Rachael Lyon:
Welcome to To The Point cybersecurity podcast. Each week, join Vince Spina and Rachel Lyon to explore the latest in global cybersecurity news, trending topics, and cyber industry initiatives impacting businesses, governments, and our way of life. Now let's get to the point. Hello, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of To the Point podcast. I'm Rachel Lyon here with my co host, Vince Spina, and we're excited to pick back up our conversation with doctor Mario Savides. He holds the Bossa Nova Robotics Professorship of AI at Carnegie Mellon University, where he's also the founder and director of the Biometric Center and a full tenure professor in electrical and computer engineering. Now let's get to the point.

Rachael Lyon:
I you know, what I what I coming back to minority report, what I thought was really interesting and, you know, from my perspective that I would love is, you know, that ability if I'm walking through a shopping center and they're able to detect me. And, of course, they're gonna have all my information. Thank you, Facebook. On my preferences and likes, but it's offer it's, able to personalize, right, offers to me as I walk through. So it's, you know, it's not just one ad, you know, one size fits all, but it's, you know, actually tailoring these things to me and and making it more interesting as I walk through, which I think could be really fascinating, but also, you know, quite quite overwhelming. 

You know, and I I just wonder, you know, as we look at kind of the the advancement of AI and, you know, kind of more accuracy, you know, that it could bring potentially to this kind of technology. You know, how long before we start seeing these things and or, when can I just use long range iris recognition to open my phone or my my laptop, or is that already happening and I just don't know about it?

Marios Savvides:
Okay. Great question. I think you you touched on a lot of points, and let me try to hit one of them 1 each one and one at a time. That That was a really loaded question with a lot of answers.

Rachael Lyon:
It's a lot.

Marios Savvides:
A lot. But I love it. That's why I love it. Okay? So I I love yes. You know, so here's the one thing. We think that biometrics is where we started losing our privacy, but the reality is we've lost it way before. The moment we signed up for any kind of advantage cards where we shop, they already have all the information on us. They already know what we're buying and what we're not buying.

Marios Savvides:
We just don't physically see it. Right? That's why I said about the intrusiveness of systems. With biometrics, you know you're being captured, so you're, oh, now they're capturing information. No. Information is not just already out there. It's been used. It's just we didn't realize it. It wasn't obvious to us.

Marios Savvides:
So what I'm trying to say is, let's take advantage of the fact, okay, they they already have information. Let's use biometrics to actually us get a better experience.

Rachael Lyon:
Right.

Marios Savvides:
You know, I would love if I'm going to a hotel, that they know that, you know, I have come here again, recognize me, and come over and, you know, oh, hey, doctor Savides, you know, I've got your, you know, your room, your the room you like, or here's your favorite coffee. You know, you go to Starbucks or whatever. Oh, you've got your coupon. Get that nice, you know, what do we all like? We all we all like to have familiarization. We like that personal experience. Right? 

We want robots to give us more of a personal experience, not as robots, but tell the attendant, you know, you know, imagine somebody in a hotel or a Starbucks, they're not gonna remember every single person. There's just no way. Maybe in a local Starbucks, in a in a small town, they'll remember a couple of fees that they see, but it would be really great if they remember you and say, hey, Rachel.

Marios Savvides:
How are you today? Do you want that, you know, pumpkin spice latte again? You'll love that. You'll love the fact that you've heard that. It's just it's a nice homey town. It's a great way for AI to actually bring the human connection to people. So see how we always think of AI as actually losing the human connection, but actually, we can use it to bring back the human connection. Mhmm. 

To bring a sense of, and in fact, if if companies and retailers do that, it will be a more personalized people will be more welcome to go in store, to know that they're welcome, that they're known, that they're appreciated, that they've gone out of their way to know them, not just steal the information and use them, but actually give people a better user experience. So it's up to us.

