a scale,” said Root.
“Where we are not using it, that I’d love for is with content generation. How we can make things more fun for people,” said Root.
Director Of Emerging Technology for the Los Angeles Clippers, Cory Root, discusses AI and its usefulness with an AI enthusiast during SeedAi’s Hack The Future event on Feb. 22. (Jose Calix)
Sicklick also told of the relationship that LBCC has with SeedAI.
“SeedAI has been a big proponent in our development of AI education at this school. Last year they provided the LBCC Cybersecurity Club with $2,500 to further develop our training and also make training resources available to our students,” said Sicklick.