Cybersecurity in the Age of Instant Software

This essay explores how rapidly improving AI and the rise of ephemeral "instant software" could reshape cybersecurity: AI can dramatically accelerate vulnerability discovery and exploitation for attackers while also empowering defenders to find and patch flaws, potentially enabling self-healing networks. The author outlines key unknowns—effectiveness against closed-source and legacy systems, the difficulty of reliable patch creation and rollout, economics of vulnerability discovery and sharing, and risks from poisoning or manipulation of defensive AIs—and highlights IoT and social-engineering risks as persistent attack surfaces.