Marios Savvides:
It's up to society. It's up to companies to use this in a way to actually they'll be more profitable, and I'll be a more happier shopper and and customer in this. So I think the future can be actually a utopia, not a not not dystopian. Right? I I and it's all about how do we go in as engineers and scientists and CEOs, how do we push something that's more human? So let's take something that's less human like AI and actually help it make society more human by caring, by understanding emotion. Imagine AI that, you know, somebody has an elderly person, that they're not can't be around all day, but you have an AI system that can, you know, not just monitor if they've fallen down or not, that's simple, but actually sense. Are they limping? Do they seem sad? You know, then maybe alert their daughter or son. You know what? Give your mom a call today because, you know what, she seems down. How would you know that unless you called in? We're all busy.

Marios Savvides:
Work happens. Right? But here's where AI can actually help bring the human element closer when somebody really needs it. And I think we forget about that. We we always try to demonize AI, and we forget. And it's up to us. It's our ethical responsibility to take AI and make it help humanity.

[05:48] Concern over AI-generated Data Security and Mitigation

Rachael Lyon:
I love that.

Vince Spina:
You're making a believer in me, Mario. So I gotta tell you, kind of as an engineer when you were talking, I I I'm like, I agree with them. They're so much good, and, you know, we we in our business, we talk about AI all the time, but we talk about the rewards versus the risk. You know, when I when I'm thinking about this as an engineer, I I tend to probably go to the risk side of the equation, probably more than than I should. But, you know, the question I have for you, you know, as a technologist, when I think about this technology and, you know, how, accurate it can be and how valuable, first thing I go, boy, this thing is gonna need or it's gonna create a whole bunch of data, like, you know, because at the end of the day, it all becomes ones and zeros. 

And then when, you know first of all, Iris is like a real person to me now because, you've you've talked about Iris in the in the first person. So I'm gonna give mad respect to that moving forward, but probably the thing I'm worried about today, you know, we hear about breaches in the industry, maybe somebody gets my password, maybe they get, you know, another piece of information, but it feels to me, if you get the data and you now have my Iris technology, how do I ever mitigate? Like, how do I bring that back? 

Because, like, yeah, one of the pros of this, conversation is that's one thing that doesn't necessarily change in a human. Well, if a bad actor gets a hold of that, how do how do I mitigate that? Like, how do I get my eyes back? Like, how do I get it from someone else? I mean,

Marios Savvides:
Sure. So but again, it doesn't matter if they get it. Right? Because the point is that there's all this spoofing attack, so they can't do a replay attack with iris, right? So wait to have your iris, you know. Unless the system is sore cake that it's not really doing robust liveliness texts, It doesn't matter because if we think about it, we've given our face to the whole world. You know, our faces in our LinkedIn pages, our faces anywhere in the web. Right? We've given our face biometric to the world. They're like, hey, look at it. It's there.

Marios Savvides:
We've we've willingly given it away. Our iris is part of our face too. Right? That's right. I mean, in irrigation systems, they can use our face there to do that. So I we what we have to build, you know, the that particular aspect, I agree with you, we have to be worried only if we, as engineers and scientists, are not doing a good job in building robust spoof attack mechanisms.

Vince Spina:
Okay. So the the mitigation technology is is right there with it. So it's Should be. Yeah. Should be. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah.

Vince Spina:
It has to be. Yeah. The technology exists. It's just gotta be put in play. It's, very much.

Marios Savvides:
It's like and I I will tell you. I I know what you're feeling, and I and I I feel also some of the we we see a lot of this new, you know, AI coming in, and we have a lot of chat bots. Right? And it's supposed to help us, but companies have used this actually to distance us. I can't get through any person now when I dial a help desk. I have this automated, oh, let me help you. You think you're chatting with somebody real and you're not, then I'm like, okay, agent agent agent zero zero zero zero. And it's almost now impossible. But you know what, that's not the AI's fault.

[09:22] AI Should Aid, not Replace, Human Interaction

Marios Savvides:
That's whichever company is choosing that is hiding behind an AI chatbot to not give the customer somebody real. And, you know, we should not go and give money to those companies. Alright? AI is there to help people not to hide and shield them from, you know, from talking to a real person. The exact opposite. That's why I keep saying, it's all up to us as a society, as engineers, scientists, CEOs, CTOs, to ensure that we're using AI in a way to help humanity, not distance us from humanity. And, unfortunately, we're not always seeing that. Right? And it's in the case with a lot of these call centers. AI should be there to, like, okay, the moment we're feeling that someone's getting distressed, connect them.

