> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.cybrsecmedia.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Gadi Evron on AI Replacing Hacker Skills: “Art Didn’t End With the Brush” - URL: https://www.cybrsecmedia.com/gadi-evron-on-ai-replacing-hacker-skills-art-didnt-end-with-the-brush/ - Published: 2026-10-28T12:39:46.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-28T12:41:22.000Z - Description: At [un]prompted II, Gadi Evron reflects on AI replacing hacker skills, cybersecurity jobs and why the hacking profession must reinvent itself. - Author: Bill Brenner - Tags: [un]prompted II, AI replacing hacker skills, AI hacking, Article **Full coverage of \[un\]prompted II:** [\[un\]prompted II: Full CoverageCYBR.SEC.Media's full coverage of \[un\]prompted II 2026: AI agent security research, expert talks, debates and analysis from San Francisco, October 27–29.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ab/67/ab676516-71e3-473d-8f73-9e0692f5aaee/content/images/icon/CYBR.SEC.Media-Logo-copy-bc95536e-c5c9-4cd5-ba8d-eaba38049db1.jpg)CYBR.SEC.MediaBill Brenner![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ab/67/ab676516-71e3-473d-8f73-9e0692f5aaee/content/images/thumbnail/20db4c11-e6e0-4989-9cf5-9b6e767a8f5f-4ce6c4bd-ee13-4608-8b36-338f87cca943.png)](https://www.cybrsecmedia.com/un-prompted-ii-full-coverage/) Hackers have spent decades developing the skills to discover what others couldn't. Now artificial intelligence is learning to perform some of that work in seconds, raising questions about the future of cybersecurity careers and the identity of the people who built the profession. Gadi Evron, CEO and co-founder of Knostic and co-chair of \[un\]prompted II, confronted those questions in a personal foreword to a Phrack anniversary edition released at the San Francisco conference. Titled *Our Greatest Hacks Are Yet to Come*, the essay is less a celebration of technological progress than an acknowledgment of what AI is taking away from a community whose identity has long been rooted in curiosity, experimentation and technical mastery. Evron describes a profession confronting the possibility that skills developed over years of research, practice and late nights may no longer distinguish the people who possess them. His reflections are also about what remains when those skills become widely accessible, and whether the hacker community can once again reinvent the work it does. ## Mourning the skills that defined a profession Evron begins by acknowledging the emotional impact AI is having on hackers. He describes a community that historically explored unfamiliar systems, discovered how they worked and shared that knowledge with others. Now, he writes, that accumulated knowledge has helped train systems capable of performing work once reserved for highly skilled practitioners. Reverse engineering, code auditing and vulnerability discovery are among the disciplines he identifies as undergoing that transformation. The consequences extend beyond productivity. For hackers who spent years developing those abilities, technical mastery was not merely a way to earn a living. It was part of what made the work rewarding. Evron acknowledges that some security professionals have always viewed the profession as broader than vulnerability discovery. But for others, finding bugs and solving difficult technical problems were central to their motivation. AI is changing that relationship. Evron describes the shift as a kind of mourning, even as he remains optimistic about AI's potential. [Subscribe to the CYBR.SEC.Media newsletter](#/portal/signup/free) ## Hackers have always automated their own work The turning point in Evron's essay comes when he considers whether the loss of familiar skills means the loss of hacker identity itself. His answer is rooted in the profession's history. Hackers have repeatedly developed tools that automate difficult work, making techniques once requiring specialized expertise accessible to a much larger group of people. In Evron's telling, that process has never brought hacking to an end. Instead, it has changed what hackers spend their time exploring. The tools evolve, familiar tasks become automated and new problems emerge. He sees AI as another transformation in that history, even if its speed and scope make the transition more unsettling. The distinction he draws is between the activities hackers perform and the qualities that make them hackers. Research, experimentation, curiosity and a willingness to question established assumptions remain central to that identity. Those qualities, he argues, are not dependent on any particular programming language, reverse-engineering technique or vulnerability-discovery method. AI may change the work. Evron does not believe it eliminates the impulse to explore. ## The fear of becoming obsolete Evron does not dismiss concerns about employment. He acknowledges uncertainty over when AI might make existing jobs redundant and describes the anxiety surrounding a future in which previously valuable technical skills become commonplace. That uncertainty is especially significant in a profession where expertise has traditionally been measured through the ability to solve problems that few others could. If an AI system can reproduce the result, the relationship between expertise, professional value and employment becomes less straightforward. Evron does not offer a timeline for when cybersecurity jobs might disappear. Nor does he claim that every displaced role will automatically be replaced by a better one. Instead, he frames the problem as something the hacker community must confront together. His confidence rests in the community's history of adaptation and its ability to discover new opportunities when established forms of work change. That confidence does not erase the possibility of disruption. It reflects his belief that hackers are particularly well equipped to respond to it. ## Finding the next frontier in AI itself Evron's vision of the future is not limited to using AI to perform traditional hacking tasks faster. He anticipates hackers discovering unexpected ways to use, manipulate and break AI systems themselves. That includes possibilities beyond what the systems' creators originally intended. He invokes the memory of Dan Kaminsky, the late security researcher known for his curiosity and enthusiasm for exploring complex technical problems. Evron describes imagining the possibilities ahead with the same excitement he remembers in Kaminsky. The reference connects the hacker culture he fears losing with the new areas of exploration he believes AI will open. For Evron, the next generation of hacking is not simply automated vulnerability scanning or AI-assisted reverse engineering. It is the exploration of an entirely new technical landscape, including the limitations, behaviors and unexpected capabilities of AI systems. The underlying motivation remains the same: discovering how things work, what they can do and how they can be made to behave differently. ## A community that continues to reinvent itself Evron also uses the Phrack foreword to emphasize the importance of the hacker community. He describes seeing young people build sophisticated systems and people from outside traditional engineering backgrounds begin contributing to software projects. Those examples reflect the changing accessibility of technical work. AI is lowering barriers to activities that previously required years of specialized knowledge. For established practitioners, that can feel threatening. For newcomers, it can create opportunities to participate in work that was once out of reach. Evron does not attempt to resolve that tension. Instead, he points to the continued growth of the community as evidence that hacker culture remains alive. Phrack provides a fitting setting for that reflection. The publication has long been associated with the exchange of technical knowledge, unconventional research and the culture surrounding hacking. Evron's foreword recognizes the people who sustained that tradition while confronting a future in which the tools and skills of the profession may look dramatically different. He closes by thanking the Phrack team and acknowledging Michal Kamensky, Karen Castelletti and others who contributed to the essay. ## The work changes. The curiosity remains. Evron's message is not that AI will leave cybersecurity employment untouched, or that the transition will be painless. He explicitly acknowledges the possibility of redundancy, the loss of familiar work and the grief that can accompany technological change. But he rejects the idea that the future of hacking must be defined by those losses. The profession has repeatedly transformed itself through the tools its practitioners created. AI, in his view, presents another such transformation — one that may eliminate familiar tasks while opening new areas for research, experimentation and discovery. The central distinction in his foreword is between a hacker's current skills and the identity that led them to develop those skills in the first place. The former may become automated. Evron believes the latter will endure. His closing line captures that belief in four words: **"Art didn't end with the brush."** *Gadi Evron's essay, "Our Greatest Hacks Are Yet to Come," was released with the Phrack anniversary edition at \[un\]prompted II in San Francisco on October 27, 2026.* [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ab/67/ab676516-71e3-473d-8f73-9e0692f5aaee/content/images/2026/10/2027-Events-Banner-65.png)](https://www.cybrsecmedia.com/conference/)