IBM cyber chief: after 26 years, burnout — not AI — is the real threat

The author's argument draws on a career that spans from early internet worms to organized cybercrime, ransomware syndicates and nation-state campaigns — each a major shift that brought new technology and tactics for defenders.

What the piece adds is a distinction the author says is often missing from industry discussion: the difference between evaluating AI's offensive capability and measuring its effect on the analysts and responders absorbing the workload. The financial framing of cyberattacks — costs, losses, downtime, recovery expenses — gets far more airtime than the human cost, the author argues.

The author's own team experience suggests that letting staff pursue research and technology they are passionate about has produced tools that made it into internal workflows. The piece closes on the idea that technology changes constantly while human limits do not — and that supporting defenders may become one of the most important security investments organizations can make.