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Cornell Tech Students Red-Team AI to Bolster Safety

Five master’s students at Cornell Tech in New York City have put on alter egos with bad intent as part of an effort to improve artificial intelligence safeguards for health workers serving people with diabetes. The students—Divya Bhanushali, Bhavya Gopal, Ali Hasan, Nikhil Jain, and Om Kamath—are part of the inaugural cohort of the Security, Trust, and Safety Initiative (SETS) AI Content Red Team Clinic. The clinic, which debuted this fall on the Roosevelt Island campus, offers free red-teaming services to public-service organizations that may not have the capacity to stress-test their AI systems.

Red-teaming is the practice of simulating external attacks on digital tools in order to expose vulnerabilities. Alexios Mantzarlis, the director of the SETS Initiative, explained that this approach, originally used in cybersecurity, helps identify weaknesses in AI tools before they can be exploited in real life. Nikhil Jain, a master’s student in information systems, noted that the experience involved adopting the mindset of adversarial users to stress-test AI systems, uncover unexpected outcomes, and assist clients in enhancing their safeguards.

The red team’s work is intended to help public-service organizations build stronger guardrails around AI tools, ensuring that these systems are more secure and reliable when used in real-world applications. More information is available at Cornell University’s official news site.

Source: Cornell University

Source Type: College

Source Location: Ithaca

Dec 23, 2025 at 8:30 AM

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