Episode 6
AI & Cybersecurity: When the Machines Become the Battlefield
Guests: Dr. Pablo Molina
Air Date: 1/26/2026 8 am ET
In this episode of Forces of Change, hosts Dr. Mikah Sellers and Annie Graziani sit down with Dr. Pablo Molina, a world-renowned cybersecurity strategist and the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Drexel University. With a career spanning the intersection of AI, national security, and ethics, Dr. Molina provides a sobering look at how artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping the digital battlefield.
The discussion frames AI as a "two-sided sword": while it empowers defenders with context-driven filters and anomaly detection, it also gives attackers unprecedented tools for reconnaissance and highly sophisticated social engineering. Dr. Molina explains why the offensive side is currently outpacing the defensive and explores the "governance challenge" of creating rules of engagement in a domain where the lines between nation-states and criminal actors are increasingly blurred.
Key Takeaways:
The Offensive Advantage: Why cybercriminals often have the upper hand by operating without the resource constraints, privacy regulations, and internal policies that govern legitimate organizations.
The Human in the Loop: A look at why removing human intuition from security systems is a "dangerous gamble," using historical examples like Stuxnet to show how clever analysts—not just machines—spot the most critical threats.
Cyber-Warfare & Policy: Insights into the lack of clear "rules of engagement" in cyberspace compared to land, sea, and air, and the geopolitical implications of state-sponsored AI attacks.
