The Great Security Update: AI ∧ Formal Methods with Kathleen Fisher of RAND & Byron Cook of AWS

Kathleen Fisher and Byron Cook dive into automated reasoning and formal verification as tools for building truly secure software systems. PSA for AI builders: Interested in alignment, governance, or AI safety? Learn more about the MATS Summer 2026 Fellowship and submit your name to be notified when applications open: https://matsprogram.org/s26-tcr. They explain how formal methods can harden critical infrastructure against AI-enabled cyberattacks, and how assumptions, specifications, and proofs combine to deliver real security guarantees. The conversation explores using these techniques to train coding models, enable a “great software rewrite,” and power AWS’s new automated reasoning checks for AI agents and policy compliance.

Sponsors:

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CHAPTERS:

(00:00) About the Episode

(04:52) AI Reshapes Cybersecurity

(10:16) Formal Methods Foundations

(17:46) Security Properties Assumptions (Part 1)

(21:27) Sponsors: MATS | Tasklet

(24:27) Security Properties Assumptions (Part 2)

(28:31) Helicopter Formal Verification

(38:15) Proof Confidence And AWS (Part 1)

(41:52) Sponsors: Agents of Scale | Shopify

(44:40) Proof Confidence And AWS (Part 2)

(50:33) Automated Reasoning For Policies

(01:04:39) Generative AI Meets Verification

(01:19:42) Securing Future AI Systems

(01:31:19) Agentic Guardrails And Governance

(01:40:44) Outro

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