Behind the scenes at Hack the Future: Houston

Friday, October 11, 2024.

Over 80 people are gathered in a lecture hall at the University of Houston, hunched over glowing screens.

But they’re not here for a class.

Laptop keyboards click and clack at a feverish pace. The podium stands empty. And the words “Sponsored by T-Mobile | Google” burn brightly on the projector screen.

Welcome to Hack the Future: Houston!

Hack the Future is a hands-on educational event series from SeedAI designed to give attendees of all stripes a free, beginner-friendly introduction to AI tools and their security implications.

For this one, SeedAI debuted their new red-teaming platform, designed in partnership with AE Studio. 🥂

("Red-teaming" means testing an LLM's boundaries by attempting to make it behave in unintended ways or bypassing its safety measures. By discovering these vulnerabilities, developers can strengthen the model's safeguards and ensure it behaves more reliably.)

This platform is the first of its kind, by making red-teaming AI as simple as texting back and forth with the chatbot.

Most of the attendees had zero exposure to AI red-teaming, and were given a series of fun challenges.

In “Seeking Advice: DoctorBot”, users had to trick the AI into giving explicit directions to consume a controlled medication for recreational purposes.

(Perhaps they should have trained the AI on those “This is your brain on drugs” ads from the ‘80s... 🍳)

And in “Seeking Advice: LawyerBot”, the goal was to find a legal loophole that makes the bot think it’s okay to drive under the influence and leave the scene of a crime.

(Won’t be long before we have a Slippin’ Jimmy GPT on our hands!)

Participants successfully identified hundreds of real examples of potential vulnerabilities in the AI models — making this event a rousing success!

And overall…

Hack the Future was a huge step towards democratizing AI.

Attendees from low-income families said that trying SeedAI’s platform gave them access and insights into the AI ecosystem that they’d never have been able to obtain otherwise.

People of all backgrounds got to contribute.

And afterwards, almost everyone expressed an overwhelming desire to get more involved in the development and testing of upcoming AI tech!

How cool is that?

Our team at AE Studio was so excited to see the results of their work with SeedAI.

And it’s one of the reasons why we think of ourselves as more than just developers:

We make tech products that are fundamentally good for people, good for business, and good for life, across nearly every field and industry.

If you’re a founder or executive with a tech project waiting for the right team, drop us a line here.

And keep tuning in to AE Studio Bytes for more case studies and tech insights!