How a Mathematician Keeps Computers Honest

In this episode

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Yael Tauman Kalai is a computer scientist who doesn’t code. Instead, this MIT CSAIL professor uses mathematics and cryptography to tackle some of computing’s biggest security questions: How can we know if a message is secure or if an LLM answer is correct? What does it mean to know anything when it comes to computation and trust?
Professor Kalai’s work is setting the stage for verifiable, provable AI training, as well as keeping us safe in a post-quantum world. Learn what she thinks about the future of cryptography and why she sleeps well at night.

Resources:
Professor Kalai’s CSAIL Page
Yael Tauman Kalai awarded 2022 ACM Prize in Computing
CSAIL Alliances Spotlight

What Quantum Computing Means for End to End Encryption 🔐⚛️

How Much Can We Trust AI? 🤖🔒

About the speakers

Yael Kalai

Professor, MIT EECS

Yael Kalai is a cryptographer and theoretical computer scientist who works as a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England and as a Professor at MIT in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab.

Learn More

Spotlight: Yael Kalai

Podcast: Securing Computation with Yael Kalai

Karen Given

Host of Building 32

Karen Given is an award-winning podcast showrunner, story editor and coach. A veteran of public radio, Karen is the former executive producer and host of NPR’s Only A Game. She won the national Edward R. Murrow award twice, in 2007 and 2017. Since leaving public radio, Karen has focused on the podcast space, most notably on Believable: The Coco Berthmann Story, one of The Atlantic’s top 25 podcasts of 2023. Karen’s other projects include, The Afghan Impasse, a special season of The Negotiators, from Foreign Policy and Doha Debates; Before We Go, and What Takes Root: Stories of Resistance and Reclamation. Given teaches narrative storytelling workshops and writes Narrative Beat, a free newsletter for journalists and podcast makers who want to tell better stories.