A (14:39)

So really, I just want to start by asking you as we see that investment in AI is surging and organizations are increasingly adopting AI, both for security operations as well as other use cases. Often the bottleneck we find in these emerging fields is the human side of the equation. And how do we make sure that we have enough skilled talent to actually leverage these new technologies? And so I'm curious to know, what are you seeing as it relates to the AI workforce and how can we ensure that we have a sufficient pool of skilled AI talent to leverage these new technologies?

C (15:20)

I think this is a thing that everyone talks about, and I would start with a phrase that I believe you said once, that AI won't replace people, it just replaces how people work. So I do think that every company now is talking on AI. Every company tries to implement AI. I do think that young people that are already started even younger than the workforce that we have today, it will be easier for them. But the actual gap, as you mentioned, is now these people that are already in the workforce, they don't have yet the ability to climb the ladder of the speed of AI is transforming everything that we do. And from that perspective, we are trying here at TORC and in general, when I talk to others in other companies, we are trying to create a platform for everyone to learn as much as possible on the ongoing changes, with tons of systems, endless frameworks that are different than what they did just a year ago, which is insane when you come to think about it. Right. So from our perspective, what we are trying to do is to create the best platform for our team. And here in our company, we are doing our best to make sure that they will learn as much as possible as fast as possible to have those platforms and system, because it's impossible without it.

A (16:54)

Yeah, Well, I think that it would be great to learn more about that internship program because I'm really interested in how you're approaching this because I think that there's no substitute for on the job training and there's no substitute for hands on learning. And so an internship, I think is an innovative way to try and explore opportunities for more people to get exposure to these skills. And so I'm curious to know what are the types of skills that people are learning in this internship? What are the types of tasks that they're doing and how is that helping them build some of these future ready AI skills that they're going to need along their careers?

C (17:31)

Yeah, we announced this partnership July, I believe, and we launched this program in order to make sure that those youngsters will be able to get into the workforce with the ability to start with some knowledge that is relevant for them. Is it coding? It's, you know, how to use all the platforms that we have today. So our plan is to have our team developers, team that are focused on AI platforms to help them, teach them, guide them alongside their skills with code because they are students of computer science. So to mix both of them with what we are doing here at Torque, everything, you know, with the AI platforms and help them get the skills of building in a company, in a large company and growing company, very, very fast growing company to build products, build features that are attached to the new AI systems with actual code that they need to learn in, you know, anyway. So that's what we're planning to do. We are building it. We are just starting the process of having interns inside the company. So once we'll have them, it will be, you know, much it will be easier for me to say exactly if it's succeeded or not. I'm sure it succeeded as everything that we do, you know, humbly I say that, but it's true. But you know, I do believe it's related to interns, but also our inner employees and by the way, not only developers, not only the ones that actually work on the computer all day. It's related to everyone, our team, HR team. We use AI platforms and systems in everything that we do. And again, it doesn't replace the people because eventually you will need the people. It replaces how they work and how they are criticizing what they have. Right until now they had to write a code. Now the AI systems can write their code for them, but they have to be criticized. They have to criticize what they receive from these platforms and understand if this is the right thing that they received. If it's not, it's not like, you know, okay, some, somebody else, a bot wrote it for me and that's it, that's, it's the end of my work. It's not how it works. We have to be very, very critical critic of that.

A (20:08)

No, I think that's a great point. We all, we all need to be a little more critical, especially when it comes to AI. I mean, we've all seen how it can hallucinate, it can make mistakes. And as powerful as it is, it's imperfect. And one of the things that, you know, we've seen in our data at four one Insights is that AI jobs, they're consistently asking for workers who have strong critical thinking skills. In fact, AI jobs, we've found are about 130% more likely to also request strong critical thinking skills. And so I'm curious how Are you trying to help people develop those critical thinking skills and some of those softer skills or power skills alongside the technical expertise that's needed to build these tools so that they can also be efficient and effective in the way that they're leveraging them and taking that critical eye, as you said.

C (21:00)

So it's a great question. You know, in almost every role that we're looking at, for, at Torque, we have an assignment in home assignment. And for few roles, we ask them to use AI systems. Okay, we, not. We don't want them to sit and write everything from the beginning to the end. We ask them to write it on AI and then we are sitting with them and asking them the questions, how did they do it? How did they, you know, what did they look at when they created this, you know, this, this assignment? Those are different questions that we have to ask now than we used to ask before that, because we know that they did it with a chatgpt or, you know, anything else. Now we have to see how they think about what they created, not only the actual work itself. So we are trying to do it here all the time by asking questions, criticize, or gently, of course, but making sure that they are aware of what they're doing and why. And eventually it goes in. Eventually. You have to understand that using ChatGPT is just not enough.

