Main Takeaways
Wilson, our Risk AI team leader, breaks down the scope of his highly technical role and explains how to apply AI technology to risk management in cryptocurrency.
Wilson shares the challenges and milestones of the Risk AI team at Binance since he joined the team in 2020.
Having moved to Dubai, Wilson is grateful for the adventurous journey and growth opportunities at Binance.
Wilson has been working with artificial intelligence (AI) even before AI was cool. As the leader of the AI arm of our Risk team, Wilson’s day-to-day job involves developing AI-based models that tackle different scenarios of user fraud risks.
In an era where the words “AI” and “Web3” have been thrown casually as trendy buzzwords by hordes of startup founders attempting to secure VC checks, Wilson has been quietly and methodically spearheading the integration of these two technologies at Binance.
Read Wilson’s story to find out how he works at the frontline safeguarding Binance’s ecosystem from potential risks.
Once a Scientist, Always a Scientist
Having completed a PhD in engineering, Wilson has always been curious, rigorous, and methodical about his work in machine learning.
He started his career working for various technology startups. One of them required him to work with federated learning and multi-party computation, advanced techniques that enable collaborative data analysis and machine learning across multiple parties. He also had the opportunity to work with risk management-related models at a financial technology company. All these experiences prepared him with the foundation of his current work in AI and risk management.
In the middle of 2020, an ex-colleague referred him to a job opening at Binance that required expertise with machine learning and risk models. Even though Wilson had never worked in the cryptocurrency industry before, he knew he could easily translate his technical skills and experience to improve risk management at Binance platform. He applied, got the job, and began to connect the dots between the fields of AI, risk management, and cryptocurrency to carve his niche at the company. He has been steady-sailing ever since.
“I am just your average computer geek,” says Wilson humbly. “I enjoy solving problems, solving puzzles, working with logic, coding with data, and so on. These are all my interests and skill set. However, what makes me a great fit at Binance is truly my passion for cryptocurrency.”
As a scientist at heart, Wilson enjoys the opportunity to be able to follow a scientific method of inquiry in testing and developing his risk models for Binance. Granted, all the research greenlighted at Binance has to have practical business applications, but he appreciates the fact that he is given the freedom to continuously keep up with the latest developments in AI to build systems and tools that are innovative, resilient and up to date.
Understanding the Risk AI Team at Binance
In a nutshell, the risk team at Binance is responsible for detecting any risk that can affect our 220 million, and growing, user base. The risk team focuses on user experience and user journey, and singles out suspicious user behaviors that may indicate scam activities, account takeovers, fake Know-Your-Customers (KYC) submissions, and so on.
The risk team is not to be confused with our compliance department that focuses more on sanctions, Anti-Money laundering (AML) and other compliance matters, or the security team that monitors against internal and external cybersecurity threats, even though the domains of these three teams may often overlap.
“We build systems to manage the risk before the threat becomes a real incident,” explains Wilson. “And within this department, we have a specialized Risk AI team, which means we are leveraging AI technology when building a risk management system.”
Wilson has loved robotics since he was young. Note: This image has been generated with AI based on Wilson’s likeness for illustration purposes.
Among hundreds of millions of good-faith users on the Binance platform, there are a few that threaten to illicitly take over other users’ assets. Wilson’s job is to build AI models to flag these attackers, devising complicated decision trees and deep learning models to detect suspicious activity. Once deployed, the AI would be able to monitor the course of a user journey, and in the event of any anomaly, trigger an alert and flag to the system to block the suspicious operators.
One good example of the AI model in action is in the Binance P2P chat scenario. The model uses natural language processing to figure out if a P2P trader exhibits signs of fraudulent behavior, and if so, the model will alert the P2P counterparty on the platform. If there is a high confidence of fraud risk, the system will automatically reject the P2P order and block the fraudster.
The risk AI team handles different types of attacks and suspicious activity daily with AI models. They handle up to a whooping several millions of fraudulent onboarding cases, and up to several thousands of P2P scammer cases monthly. The team takes turns to monitor the model stability 24/7 and address any issue quickly. So far the team has deployed over a hundred models, which continue to be optimized to improve accuracy, reduce incorrect detections, and increase detection coverage.
“The challenge with our team is that attackers constantly get smarter, innovate, and change their attack forms, so we must adapt to the new attacks and improve our systems, too. While AI technology also continuously evolves at a rapid pace, we have to keep learning new technology and tools to stay ahead of the game. But this is what makes this job exciting,” Wilson says with passion. “We retrain and redeploy our models continuously. We build dashboards to monitor different metrics, and dashboards for false positives, too. Risk models are based on probability theory, and it is impossible to avoid false positives entirely.”
“Another challenge is to be able to keep cool and grounded in the face of social media attacks. Any large company, including Binance, is very prone to all sorts of attacks on social media. When I see posts on social media criticizing our risk controls — with people saying their withdrawals were unfairly blocked or their rewards were unjustly revoked — I feel very stressed. While some of these complaints might be ungrounded, there’s always a chance our system had mistakenly flagged a legitimate user. When this happens, I make it a priority to investigate and quickly determine if it is an inaccuracy, and if so, take corrective actions accordingly. If the complaints are not true, we engage with the PR team to clarify the matter.”
A new era for the Risk team began in 2022, when the team finally overcame some previous challenges, including disconnected defense systems and lack of clear processes, by bringing in new key talents and shifting to a proactive approach. This led to the creation of a comprehensive defense system and a solid process for deploying and reviewing risk models, significantly reducing errors and enhancing security. Amid this massive shift, Wilson became responsible for managing a larger group of highly talented colleagues, and this challenged him to refine his leadership and management skills.
Home is the Oceans and the Stars
Also in 2022, Wilson relocated to Dubai, and since then he has been fascinated by Arabic culture and history. Dubai is slowly but surely growing on him.
“I am actually very excited to be in Dubai right now. Dubai is a major innovative hub for the cryptocurrency industry, so if you want to stay in the thick of networking and innovation, you have to be in Dubai.”
Some of his team members are also now based in Dubai, and even though the majority of them are working remotely, they have regular gatherings that improve bonding and camaraderie. In his free time, Wilson is more of a homebody who enjoys playing video games and solving puzzles, though he will not say no to outdoor activities like hiking and exploring.
His journey with Binance has pushed his professional and personal boundaries in so many ways and led him to move across the world to a foreign land. This journey is just beginning. He is excited for what comes next.
“For me, home is the oceans and the stars, because they represent endless possibilities and the freedom to explore," Wilson concludes.
If you are interested in joining Binance and make an impact in shaping our financial future, apply here.
