Global experts are convening in Lancaster at the very first international conference on natural language processing and artificial intelligence for cyber security (NLPAICS 2024).

International researchers from countries including Spain, USA, Brazil, Portugal and India will come together to explore the challenges and solutions around the application of natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI) in cyber security.

The conference is led by Lancaster University’s Professor Ruslan Mitkov in collaboration with a team of experts from other leading academic institutions and aims to address (and mitigate) the risks in processing digital information through themes including ethics and bias in cyber security, societal and human security, and financial cyber security through the application of latest AI advances.

Professor Mitkov said:“In our digital and technological driven world, natural language processing (NLP) is the driving force behind many of the technologies we use every day, from virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, to language translation tools and predictive text. NLP is a major area of artificial intelligence (AI) that applies technologies such as machine learning technologies to text or speech. Additionally, recent advances in NLP, deep learning and large language models have shown that there is a growing interest in applying AI methods in cyber security applications.

The event offers a unique opportunity to bring together leading UK and international researchers to share, innovate and celebrate the latest work they are doing to progress this important area of research. I am delighted to be involved in organising this event. Through working collaboratively across disciplines and areas of expertise, we hope to provide valuable insights into the use of AI and NLP in cyber security and address the challenges facing society in using these models and tools”.

This is the very first international event of its kind, and it could not come at a more critical time.

In today’s digital age, cyber security has emerged as a heightened priority for both individuals and organisations. With the surge in online information, researchers need to seek innovative solutions in natural language processing and artificial intelligence to address the challenge of tradition security measures falling short against evolving threats.

Another key research challenge is the future of cyber security in the era of Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI. Delegates will examine the challenges, risks and safety issues around employing these models in everyday tasks with a focus on fairness, ethics, and responsibility.

Keynote speakers will cover topics including red teaming – a technique to test how an organisation would respond to a genuine cyber-attack, the challenges and issues around AI-driven cyber security battles, the rise of social media and fake news, and AI detection for software vulnerabilities:

· Iva Gumnishka - An award-winning social entrepreneur in the field of Responsible AI. She is the founder of Humans in the Loop, a company which employs refugees to provide data labelling and human oversight services to the AI industry.

· Jacques Klein - Full professor in software engineering and software security in the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) at the University of Luxembourg.

· Paolo Rosso - Full Professor of Computer Science at the Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain. His research interests include the detection of harmful information in social media: disinformation and hate speech.

· Sevil Sen - A Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Hacettepe University. She is the founder and head of the Wireless Networks and Intelligent Secure Systems (WISE) laboratory at Hacettepe.

The event takes place at Lancaster University on the 29^th and 30^th August and is organised by the Lancaster UniversityUCREL NLP group, Data Science Institute and Security Lancaster. The event is sponsored by Mind Bridge AI.

More information can be found here:https://nlpaics.com/