Quoting Matthew Green on AI Cryptanalysis
Amid the historic transition from traditional public-key algorithms to post-quantum ones, Matthew Green argues that now is the perfect time for AI to get good at cryptanalysis, potentially boosting confidence in new cryptographic problems.
A quote from Matthew Green
Simon Willison’s Weblog
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29th July 2026
Right now we’re in the midst of a historic transition from traditional public-key algorithms based on EC-based cryptography and RSA, moving over to new post-quantum algorithms based on novel problems. This is why there are so many standards like HAWK being considered. If there was ever a perfect time for a massive new public cryptanalysis capability to come on line, we’re in it. So unless AIs succeed in undermining all of our hard problems altogether (or we live in Impagliazzo’s Minicrypt) then this could not be a better time for AI to get good at cryptanalysis. In the best case, the result is that we gain real confidence in the problems we’ve identified, and the cryptanalysis literature gets a lot more robust. Hopefully.
— Matthew Green, on Anthropic's recent cryptography work
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This is a quotation collected by Simon Willison, posted on 29th July 2026.
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