Marios Savvides:
Don't make it harder for them to find someone. That's not a good thing. That's hiding behind this technology, not using it effectively and and and ethically.

Rachael Lyon:
Yeah. That's

Marios Savvides:
So sorry. I I know I had many you had many questions, so I forgot some that was

Rachael Lyon:
Well, you know, honestly, it's, I'm someone who hates MFA. I just think it's all these extra steps, and it drives me crazy, and I don't use, like, one of those pass keys or whatever they're called. And I I love that I can just stick my iPhone in front of my face, you know, and it just opens up the world for me, and I just want that everywhere. So when is iris detection gonna be there? So, you know, if I wanna log in to USAA, my laptop or phone can just scan the iris, call it a day, and I'm in there, and I don't have to do anything else.

Marios Savvides:
Yeah. I you know, I it's not a techno it's not a technology question. No? It is a it's a societal. It's someone to go in and push this push this to happen.

Rachael Lyon:
Sure.

Marios Savvides:
And I think, you know, we're we're we're we're kind of seeing some of this. It takes someone to go out and and make this happen. Right? And we're I think someone right now who's trying to make Ares, and, you know, Sam Altman is trying to get this with the orb, right, with Ares recognition. So that's a big effort that's been pushing, and I think that will get Ares to be more accepted, which is good. So we have to we go through these phases where we've tried to get biometrics done about, you know, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, but the technology wasn't quite there, the computer wasn't quite there, the infrastructure, the security infrastructure wasn't quite there. Now, we are. We're at a point where compute is very fast. We don't need much compute.

Marios Savvides:
Sensors are cheap. AI is here, and it's a matter where, like, now is the time. Now is the time that we have to do that, you know, 5th Challenger, you know, launch because now it will make it. Mhmm. So I'm excited. I mean, we're doing some things, and and and I'm excited to see what the future holds. And, again, I think of biometrics not as biometrics. I think of it as, you know, phone is just another, you know, robot system.

Marios Savvides:
It's it's it's an AI system. It's just understanding who it's talking to, who it's giving access to. I think of everything in the future as just that. Your ATM is just a computer system that's understanding who it's interacting with. So I wanted, you know, if we start thinking of it that way, it becomes less intrusive and more natural. These systems will become more human like, and it's just another robotic person, robotic robot system, that's understanding who it's talking to and giving access to your bank account, to your cash, to making reservations. And I think it's gonna become seamless. The the picture

Vince Spina:
of that was Oh.

Marios Savvides:
Yeah. Sorry.

Vince Spina:
Go on.

Marios Savvides:
Sorry about that.

Vince Spina:
No. I was gonna say, this is a technology that I mean, it's super interesting, you know it at a level that certainly, Rachel and I don't. But it feels like, I mean, is it a proprietary technology that anybody working on it, you know, it's kind of close to them, or are there open type protocols that people are writing to? And kinda where I'm I'm heading is, I mean, I can see the value. We can all see the value of this technology, but how's it in gonna integrate across myriad other vendors who are building out other technologies like data protection, you know, authentication, access controls, like, how how does this all come together to be, you know, one cohesive kind of environment?

And being a network guy from backgrounds and things like, you know, protocols like TCPIP, are there those type of protocols and open systems in the world of, iris capture or not? Is that are we on the early stages of that?

Marios Savvides:
Yeah. I think, I think I think that's one of the things that Sam's outman's trying to actually achieve with his orb, is actually create this whole ecosystem where authentication is connected with data and and many other sort of, systems to interact with.

Vince Spina:
Right?

