From hacker to bodyguard to target—AI pulled triple duty at the year’s biggest security events

Five people stand on a stage. The middle three people hold a large check worth four million dollars. (Credit: DARPA | Matt Dombro)

Welcome to Eye on AI! AI reporter Sharon Goldman here, filling in for Jeremy Kahn, who is on holiday. In this edition… China tells firms to avoid Nvidia H20 Chips after Trump ends ban but takes cut of revenue… Students are flocking to college courses in AI… Anthropic will offer Claude AI to the U.S. government for $1.

Las Vegas in August feels like another planet—blazing heat, flashing lights, and the constant clatter of slot machines. That otherworldly vibe carried over to the two conferences I attended last week: Black Hat and DEF CON, two of the year’s biggest security and “ethical” hacking conferences, where cutting-edge security research is presented; hackers race to expose flaws in everything from AI chatbots to power grids; and governments, corporations, and hobbyists swap notes and learn the latest threat-fighting techniques.