The 64th Professor Vladas K. Gronskas Seminar “AI Can Do Your Work – But Can It Build Your Career? Learning, Understanding and Cybersecurity in the Age of Marshmallow AI”

Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty, Institute of Social Sciences and Applied Informatics, continues the seminar series initiated by Professor Vladas K. Gronskas, dedicated to analyzing sustainable state development in the context of a mixed economy.

The sixty-fourth seminar will take place on 22 October 2026 at 14:00 in the 5th auditorium, via MS Teams.

The topic of the seminar is “AI Can Do Your Work – But Can It Build Your Career? Learning, Understanding and Cybersecurity in the Age of Marshmallow AI” (language of the presentation is English)—speaker: Stephen Fedtke, PhD.

The speaker will introduce his experience and research on how Artificial Intelligence is changing the way we learn, teach, work, and build careers. AI can already write our texts, create presentations, program software, analyze data, pass exams – and increasingly make decisions for us.

So why should we still learn to do things ourselves?

The seminar introduces the picture of “Marshmallow AI”: the irresistible temptation to take the instant AI-generated result rather than invest time and effort in developing our own knowledge and capabilities.

But what happens if we repeatedly choose the AI marshmallow? What should students still learn from scratch? What should universities still teach? How should we assess results when AI can produce excellent assignments in seconds? And perhaps most importantly for students: Which skills will actually make you valuable in tomorrow’s job market when everyone has access to the same powerful AI?

Rather than providing ready-made answers, the seminar will put seven provocative theses up for open discussion. Students, faculty, and academic staff are explicitly invited to challenge them, disagree, and contribute their own perspectives.

And finally, we will put the idea to the test in cybersecurity. AI is rapidly transforming both cyberattack and cyberdefense. But what happens when a future security analyst knows how to monitor an AI-driven XDR or SIEM dashboard without understanding what is happening beneath the surface?

When the dashboard turns red, will you know what to do?

This question also provides a bridge to the speaker's Cyber Defense lecture proposed for Spring 2027:

Hack the Hackers – Detection and Defense Against Cyber Attacks via SIEM, XDR, and SOC

The lecture goes beyond simply operating modern security tools. It explores what happens behind the dashboard: how attacks work, how they can be detected, how security events are correlated and investigated, and how defenders can understand and respond to attacks – even when AI does not provide the right answer.

Because in an AI-driven world, knowing how to use the tools is important. Understanding what they are telling you may be what makes you the expert.

About the speaker:

Dr. Stephen Fedtke is a cybersecurity and compliance specialist, CTO of Enterprise-IT-Security.com, author of several books, and also editor of Springer Nature’s new book series “AI – Best Practices in Industry, Services, and Administration” (https://link.springer.com/series/17447). During the Spring semester 2026, he gave the lecture “TÖL401M: Hack the hackers: Detection and defense against cyber attacks via SIEM, XDR and SOC” at the University of Iceland.

Contact e-mail: stfedtke@fedtke.com

On behalf of the organizers

Prof. (HP) Dr Remigijus Čiegis