The post that won't get a number because it is as subjective as your last case...

I have been asked no less than five times this week alone, it’s mid 2025 on Earth, if generative AI will replace me in my job. I have been asked this question consistently, for several years now. I hope so, seriously easy days kayaking in the ocean as hoards of the AI do my work. Though I’m not sure my understudy is ready; I’ll explain why.

As of this writing I am not confident generative AI will replace me outright. I’m too proud to admit it will, or maybe too delusional, or too caffeinated. At this moment in time and in my career, generative AI is great, it helps me. To work through this thought, and add some insight to comments from digital forensics and incident response professionals who think the end is near, I got to thinking.

Similar to most people writing, my mind is full of useless ideas, visions of grand reactions. The oh so humble thoughts, people will read what I’ve written, think it is amazing and laugh. Most importantly though, my writing will inspire readers to want to shower me with buckets of money. Not even artificial intelligence can help me with that.

The idea of generative artificial intelligence replacing me as a writer, because I’m not good at it, isn’t too far-fetched. However, I’ve been a professional digital forensics analyst for quite some time, been to some schools, have some certifications, and been fortunate to be involved in some interesting projects. As such I wonder, how would generative AI do, if I dared it. I mean triple dog dared it to play a little game with me. You read that correctly, the double dog was skipped.

Generative artificial intelligence ChatGPT 4o, which hereafter I'm just going to call a variety of names in the attempt of humor. I triple dog dare you to beat me in a digital forensics challenge.

Que the panic, my mind races. Could it best me, or is there still hope for this caffeine fueled collection of mitochondria?

As you can clearly see; ChatGPT is humble and showers me with praise though I won’t let the flattery lower my guard. The list of how amazing humans are, continues beyond this graphic with several critical points which are organized in a flawless list. ChatGPT is good, bullets, hyphens, and lists kind of good.

With my dramatic introduction over; it is now time to begin in earnest, what do we hope to accomplish? As I began to discuss this idea with qualified professionals it has become clear it could be a book sized draft. As such, this will be a series of articles the first, will be quite simple and start with the basic concept of general knowledge. How will a human answer a general knowledge DFIR question, in contrast to ChatGPT? Further, the model being used is ChatGPT 4o model, not a specific one which I’ve furiously fed forensic fundamentals.

I scoured the internet and compiled a series of questions from free and public practices tests for some of the most popular certifications including the ISC2 CISSP, GIAC GCFA, IACIS CFCE, GIAC GASF and the CompTIA Security +. Go ahead, set this aflame with remarks about how certifications aren’t good, or are gold; a lovely polarized topic. Or we can settle in, and not attribute and question to any test and roll with this idea. Yeah, let’s roll.

Question #1:

I went first, to ward off the potential bias of seeing oh smarty pants ChatGPT’s answer. It is apparent by the eyebrows of my finely drawn stick figure; we mean business. The answer is correct and full of useless human words to make me sound fancy, such as ubiquitous. It’s a ubiquitous symbol the following text is hex. I even provided an example to help demonstrate the awesomeness of my hydrated brain tissue.

With the sounds of my self congratulating back patting silenced. I turned the question to Chat, which is what I am now calling ChatGPT. During this process we are on a first name basis, it’s “our” thing.

Chat, did quite well. I was impressed and I realized by answers would need to be more in depth to be on par with my opponent. This question, was fairly easy; hopefully my roulette wheel of knowledge assessments lands on something more human centric in the next round. I also asked the question like a complete idiot; but oh well, I am human, and Chat has told me I suck because of it.

Dear readers, I am curious. Who wins round number one? I would humbly submit there is no winner in love and war, nor in this feeble contest of person vs. computer. However, if you want to call me the winner, I am ok with that.

I asked Chat, and they couldn’t even admit defeat, or acknowledge we had a competition. Humble, polite, jerk.

Cheers,