Preparing for Malicious Uses of AI

We've co-authored a paper that forecasts how malicious actors could misuse AI technology, and potential ways we can prevent and mitigate these threats. This paper is the outcome of almost a year of sustained work with our colleagues at the Future of Humanity Institute, the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, the Center for a New American Security, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and others. AI challenges global security because it lowers the cost of conducting many existing attacks, creates new threats and vulnerabilities, and further complicates the attribution of specific attacks. Like our work on concrete problems in AI safety, we've grounded some of the problems motivated by the malicious use of AI in concrete scenarios, such as: persuasive ads generated by AI systems being used to target the administrator of a security systems; cybercriminals using neural networks and "fuzzing" techniques to create computer viruses with automatic exploit generation capabilities; malicious actors hacking a cleaning robot so that it delivers an explosives payload to a VIP; and rogue states using omniprescent AI-augmented surveillance systems to pre-emptively arrest people who fit a predictive risk profile. We're excited to start having this discussion with our peers, policymakers, and the general public; we've spent the last two years researching and solidifying our internal policies at OpenAI and are going to begin engaging a wider audience on these issues.