Re-Imagining Espionage In The Era Of Artificial Intelligence - AI Summary

In the new "AI era," she says, sophisticated intelligence can come from almost anywhere -- armchair researchers, private technology companies, commercial satellites and ordinary citizens who livestream on Facebook. Zegart served on a task force of top experts who warned that the U.S. intelligence community -- a collection of 18 spy agencies across the government -- "enters 2021 flatly behind the technology curve." Published earlier this year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the report warned that U.S. intelligence agencies have become "risk-averse" and too wedded to traditional espionage. "Many of these problems stem from an [intelligence community] culture that is resistant to change, reliant on traditional tradecraft and -- ironically, given the popular perception -- averse to risk-taking, particularly to acquiring and adopting new technologies." So imagine a new intelligence cycle where you begin by using open-source information to surface key issues, and then get human sources to dig deeper into them.