Artificial Intelligence 🤝 Natural Stupidity
Brandon Sherman
fwd:cloudsec North America 2026 · Day 1
In "Artificial Intelligence 🤝 Natural Stupidity," Brandon Sherman, a Staff or Senior Staff Engineer, presents a compelling argument that while artificial intelligence (AI) has the power to magnify human brilliance, it equally magnifies human fallibility. The talk delves into the inherent human tendency to make mistakes, drawing parallels with lessons learned from the aviation industry to highlight the dangers of over-reliance on automation. Sherman's central thesis is that traditional "human in the loop" security models are inadequate when dealing with the scale and complexity of AI outputs, as humans are predisposed to cognitive traps and impaired judgment when automation fails.
AI review
A well-delivered, cogent argument for system-centric error prevention over human-vigilance theater, grounded in the aviation automation paradox and illustrated with concrete internal tooling. Nothing here is novel to anyone who's read Dekker or Rasmussen, and the technical artifacts (Deputy, Camper) are described at a level too shallow to be genuinely actionable — but the framing is clean, the examples land, and it's a better use of a conference slot than the usual 'AI is scary' hand-wringing.