BLETCHLEY, England (AP) — Artificial intelligence is “an unstoppable force” that is being weaponized in ways that fall just short of traditional warfare, Britain’s cyberspying chief warned Wednesday.
Anne
Keast-Butler, director of the communications intelligence agency GCHQ, said Britain and its allies are in “a space between peace and war” and risk losing a conflict in cyberspace against Russia and other adversaries unless they treat cybersecurity with much greater urgency.
“I’ve spent three decades working in National Security. And the risk of miscalculation is as high as I’ve ever seen it,” Keast-Butler said in a speech at a World War II code breaking center near London.
She said that “tech companies are releasing AI-driven innovations at a remarkable pace, with untold consequences, as algorithms are weaponized often just below the threshold of traditional warfare.
“AI is an unstoppable force with great opportunity,” she added. “But it is also a force with risks.”
Keast-Butler singled out Russia as a threat, accusing Moscow of “relentlessly targeting critical infrastructure, democratic processes, supply chains and public trust” in Britain and Europe, as well as stealing technology and plotting sabotage and assassination attempts.
“Russia is scaling up its daily hybrid activity against the U.K. and Europe, stretching from the seabed to cyberspace,” she told an audience of computing experts, diplomats, journalists and senior officials.
“One area in sharp focus for us is protecting the data and energy flowing through the critical cables and pipelines in and around British waters,” she added. “We do this by exposing Russia’s intent, motive and underwater capabilities.”
Keast-Butler said rapid advances in artificial intelligence mean that “the ground beneath our feet is shifting” and there is a “narrowing window for the U.K. and allies to stay ahead” of countries such as China, a science and technology “superpower.”
She argued that there must be an effort “from boardrooms to living rooms” to make cybersecurity “10 times more urgent.”
GCHQ, short for Government Communications Headquarters, is the U.K.’s electronic and cyberintelligence agency. It works alongside the domestic security service MI5 and the foreign intelligence agency, MI6.
The speech is the latest in a string of warnings from Western spies and intelligence experts that Russia is stepping up hostile activity in a “gray zone” that falls just below the threshold of war.
In recent months, authorities in countries including Sweden, Poland, Denmark and Norway have alleged that hackers linked to Russia targeted their critical infrastructure, including power plants and dams.
The head of the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre, Richard Horne, warned last month that hostile states including Russia, China and Iran are behind the most serious cyberattacks the country faces. He said such attacks could increase dramatically if Britain becomes involved in an international conflict.
Keast-Butler also stressed the importance of international partnerships as U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy and disregard for longtime allies strains the relationship between London and Washington.
She said the U.K.-U.S. intelligence partnership is “fundamental for the security of both our nations.”
She delivered the first annual GCHQ director’s lecture speech at the agency’s World War II headquarters of Bletchley Park, a manor house 45 miles (72 kilometers) northwest of London where hundreds of mathematicians, cryptographers, crossword puzzlers, chess masters and other experts worked to crack Nazi Germany’s supposedly unbreakable secret codes.
Their work both shortened the war and hastened the birth of modern computing.