Marios Savvides:
So, I think I'm eager to see where he come where he how he pushes that out and how that comes out with. But in terms of interavailability, it's I'm eager to see how the future holds out. It's an engineering problem, not a technology problem. It is simply a way how do the different systems talk to each other. How do they authenticate? How does one company authenticate with another company and say, well, I've authenticated Marius. Yes. Give him access to the data that I have. Right? How do you because there is no one company that has all the information.

[15:09] Seamless Cross-system Authentication for User Convenience

Marios Savvides:
Right? Different systems have to talk to each other, and they all have to authenticate, and you do not you should not have to authenticate the user every single time because one system is now talking to another system. I don't have to go to the user and we go to the Internet and get Mario's speech because the bank's talking to some other system, some other system, some other system. So, yeah, it is interesting. 

We're at the point now that technology is not the issue. I mean, long range is, long range technology is, but not the actual biometric recognition is. But how do you link it up so that you have a seamless infrastructure, right? Think of it as smart city, but now this is smart authentication that goes across all systems in society to give the user a more seamless authentication. You know, I walk in my home. You know, the door opens.

Marios Savvides:
It knows it's me, right? My security camera detects someone outside, my and, you know, my kids are playing, but there's a stranger that's not a known family member that's talking to them. I should get an alert because they're gonna that's somebody that's not a close family friend that should be talking to my kids. You know, we kinda want the seamless we we want AI to help us in our day to day tasks that are mundane. Right? 

And the more we can have an eye out to protect our loved ones, the more AI is actually doing exactly what we built it to do for good. Right? And I I I keep gravitating because I see so much good, and I wanna see AI being used for good and less for bad, or perceived. And so, I don't know. Maybe I'm the, you know, what is it? The endless optimists? That's

Rachael Lyon:
right. The optimists. Yes.

Marios Savvides:
The optimists. We need

Vince Spina:
more. We need more art.

Rachael Lyon:
We do.

Vince Spina:
Absolutely.

Rachael Lyon:
I love that. I I

Marios Savvides:
I wake up every day, and I and I Yeah. I I wake up every day, and I say, what can I do? What can me and my team? What can my students do? And and my students, we we love. We will always work to something that we can build something real to make a difference. We will never develop technology that just sits on paper. Doesn't interest me or my students. You know, we develop theories so we can make it apply and actually solve a real problem. That's what that's what we that's what Carnegie Mellon is all about. So we love that.

Marios Savvides:
So when when we when we do something that goes out in the field, it's like, wow, we we built something. It's like we gave birth to some new technology that actually makes a difference, that made someone smile, that that that helps someone in some way. And, and and I I can talk about I could go on forever on on on this applications. I mean, think about a camera looking in a, looking at your pool. Right? How many times are we, just what mindful of, you know, is is our is our children okay? That is someone, you know, may pass out. You know, moms and dads can't be there 24 hour. We want to. They want to.

Marios Savvides:
But all it takes is that 2 minutes of them going in for a drink of water or something for something to happen. Right? And it's just you you this is where aye aye can really, really play a difference. Even as simple as even an animal falling in. I mean, I've I've had friends Right. A squirrel have fallen into. Right? And they find that, you know, that squirrel in the pool. You know what? Yeah. I want AI to help me get the squirrel out before it it dies in the pool.

Marios Savvides:
Yeah. You know? Why not? So there's a million applications where this thing can actually have a really profound impact, and it's here and now. And it's a matter of I really think in the next 24 months to 36 months, we will see a lot of this technology bearing fruit and actually making it out. It it it really do. I think we're, you know, AI is changing at such a fast pace that it's a it and I know we've said this a 1000000 times. I know we've said this we've said this 5 years ago, we've said this 10 years ago, we've said this 20 years ago, you know. We've said this beginning 1980. Right? Now I now it is.

Marios Savvides:
It's here. And we we just need to steer the ship in the right direction to build products that are really really helpful. And I think when we do that, it'll push us to a more positive human society. You know, I want AI to be assisting humans, not the other way around. I don't want AI to take over humans. Right? It should always be an assistive tool. Let let AI make us better. Help us recall.

