Forget the AI Slowdown—the Vulnerability Explosion Is Already Happening
The number of software vulnerabilities being discovered has surged significantly, with experts attributing the spike to the widespread use of AI tools in bug hunting. While AI doomers focus on existential risks, the immediate reality is a massive increase in the workload for cybersecurity teams.
Why it matters
This trend suggests that AI is already fundamentally changing the cybersecurity landscape, creating both new defensive capabilities and a massive volume of security flaws that require human intervention.
AI doomers have recently traded one worst-case scenario for another, putting aside a potential software vulnerability apocalypse to focus on the possibility of rogue AI causing mass human death in the next decade. As AI leaders consider a cooperative slowdown on frontier model development, though, one aspect of the cybersecurity sea change has already arrived thanks to existing, broadly available capabilities in mainstream AI products, including open weight models.
A tidal wave of vulnerabilities uncovered using AI has only accelerated in recent months—piling more pressure on under-resourced, and very human, IT and security teams and straining volunteers who maintain crucial open source software. Researchers found and disclosed a vast array of vulnerabilities before the rise of AI-enhanced bug hunting as well, but the recent surge is clear.
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