ASEF Junior Fellow Gal Gantar on a Research Visit at UC Berkeley, USA

Gal Gantar, a student of the Interdisciplinary Study of Computer Science and Informatics at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana, carried out a research visit this year with Professor Dawn Song at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Song’s lab focuses on cryptography, reinforcement learning of large language models, and the security of artificial intelligence agents.

Gal’s work involved analyzing the security of autonomous AI agents and was part of the larger AgentBeats evaluation platform and the ASSERT-I security test. ASSERT-I (Agent System Security Evaluation using Realistic Threat Intelligence) is a benchmark for testing the security of AI agents in realistic scenarios. Its main purpose is to standardize the format of communication among agents, their environment, and other agents, and to create a dynamic security test that exposes the agent to a range of relevant attacks tailored to its functionality. The platform is designed for all types of agents, with a primary focus on programming agents, desktop-environment agents, web-interaction agents, and agents that interact with operating systems. Gal continues his research work even after returning from his visit.

During his stay, Gal gained insight into the functioning of a large laboratory composed of interns, researchers, doctoral students, and postdoctoral researchers. He attended daily meetings with his research team and prepared weekly presentations of his work for other members of the lab. He also participated in internal events aimed at connecting his lab with other research groups from UC Berkeley, Stanford, Caltech, MIT, and the University of Washington, as well as with industry partners such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, z.ai, and Virtue AI.

Gal had the opportunity to present his work as one of the speakers at the Summit on Decentralization and AI. He also volunteered at the Agentic AI Summit, where he heard from leading experts from organizations such as Nvidia, Google DeepMind, Khosla Ventures, Anthropic, and Perplexity. In addition, he attended the Proofs event at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing and several events hosted by the MATHS foundation (ML Alignment & Theory Scholars).

Outside of the lab, Gal spent time running, swimming, and hiking with his colleagues. Throughout his visit, he lived in the home of Tony Hansen, with whom he went on trips around Berkeley and San Francisco. Tony also introduced him to a number of inspiring people who were eager to share their experiences of working in the U.S. tech sector. In the final two weeks of Gal’s visit, Tony generously hosted three of Gal’s friends. In July, Gal joined his supervisor and lab members on a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, followed by a hike through the Marin Headlands. He also went on several shorter trips to Marin County, Tennessee Valley, Mount Tamalpais State Park, and Stinson Beach. In August, he and his friends spent three days in a national park near Lake Tahoe. At the end of August, Gal, together with other ASEF Fellows, attended a gathering of Slovenians in the U.S., organized by Thomas Brandi, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Slovenia in California.

The research visit provided Gal with an invaluable opportunity for professional and personal growth, broadening his horizons. He is extremely grateful to ASEF for this opportunity and looks forward to continuing his involvement in the ASEF community.