AGI-Pilled Cyber Defense: Automating Digital Forensics w/ Asymmetric Security CEO Alexis Carlier

**Nathan Labenz** (0:00)
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Alexis also shares fascinating details on the North Korean remote worker phenomenon, where state-backed actors infiltrate Western tech companies not just to steal secrets, but also to earn salaries that actually fund the regime. From there, we turn to how Asymmetric is building AI agents capable of performing the deep investigative work that was previously only available from a very limited number of expensive human experts. We discussed the jagged frontier of current model capabilities in the security domain, and why, though off-the-shelf models can already achieve 90% accuracy on many investigative tasks, Asymmetric is going to market with help from insurance companies, with a services-first business model focused on business email compromises, both to ensure that they deliver consistently for customers, and to build the proprietary dataset needed to close that final gap in performance and reliability. Importantly, Alexis also makes the argument that while most AI technology is inherently dual-use, the fact that people who specialize in these investigations don't tend to become particularly outstanding hackers suggests that digital forensics could be a domain that allows us to differentially accelerate defensive AI capabilities. And arguably it's this strategy of intentionally shaping the AI capability frontier that is Alexis' most important contribution. And I would love to see this approach ported to other domains. The opportunity to build specialized datasets, evaluation methods, and training environments that can help harden society's defenses seems both increasingly tractable and urgent. So if you're thinking this way, and building, whether in cybersecurity, biosecurity, mental health or anything else where a DEAC strategy could make a big difference, please reach out and tell me about it. With that, I hope you enjoy this overview of the cybersecurity landscape and preview of the future of automated digital forensics with Alexis Carlier of Asymmetric Security. Alexis Carlier, founder at Asymmetric Security. Welcome to The Cognitive Revolution.

**Alexis Carlier** (4:25)
Thanks for having me.

**Nathan Labenz** (4:27)
So yeah, I'm excited about this conversation. An interesting little endorsement of you and your point of view that I saw online on Twitter from Logan Graham at Anthropic, who leads the Red Team efforts there and really kind of is at the intersection of national security concerns and what can models do, and has been deep down the rabbit hole of how weird the world might get in the not too distant future. He said about you in response to the announcement of the new company, that few people are more AGI-pilled than you. So I wanted to start off by just giving a little bit of your world view. You can tell maybe a little bit of your background too, and kind of how you came to be one of the most AGI-pilled people around. But how did that happen? And even more so, like, what does it mean to be so AGI-pilled?