Artificial Intelligence (AI) has quickly become one of the most prominent threats to governments worldwide, thanks in part to its ability to generate misinformation and produce deepfake videos of prominent figures. Now, in an effort to curb this threat, the National Security Agency (NSA) has announced the establishment of a dedicated AI security center.
As explained by General Paul Nakasone, the outgoing director of the NSA, the decision to create this center follows a recent NSA study, which stated that securing AI models is a critical challenge due to the potential misuse of such systems by bad actors. Additionally, the new AI security center will operate within the existing Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, fostering collaboration with private industries and international partners to safeguard systems from threats like theft and sabotage.
“AI security is about protecting AI systems from learning, doing and revealing the wrong thing,” said General Nakasone.
Furthermore, Nakasone also highlighted the importance of the United States maintaining its leadership in AI development and protecting its innovations from potential exploitations.
Major concerns around AI
While AI has proven to be helpful in a lot of industries, threat actors using AI systems are a big concern. This is because bad actors can interfere with the 2024 presidential elections by not only making deep fakes of the potential candidates but also mimicking their voices through new AI voice-cloning tools. While Nakasone mentioned that they haven’t detected such attempts from Russia or China so far, he assured that, with the establishment of the new division, the U.S. would be better prepared to counteract these potential attacks.
“AI will be increasingly consequential for national security in diplomatic, technological and economic matters for our country and our allies and partners. We must build a robust understanding of AI vulnerabilities, foreign intelligence threats to these AI systems and ways to encounter the threat in order to have AI security,” said Nakasone.