Marios Savvides:
We can't remember everything, but AI can. Right? It can assist us. It can help us. It help us become more efficient. And that's how we have to use it. It's like, us getting these exoskeletons where we have extra information. Right? Make us stronger. Make us better.

Marios Savvides:
Make us better at our jobs, better at what we do. Help us learn better. AI can so help us learn better faster. You know, as I think of kids now and what they have, I'm jealous. I wish I was a kid.

Rachael Lyon:
Yes. Yes.

Marios Savvides:
I wish I was a kid now. Right? I'll be able to program a Raspberry Pi, build an arm to pick up things, you know, things that I thought you I would have I did it in my undergrad, I'd be able to do as a, you know, a 6 year old Mhmm. Or a 7 year old. You know? It's like it's a great time to be a kid learning in all these things. Yes. And it's our responsibility to make sure they're ethical, and they're responsible, and take this the right thing. So that's I I think technology is there. I think we have to have more responsibility ethical responsibility.

Marios Savvides:
So ethics is a big part of us, I think. And that's that's gonna be the challenge. How do we make the right decisions?

Vince Spina:
Side up. I'll turn it back to Rachel, but on your great time to be a kid, I mean, I got into kind of a standing running joke with Rachel and I and others in my company, but I got into, crypto very early. I got into things like NFTs, and and Mhmm. At my age, you know, my friend group is, like, how did you ever learn about crypto or NFT or anything like that? I said, everybody needs a 10 year old. And, you know, I have a 25 year old son who, when he was 10, he was tinkering with all this stuff, and, you know, he'd bring

Marios Savvides:
it to

Vince Spina:
dad and go, dad, you know, this is the coolest thing or whatever. You know, it's funny. I I feel the same way. I'm like, everybody needs a 10 year old because

Marios Savvides:
Yes. Yes.

Vince Spina:
The things, you know, he could do at 10 that I couldn't do at a, you know, much more senior age is, it's unbelievable. So and even now, he's a 25 year old. The next generation is blowing him away, like, in a way.

Marios Savvides:
You know? What he's It's amazing. It's amazing. And and and the rate of how they're learning. I mean, my students, you know, through this learn from me, but I'm also learning from them. Like, there's so many new tools, new engineering tools, new papers. Like, hey. Look at this. Look at that.

Marios Savvides:
I'm like, wow. You know? I I just yeah. It's just, we're learning every single day. Every single day I'm learning more. Absolutely.

Rachael Lyon:
I feel kinda cheated, Vince, I gotta say. You know? I had a slip and slide, and that was my big technological revolution when I was a child. So

Vince Spina:
Well, hey. We had pet rocks. You know? This generation doesn't know the value and the, you know, the fun garnered by pet rocks. So

Rachael Lyon:
Not a lot of learning there, though. I mean,

Marios Savvides:
not a lot of learning.

Rachael Lyon:
Well, I I am excited too. I mean, you know, kind of the the I'm a benefiting humans, but in a different way because I think you've also worked with, some major retailers, right, to implement robots and Cloud AI into stores. And this is an area I'm really excited about because I gotta tell you, Marios, I don't wanna stand in line at the grocery store anymore. You know what I mean? Like, I wanna just grab it from the shelf and walk out the door. And I think Amazon's been beta testing something like that. Right? There's, like, an Amazon store in in New York City or something. But is is that where you see kind of things happening with retailers to make that experience more efficient or, more enjoyable? Because I only buy online now if I can help it. I just can't go to the store anymore.

Rachael Lyon:
It's so stressful.

Marios Savvides:
Rachel, you've, you've, you've now entered my daily life cause I have a start up, and all I'm doing right now is is developing technology for a frictionless checkup. And what we've done is we're basically saying, okay, I I hate the barcode. I I have been to too many stores. And even at airports, I go to an airport and I go to a you know, I don't wanna mention, you know, the big names, but I go there and, basically, I see a barcode scanner that I have to pick up and then try to, like, you know, bring this dance. Where the heck is this barcode?

Rachael Lyon:
Yeah.

