Dr Hammond Pearce studies how artificial intelligence is changing the security and trustworthiness of the digital systems we increasingly depend on. AI can help us write software, design computer hardware and communicate at unprecedented scale, but it can also introduce security vulnerabilities, accelerate misinformation and make it harder to know what information and technology we can trust. His work asks how society can gain the benefits of AI while reducing these emerging risks.
Dr Pearce develops and tests ways to make AI-enabled technology safer and more trustworthy. His research has shown that AI-generated software can contain serious security flaws, and he now investigates how AI can instead be used to find and repair vulnerabilities in both software and computer hardware, including helping pioneer the use of AI for high-level computer-chip design. He also develops practical education tools, including Capture the Narrative, which teaches students how AI can manipulate social media, and the Hackster, a low-cost platform for learning hardware security.