A (22:12)

And one last question I'd love to ask you is as we think about the potential challenges with building an AI workforce, I'm also curious to know your thoughts on what the benefits are when people are leveraging AI effectively, when they have built the skills necessary to utilize these tools. What do you see as some of the biggest benefits to both individuals who are leveraging these tools as well as the teams that are investing in these new technologies?

C (22:41)

It's a very interesting question because I have to say that I see it now every day, the speed and the accuracy that people can build features and move forward very, very fast. I think it's a huge benefit. And we see that. I think that the fact that we can provide answers, or from our perspective, for example, writing emails, writing answers to outside people, using tools that will help me create it more fast and more accurate, I think it really, really helps. It helps me, it helps my team. I can definitely see how it helps our team in the development, in the product to make everything faster and more accurate. Again, you have to be very, very critical about that. But it does, you know, it changes the way we work.

A (23:38)

We'll always take a little more speed and a little more accuracy. I know I can use both, so nothing wrong with that. Well, thank you again so much, Karine, for joining today. Just so that our listeners know, where can they go to learn more about Torc and your efforts to help build an AI literate workforce?

C (23:55)

Absolutely. So we have our website, Torque IO they can check in there, our LinkedIn page, Torque, which has a lot of information, a lot of branding that no one can, you know, it's, it's, you can't miss it if you'll see it. So I'm inviting everyone to join and have a look and join us. We're looking for a lot of great people.

A (24:25)

Wonderful. We can always use more great people and maybe some great AI as well. So thank you, Karine so much for joining today. This has been a pleasure.

C (24:33)

Thank you.

B (24:34)

That's Karine Ophir Zemet, Chief people Officer at torc, speaking with N2K's senior workforce analyst, Will Marko at Talas. They know cybersecurity can be tough and you can't protect everything. But with Thales, you can secure what matters most. With Thales industry leading platforms, you can protect critical applications, data and identities anywhere and at scale with the highest roi. That's why the most trusted brands and largest banks, retailers and healthcare companies in the world rely on Thales to protect what matters most, applications, data and identity. That's Thales. T H A L E S Learn more@the TalisGroup.com Cyber investigating is hard enough. Your tools shouldn't make it harder. Maltego brings all your intelligence into one platform and gives you curated data along with a full suite of tools to handle any digital investigation. Plus, with on demand courses and live training, your team won't just install the platform, they'll actually use it and connect the dots so fast cybercriminals won't realize they're already in cuffs. Maltego is trusted by global law enforcement, financial institutions and security teams worldwide. See it in action now@maltego.com and finally, Russia's Ministry of Defense TV channel Zezda has published Politstacker, a weekly AI generated show that feels like Saturday Night Live got lost in a Soviet candy factory. Hosted by Natasha, an AI avatar modeled after a real journalist, the program claims its neural network chooses the week's political nonsense, then serves it up as jokes, deepfakes and surreal skits. Cue Emmanuel Macron in curlers, Donald Trump pitching golden toilets as foreign policy, and Ursula von der Leyen crooning Soviet pop while manning a factory line. The production quality hovers somewhere between Instagram filter gone wrong and uncanny valley chic. But that hasn't stopped Russia from bragging it's the world's first state sponsored AI news parody. Whether it's parody or propaganda is up for debate, but as data scientist Kalev Litaru points out, this is a a national broadcaster openly dabbling in AI deepfakes. Candy coated or not, Moscow's digital experiments may just be the and that's the Cyber Wire. For links to all of today's stories, check out our daily briefing@thecyberwire.com be sure to check out this weekend's Research Saturday and my conversation with Nati Tal, head of guardiolabs. We're discussing their work. Captchageddon Unmasking the viral evolution of the Click Fix browser based threat that's Research Saturday. Do check it out. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing world of cybersecurity. If you like our show, please share a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to cyberwiren2k.com N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our CyberWire producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ibin. Peter Kilpe is our publisher and I'm Dave Bittner. Thanks for listening. We'll see you back here next week.

C (29:11)

Foreign.

B (29:23)

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