Marios Savvides:
Scan. And I feel like I'm becoming the attendant. And I'm sorry. I'm not taking any more of it, and and I and and society is not taking any more of that. So what I wanna change, I wanna I and this is my my personal crusade, is I wanna change the user experience in shopping. Unfortunately, there are just not enough cashiers anymore in stores. There's just more checkout self checkouts, and the self checkout experience just plain sucks.

Rachael Lyon:
It does.

Marios Savvides:
It's it's you're you're you feel like you're doing the employee's job. You feel like you're doing something someone should should be doing, and that's where AI, I think, can make a huge difference. We're building we've built, and I can show demos, camera system that just recognizes the product. It doesn't matter what angle you put it under. You just place it down. It knows the product. So you could you could place it in your cart and just walk out of your cart. You know, you recognize what's in the cart.

Marios Savvides:
Or you scan it with your phone and you walk out with your cart. Doesn't matter. Does it it could be a checkout. It could be from the cart. We can identify products. Doesn't matter what camera we're using. Doesn't matter what angle. Doesn't matter what lighting.

Marios Savvides:
I don't even barcode scan anything anymore.

Rachael Lyon:
Wonderful.

Marios Savvides:
And to me, AI is here to change that user interaction. And that's what's gonna make self checkout and us going to shopping a more pleasant experience. Because we've all had enough of this whole cashier less barcode scanning system. I you know, some some you know, we go to Lowe's, there's there's no more cashier. Right? Lowe's doesn't have any cashiers anymore, at least not where I am. There's not even an option to wait for a cashier. It's just not. You have to use theirs the the the the self checkout with barcode scatter.

Marios Savvides:
And so no. No. My, I would love to show you what we're doing. I am my I am every day I wake up and I wanna make I wanna change the way we we we I wanna change our shopping experience in stores because we should not have to stay online. You know, this is one this is we've now changed the way we interact with the world. We've become more, you know, introverts. We're now staying at home. We prefer to order online

Rachael Lyon:
Yes.

Marios Savvides:
Than go outside, take, you know, take a ride and go to a store because we're dreading that that that line where you're like, I'm gonna, oh, wait for attendant, and there's like 3, you know, checkouts that are all beeping. They want attendants because the system is stuck with some, you know, barred bad barcode scan or whatnot. Mhmm. This has to end. That that's that's my personal crusade here. Exchange that for everyone.

Rachael Lyon:
Love it. Thank you.

[27:01] Supporting Business Growth with Anti-theft Technology

Vince Spina:
I love I love what, your start up, what I think kind of where you're heading, Mario. It's, I could tell you in a past life, I worked for a very large national, national grocery retailer. And same thing, put in all that self checkout technology. I can tell you, businesses are wrestling with that. The term in that industry is called shrinkage, but basically, that it basically means theft, and the amount of money that they're losing, you know, in self checkouts, the ability to kind of even go around the barcode scanner and walk out the door is crazy. So I think, you know, based on some of the technologies you're you're looking at from a camera perspective, etcetera, is absolutely the right way. Not only will the consumer love that, I think you're gonna find businesses are gonna be all about it as well.

Marios Savvides:
Vince, you hit the nail right on the head. And because that's exactly what's going on. Okay? You know the number one way people maybe I shouldn't say this. But anyway, I'll say it to the point. It's you know, they'll steal. They'll walk out with a box of stakes, and what they're gonna do is they're gonna basically put a Wrigley string gum at the bottom. So the scanner scans a 99¢ Wrigley string gum while they're walking away with a $150 worth of stakes or whatever other item or TV or whatnot. So the barcode system saw something, camera on top saw that something was, you know, scanned and okay, so no problem.

Marios Savvides:
Yay. Number one way people shrink is is Yep. Although they take the tag from somewhere else and put that in. With our system, it identifies. You can't it will actually we have a demo, and it's you know, there's a patent of stuff we have. It will actually, it will say, hold on, my barcode scanner, if you just want to put a camera, it will check what the barcode scan said versus the camera. I'll say, hold on, I see something else on top, and I see you scan something else. Somebody call it then because it's clearly something's going on.

