U.S. intelligence officials warned Monday that the United States faces a growing threat from accelerating technological innovation and proliferation and that governments are struggling to adapt and respond to these changes. .
As machine learning models “bring AI into its industrial era,” there will be “potentially huge economic impacts for both winners and followers, as well as unintended consequences, from deepfakes and misinformation widespread until the development of computer viruses generated by AI or new chemical weapons”. » warned the American intelligence community in its annual threat assessment published Monday.
Speaking before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the committee that the bureau is increasingly concerned about the theft of AI models and that U.S. law enforcement were stepping up efforts to secure the US AI industry. Just last week, California authorities arrested Chinese national and accused him of stealing AI-related material from Google, his former employer, and sharing it with companies in China.
Wray warned that if Chinese security agencies had access to American AI models, their already formidable hacker teams would only improve their capabilities. “If they’re stealing our AI to power it, words like ‘force multiplier’ seem like an understatement,” Wray said.
The annual report notes that China “remains the most persistent cyber threat to the U.S. government, private sector, and critical infrastructure networks” and that Beijing has led a years-long effort to infiltrate major critical infrastructure networks at across the United States. American spies assess this activity, which is widely followed as Typhoon Voltaims to give China the ability to disrupt communications between the United States and China in the event of a military conflict.
Monday’s hearing comes amid growing fears that the coming year could see U.S. adversaries attempt to influence this year’s federal elections, and Monday’s report claims that China, Russia and Iran all pose electoral security problems.
According to the report, China could intervene in 2024 to “put aside criticism” and “amplify America’s societal divisions.” Russia “will remain a serious threat of foreign influence” given its objectives in Ukraine and could use generative AI to better “hide its hand.”
Iran could also try to intervene, perhaps relying on a 2020 operation which saw an Iran-linked group access voter data and target some voters with fake emails claiming to come from the right-wing group known as the Proud Boys. The group behind this operation has “evolved its activities and developed a new set of techniques, combining cyber capabilities and influence capabilities”, which it could use in 2024, according to the report.
Monday’s report also tracks the rapid proliferation of commercial spyware. From 2011 to 2023, the report said, at least 73 countries “contracted with private companies to obtain commercial spyware, which governments are increasingly using to target dissidents and journalists.”
While policymakers in Washington are more and more prevalent Regarding the abuse of commercial spyware, Monday’s hearing made clear that U.S. intelligence agencies are also consumers in the broader data economy in which commercial spyware companies operate.
Asked about the Intelligence Community’s purchases of commercially available data, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the Senate Intelligence Committee that such data “is increasingly critical to the work of the Intelligence Community.” “.
