Yael Tauman Kalai, a cryptography expert, discusses her career journey, work on blockchain privacy with ring signatures, concerns around quantum computing, and exciting emerging areas in cryptography. She touches on the balance between academia and industry, verification methods, and the intersection of AI and cryptography.
Cryptography is essential for data security in the digital age.
Post-quantum secure cryptography is crucial in the face of quantum computing threats.
Verification methods for Large Language Models are vital for trust and reliability in computing.
Deep dives
Evolution of Cryptography: Balancing Security and Privacy in the Digital Age
Cryptography serves as the foundation of technological systems, ensuring data privacy and secure information transmission. Dr. Yael Kalai discusses the critical role of cryptography in the face of evolving threats to data security. From encrypting messages to verifying transactions, cryptography plays a vital role in our digital lives. Challenges posed by advancements like quantum computing push researchers to develop post-quantum secure cryptography, ensuring continued data protection.
Verifiable Delegation of Computation: Ensuring Correctness Amid Quantum Computing
Dr. Yael Kalai explores the concept of verifiable delegation of computation in the context of quantum computing advancements. While quantum computers pose a threat to traditional cryptographic systems, the focus shifts towards making cryptographic protocols post-quantum secure. The challenges of upgrading proofs and assumptions for quantum-resistant cryptography highlight the need for innovative solutions in securing digital transactions and computations.
Emerging Areas: LLMs and the Future of Verification
The advent of Large Language Models (LLMs) presents revolutionary opportunities and challenges in cryptographic research. Dr. Yael Kalai emphasizes the need to address verification issues in LLMs to ensure their trustworthiness and reliability. Collaborative efforts are underway to enhance the security and verification methods for accommodating LLMs in various applications, shaping the future of computing and cryptography.
Advice for Computing Professionals: Find Your Passion and Drive
Dr. Yael Kalai encourages aspiring computing professionals to discover their passion within their work. Success lies in finding what excites and motivates you, driving you to delve deep into research and overcome challenges. Embracing your passion and curiosity fuels innovation and leads to meaningful contributions in the dynamic field of computing and research.
Future Prospects: Balancing Security and Quantum Computing Challenges
As quantum computing advances, the future of cryptography faces significant challenges. Dr. Yael Kalai highlights the urgency in transitioning cryptographic systems to be post-quantum secure to withstand quantum threats. Balancing evolving cryptographic protocols with quantum computing capabilities provides opportunities for innovation and resilience in securing digital communications and transactions.
In this episode of ACM ByteCast, Bruke Kifle hosts 2022 ACM Prize in Computing recipient Yael Tauman Kalai, Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and an Adjunct Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her main research interests are cryptography, the Theory of Computation, and security and privacy. She is especially known for her work in verifiable delegation of computation, where she has developed succinct proofs that certify the correctness of any computation. In addition to making breakthroughs in the mathematical foundations of cryptography, her proofs have been practically useful in areas such as blockchain and cryptocurrency.
Yael shares her career journey in computer science, which is rooted in a love of mathematics, and how the field of cryptography provided philosophically interesting questions with applicable research outcomes. She describes her work on ring signatures, a key component of numerous blockchain-based systems that added privacy to the chain, which she co-invented with Ron Rivest and Adi Shamir. Yael also touches on AI and large language models (LLMs), different methods of verification, how she values her own work, and how she balances her roles between academia and industry. She also reveals some concerns around quantum computing and what she sees as the most exciting emerging areas of cryptography.
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