Marios Savvides:
But you don't even need the barcode scanner because the camera on top will just identify what it is regardless. So That's fantastic. Why not have something that's just more you know, why not just identify things and just as you're putting them in, just swipe them, put them in. You know, working with some big retailers right now to to give that out, in in this in the, put that out in some some POCs right now as we're talking. So it's it's super exciting. Coming to you Rachel and I

Vince Spina:
are in our friends, so we, you know, we want in on the friends and family part of, the equation. So

Marios Savvides:
Absolutely. Listen. Coming to you coming to a c store or a grocery store next near to you, sir, I guarantee you'll have the Carnegie Mellon Ultra and AI technology in there soon.

Rachael Lyon:
Yes, please. Please call HUB and make it happen soon. I am so ready. Yes.

Marios Savvides:
It it it it's just we have to it it you're right. Vince, you nailed it. This isn't just customer experience issue anymore. This is a matter of reducing shrink, and reducing shrink is over a $10,000,000,000 a year problem. Yep. Even for just

Vince Spina:
I'm gonna ask where you're putting your camera technology. It sounds like maybe something to do with the checkout, but I'm, you know, when I think about potentially having this technology in the aisles and and stuff like that. Now, the other thing is people getting hurt. I do that in quotes because a lot of, you know, some people really get hurt, some people don't really get hurt Yes. But claim to. And, you know, having the requisite technology, boy, there's so much. I mean, again, I worked for this grocery retailer, and, you know, they're working on really thin margins, and the amount of, like, shrink going out the door just crushes that. It crushes something.

Vince Spina:
I will follow you, and I will be watching, Mario, because I think I think you're onto something fantastic.

Marios Savvides:
Thank you. Well, it's, listen, It all came out of Carnegie Mellon. We love to innovate. That's that's where that's where everything is born. And, you know, what we do is we wanna make sure that it's not just born, but it grows and actually makes it out. You know, we we gotta, you know, grow it to a teenager and then let it go into the world. So our job is to push it out into the world. Tech transfer it.

Vince Spina:
My my boss at that grocery retail that I work for, he got his PhD oh, no, I'm lying, I think he got it at Rutgers, but I think he might have got his master's at Carnegie Mellon, and hails from Pittsburgh, so I hope he's listening, and I hope he's smiling, because, A, it is his alma mater, and, and and, you know, where he's from, and and now you're hitting on something that will be near and dear to his heart,

Marios Savvides:
so Well, you know, our president -If you're out there yeah. Our president has My name

Vince Spina:
is the news. I'll leave his last name out.

Marios Savvides:
Yeah. He has one he definitely has a trait there and it's there as our president Farnam, Jahanian says, you know, and from under Carnegie, you know, Carnegie Mellon's motto is our work is in our our our work is in our our heart is in our work.

Vince Spina:
Mhmm.

Marios Savvides:
Our heart is in our work. Sorry, I'm dyslexic sometimes. Our heart is in our work, and so, you know, we wanna we we develop something, we wanna make it work, we're very passionate about that. And, you know, I'm sure he he has a he is a part of that there. I love it. We keep up the awesome work. Yeah. We have demos to show you.

Marios Savvides:
We have many. I welcome you to maybe send some videos. It's super exciting how to see this make a difference, and I, you know, I love I love going to grocery stores. I mean, for me, you know, it's it's a way to relax. Sometimes, just I'll just go in a store and just I'll just go, you know, aisle shopping just to get my steps or when it's cold and just, you know, it's a way to just relax. And the problem is you relax and then you get stressed once you hit the, the checkout lines.

Vince Spina:
Absolutely true.

Rachael Lyon:
Yeah. I just like to walk the coffee aisle myself. I just think it smells so good.

Marios Savvides:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Especially with Halloween pumpkin spice flavored. Oh my god. Yes. Yes. Right?

Rachael Lyon:
All day long. All day long.

Marios Savvides:
All day long.

