CIA Director Bill Burns and MI6 Chief Richard Moore Discuss How AI is Revolutionizing Intelligence Gathering and Global Security
In a joint declaration on collaboration between their agencies, CIA Director Bill Burns and MI6 Chief Richard Moore have outlined the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in addressing contemporary security threats.
In an op-ed for the Financial Times, Burns and Moore revealed that both agencies are actively employing generative AI to bolster intelligence operations, particularly in managing vast amounts of data. “We are now using AI, including generative AI, to enable and improve intelligence activities—from summarization to ideation to helping identify key information in a sea of data,” they wrote.
The intelligence chiefs also emphasized the use of AI to protect their agencies’ operations. They noted that they are training AI systems to conduct “red teaming” exercises to rigorously test their activities and ensure operational security.
Burns and Moore underscored the transformative impact of technology on the geopolitical landscape, citing the war in Ukraine as a prominent example where satellite imagery, drone technology, cyber warfare, and information operations are converging on an unprecedented scale. “This conflict has demonstrated that technology, deployed alongside extraordinary bravery and traditional weaponry, can alter the course of war,” they stated.
Beyond Ukraine, the CIA and MI6 are actively cooperating to counter Russian disinformation campaigns and what they describe as a “reckless campaign of sabotage across Europe.”
Russia’s utilization of generative AI is also evolving rapidly. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice seized more than 30 websites operated by Russian actors as part of a misinformation campaign using AI to target American citizens ahead of the 2024 elections.
Additionally, the South China Morning Post recently reported that Russia is coordinating with China on the military applications of AI, including discussions about lethal autonomous weapons systems and other advanced military technologies.
China’s approach to generative AI presents a distinct set of challenges. According to a February 2024 testimony by the RAND Corporation to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, China is expected to integrate generative AI into its cyber-enabled influence operations. RAND alleges that the Chinese military, particularly the People’s Liberation Army, plans to employ AI for social media manipulation and election interference.
Both MI6 and the CIA have identified China as “the principal intelligence and geopolitical challenge of the 21st century.” The intelligence leaders emphasized that their agencies are not navigating this technological landscape alone; they are partnering with innovative companies across the United States, the United Kingdom, and globally to maintain a competitive technological advantage.
While this joint disclosure from Burns and Moore provides important insights into the evolving use of AI in intelligence, it is important to recognize that the exploration of AI applications within intelligence agencies is not new. In July, Lakshmi Raman, the CIA’s Director of Artificial Intelligence Innovation, spoke at an Amazon Web Services Summit about the agency’s use of generative AI for content triage and analytical support. “We were captured by the generative AI zeitgeist just like the entire world was a couple of years back,” Raman said, according to NextGov.
“We’ve also had a lot of success with generative AI, and we have leveraged generative AI to help us classify and triage open-source events to help us search and discover and do levels of natural language query on that data.”
AI companies like OpenAI and Palantir have also been forging agreements with various government agencies to provide AI services that enhance their capabilities. This marks a significant trend; according to a report by the Brookings Institution, federal agencies have increased their potential awards to private tech contracts by almost 1,200%, from $355 million to $4.6 billion during the period studied.
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