# A Conversation with Michael Brown About Designing AI Systems

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/unsupervised-learning/a-conversation-with-michael-brown-about-designing-ai-systems
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/unsupervised-learning/a-conversation-with-michael-brown-about-designing-ai-systems.md
Podcast: [Unsupervised Learning](https://stenobird.com/podcast/unsupervised-learning)
Published: 2025-08-22T19:28:18+00:00
Episode link: https://omny.fm/shows/unsupervised-learning/a-conversation-with-michael-brown
Audio file: https://mgln.ai/e/p5837/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/070af456-729b-4a0f-9c09-a6c100397b59/3b159371-276d-429e-ae86-a6c1003b01c4/650c1795-6ca4-45f7-8b1a-b3400159fd02/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7b61d4e1-bd3d-4d3f-97c2-a6c1003b01c9
Processing state: failed
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/unsupervised-learning/episodes/a-conversation-with-michael-brown-about-designing-ai-systems
Duration seconds: 3006

## Resource

In this episode of Unsupervised Learning, I sit down with Michael Brown, Principal Security Engineer at Trail of Bits, to dive deep into the design and lessons learned from the AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC). Michael led the team behind Buttercup, an AI-driven system that secured 2nd place overall. We discuss: -The design philosophy behind Buttercup and how it blended deterministic systems with AI/ML  -Why modular architectures and “best of both worlds” approaches outperform pure LLM-heavy -designs -How large language models performed in patch generation and fuzzing support -The risks of compounding errors in AI pipelines — and how to avoid them -Broader lessons for applying AI in cybersecurity and beyond If you’re interested in AI, security engineering, or system design at scale, this conversation breaks down what worked, what didn’t, and where the field is heading. Subscribe to the newsletter at: https://danielmiessler.com/subscribe Join the UL community at: https://danielmiessler.com/upgrade Follow on X: https://x.com/danielmiessler Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmiessler Become a Member: https://danielmiessler.com/upgrade See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/unsupervised-learning/episodes/a-conversation-with-michael-brown-about-designing-ai-systems/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/unsupervised-learning/a-conversation-with-michael-brown-about-designing-ai-systems.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.