Rachael Lyon:
Alright. Well, I do wanna be mindful of time. I know we've run we've run long, but thank you, Mario. So this has been such a fun conversation, and I'm just so excited for the future. So thank you for all that you're working on to make our our lives, more enjoyable and and day to day experiences better because we need it. We are desperate for this. Yep. It's a theme.

Vince Spina:
We have to have you back. You have to come back. There's so much more to talk about.

Marios Savvides:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Apologies from Internet. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Vince, for having me. It's it's it's been a real honor. And, I'm I'm anytime you guys, would love to come back and chat. I just love I love this chance.

Marios Savvides:
Bring us home, Rachel.

Rachael Lyon:
Thank you. Alright. So to all of our listeners, again, thanks for joining us this week and and an amazing guest, with so many insights. And as always, you know, don't forget to smash that subscription button. You get a fresh episode. Smash it.

Marios Savvides:
Smash it.

Rachael Lyon:
Fresh episode.

Marios Savvides:
That's right.

Rachael Lyon:
In your inbox, every Tuesday. How awesome is that? So until next time, everybody. Stay safe. Thanks for joining us on the To the Point cybersecurity podcast brought to you by Forcepoint. For more information and show notes from today's episode, please visit www.forcepoint.com/podcast. And don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts.

About Our Guest

Marios Savvides, Director of CMU CyLab Biometrics Center, Carnegie Mellon University

Professor Marios Savvides is the Bossa Nova Robotics Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Carnegie Mellon University and is also the Founder and Director of the Biometrics Center at Carnegie Mellon University and a Full Tenured Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. He received his Bachelor of Engineering in Microelectronics Systems Engineering from University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in 1997 in the United Kingdom, his Master of Science in Robotics from the Robotics Institute in 2000 and his PhD from the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at CMU in 2004.

His research is focused on developing core AI and machine-learning algorithms that were successfully applied for robust face detection, face recognition, iris biometrics, and most recently, general object detection and scene understanding.  He and his team were the first in the world to develop a long-range iris capture and matching system capable of acquiring irises up to 12m away in an unconstrained manner. His recent work includes ranking first in Vision for Intelligent Vehicles and Applications competition for hand detection on steering wheels in natural challenging driving conditions.  Some of his recent work can detect heavily occluded faces and objects in general under very challenging real-world conditions, developing low-shot object detection and recognition utilizing only a small number of images.

Professor Savvides spun off a CMU startup called HawXeye with one of his former students where he served as CTO. As the CTO, he assembled a team and lead the research and productization of efficient, fast, low-form factor AI algorithms making current generation of home security cameras smarter where the AI algorithms developed have been deployed to over 3 million ADT home security cameras with a successful exit.

In the last 24 months, he served as the Chief AI Scientist of Bossa Nova Robotics, where he and his CMU research team, completely re-built from ground-up the AI algorithms for Bossa Nova robots for performing real-time inventory analysis and scaling the autonomous robot deployment of this inventory analysis AI from 20 stores to deploying 500 autonomous robots in 500 retail stores while completely removing any Human-in-the-Loop (HITL).

He served as the Vice President of Education for the IEEE Biometric Council in 2015-2016. He also served on the main steering committee and helped co-develop the IEEE Certified Biometrics Professional program.

He has authored and co-authored over 240 journal and conference publications, including 22 book chapters and served as the area editor of the Springer's Encyclopedia of Biometrics. His IP portfolio includes over 40 filed patent applications with 15 issued patents. He is the recipient of seven Best Paper awards. His work in facial recognition was presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2018. His work has been featured in over 100 news media articles. He is the recipient of CMU’s 2009 Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) Outstanding Research Award,  the Gold Award in the 2015 Edison Awards in Applied Technologies for his biometrics work, 2018 Global Pittsburgh Immigrant Entrepreneur Award in Technological Innovation, the 2020 Artificial Intelligence Excellence Award in “Theory of Mind”, the Gold Award in 2020 Edison Awards for Retail Innovations on Autonomous Data Capture and Analysis of On-Shelf Inventory, and the “2020 Outstanding Contributor to AI” award from the US Secretary of the Army Mr. Ryan McCarthy.

Check out his LinkedIn