The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) stands at the dawn of a new era of technological innovation and transformation unprecedented in its history. Driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and associated emerging technologies, including cloud computing, advanced sensors, and big data analytics, the approaching “AI era” will transform both the nature of the global threats the IC is responsible for assessing and the IC’s ability to accurately detect and assess them. Through all of this, the core mission of the IC will remain unchanged: to understand what is happening in the world, to deliver timely, accurate, and insightful analysis of those threats and developments to U.S. policymakers, and to provide U.S. leaders decision making advantage over competitors. What will change is the IC’s ability to fulfill this mission if it does not adapt to the new AI era. Read More
Tag Archives: IC
China Used Stolen Data to Expose CIA Operatives in Africa and Europe
The discovery of U.S. spy networks in China fueled a decade long global war over data between Beijing and Washington.
Around 2013, U.S. intelligence began noticing an alarming pattern: Undercover CIA personnel, flying into countries in Africa and Europe for sensitive work, were being rapidly and successfully identified by Chinese intelligence, according to three former U.S. officials. The surveillance by Chinese operatives began in some cases as soon as the CIA officers had cleared passport control. Sometimes, the surveillance was so overt that U.S. intelligence officials speculated that the Chinese wanted the U.S. side to know they had identified the CIA operatives, disrupting their missions; other times, however, it was much more subtle and only detected through U.S. spy agencies’ own sophisticated technical countersurveillance capabilities.
… At the CIA, these anomalies “alarmed chiefs of station and division leadership,” said the first former intelligence official. Read More
Tech giants are giving China a Vital Edge in Espionage
U.S. officials say private Chinese firms have been enlisted to process stolen data for their country’s spy agencies.
In 2017, as U.S. President Donald Trump began his trade war with China, another battle raged behind the scenes. The simmering, decade long conflict over data between Chinese and U.S. intelligence agencies was heating up, driven both by the ambitions of an increasingly confident Beijing and by the conviction of key players in the new administration in Washington that China was presenting an economic, political, and national security challenge on a scale the United States had not faced for decades—if ever.
Beijing was giving China hawks in the United States plenty of ammunition. Read More
Promoting the Use of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in Government
Artificial intelligence promises to drive the growth of the United States economy and improve the quality of life of all Americans.
On December 3, 2020, President Donald J. Trump signed the Executive Order on Promoting the Use of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in the Federal Government, which establishes guidance for Federal agency adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to more effectively deliver services to the American people and foster public trust in this critical technology. Read More
Artificial Intelligence for the American People
The age of artificial intelligence (AI) has arrived, and is transforming everything from healthcare to transportation to manufacturing.
America has long been the global leader in this new era of AI, and is poised to maintain this leadership going forward because of our strong innovation ecosystem. Realizing the full potential of AI for the Nation requires the combined efforts of industry, academia, and government. The Administration has been active in developing policies and implementing strategies that accelerate AI innovation in the U.S. for the benefit of the American people. These activities align with several areas of emphasis: AI for American Innovation, AI for American Industry, AI for the American Worker, and AI with American Values. This AI.gov website provides a portal for exploring these activities in more depth, and serves as a resource for those who want to learn more about how to take full advantage of the opportunities of AI. Read More
Ex-Google chief: U.S. must do ‘whatever it takes’ to beat China on AI
“We want America to be inventing this stuff,” Eric Schmidt said during POLITICO’s summit on artificial intelligence. “Or at least the West.”
The U.S. needs an urgent national strategy on developing artificial intelligence technology to counter the rising competition from China, said former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, chair of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Read More
NSCAI Interim Report and Third Quarter Recommendations (October 2020)
Research remains the foundation of America’s technological leadership, and the government must make the investments to solidify this foundation for artificial intelligence (AI). In the First Quarter (Q1), the Commission recommended doubling non-defense AI R&D funding, focusing investments on six priority research areas, and launching a pilot of a National AI Research Resource. In the Second Quarter (Q2), the Commission examined the Department of Defense (DoD) research enterprise and recommended ways to overcome bureaucratic and resource constraints to accelerate national security-focused AI R&D. Read More
#dod, #icTechie Software Soldier Spy
Palantir, Big Data’s scariest, most secretive unicorn, is going public. But is its crystal ball just smoke and mirrors?
… Palantir is seeking to cash in on its ability to “do it all.” Over the years, the company has worked with some of the government’s most secretive agencies, including the CIA, the NSA, and the Pentagon’s Special Operations Command.
… Palantir’s public offering is founded on the company’s sales pitch that its software represents the ultimate tool of surveillance. Named after the “Seeing Stones” in The Lord of the Rings, Palantir is designed to ingest the mountains of data collected by soldiers and spies and police — fingerprints, signals intelligence, bank records, tips from confidential informants — and enable users to spot hidden relationships, uncover criminal and terrorist networks, and even anticipate future attacks. Read More
Secretive Pentagon research program looks to replace human hackers with AI
The Joint Operations Center inside Fort Meade in Maryland is a cathedral to cyber warfare. Part of a 380,000-square-foot, $520 million complex opened in 2018, the office is the nerve center for both the U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency as they do cyber battle. Clusters of civilians and military troops work behind dozens of computer monitors beneath a bank of small chiclet windows dousing the room in light.
Three 20-foot-tall screens are mounted on a wall below the windows. On most days, two of them are spitting out a constant feed from a secretive program known as “Project IKE.” Read More
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