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Artificial intelligence (AI) is now a major priority for government and defense worldwide -- one that some countries, such as China and Russia, consider the new global arms race. AI has the potential to support a number of national and international security initiatives, from cybersecurity to logistics and counter-terrorism. The overwhelming amount of public data available online is crucial for supporting a number of these use cases. These sources include unstructured social media data from both fringe and mainstream platforms, as well as deep and dark web data. While valuable, these sources are not always easily accessible through commercial threat intelligence platforms.

The following is the Nov. 21, 2019 Congressional Research Service report, Artificial Intelligence and National Security. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly growing field of technology with potentially significant implications for national security. As such, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and other nations are developing AI applications for a range of military functions. AI research is underway in the fields of intelligence collection and analysis, logistics, cyber operations, information operations, command and control, and in a variety of semiautonomous and autonomous vehicles. Already, AI has been incorporated into military operations in Iraq and Syria.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a rapidly growing field of technological development with potentially significant implications for national security. As such, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is developing AI applications for a range of military functions. AI research is underway in the fields of intelligence collection and analysis, logistics, cyberspace operations, command and control, and a variety of military autonomous vehicles. AI applications are already playing a role in operations in Iraq and Syria, with algorithms designed to speed up the target identification process. Congressional action has the potential to shape the technology's trajectory, with fiscal and regulatory decisions potentially influencing growth of national security applications and the standing of military AI development versus international competitors.

Just as there are some (admittedly imperfect) technological solutions that attempt to prevent image software like Photoshop from being used to counterfeit money, there may be technological solutions that can mitigate the worst impacts of AI-enabled forgery. For instance, cameras could be designed that would hash encrypted video files in a block chain. This would not prevent later editing and forgery, but it would allow definitive, cryptographically secured evidence that a given version of a video or audio file existed at a given date. Though lay people would still struggle to know the truth, this might allow sophisticated investigators to definitively confirm that at least some versions were edited, since their hash date would be later than the original. This is but one potential research avenue to limit the impact of AI-enabled forgery.

Advances in AI will enable new capabilities and make others far more affordable – not only to the U.S., but to adversaries as well, raising the stakes as the United States seeks to preserve its hard-won strategic overmatch in the air, land, sea, space and cyberspace domains. The Pentagon's Third Offset Strategy seeks to leverage AI and related technologies in a variety of ways, according to Robert Work, former deputy secretary of defense and one of the strategy's architects. In a forward to a new report from the market analytics firm Govini, Work says the strategy "seeks to exploit advances in AI and autonomous systems to improve the performance of Joint Force guided munitions battle networks" through: "By exploiting advances in AI and autonomous systems to improve the warfighting potential and performance of the U.S. military," Work says, "the strategy aims to restore the Joint Force's eroding conventional overmatch versus any potential adversary, thereby strengthening conventional deterrence." Spending is growing, Govini reports, with AI and related defense program spending increasing at a compound annual rate of 14.5 percent from 2012 to 2017, and poised to grow substantially faster in coming years as advanced computing technologies come on line, driving down computational costs. But in practical terms, what does that mean?

A Harvard Belfer Center study commissioned by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA), Artificial Intelligence and National Security, predicted last May that AI will be as transformative to national defense as nuclear weapons, aircraft, computers and biotech. Advances in AI will enable new capabilities and make others far more affordable – not only to the U.S., but to adversaries as well, raising the stakes as the United States seeks to preserve its hard-won strategic overmatch in the air, land, sea, space and cyberspace domains. The Pentagon's Third Offset Strategy seeks to leverage AI and related technologies in a variety of ways, according to Robert Work, former deputy secretary of defense and one of the strategy's architects. In a forward to a new report from the market analytics firm Govini, Work says the strategy "seeks to exploit advances in AI and autonomous systems to improve the performance of Joint Force guided munitions battle networks" through: "By exploiting advances in AI and autonomous systems to improve the warfighting potential and performance of the U.S. military," Work says, "the strategy aims to restore the Joint Force's eroding conventional overmatch versus any potential adversary, thereby strengthening conventional deterrence." Spending is growing, Govini reports, with AI and related defense program spending increasing at a compound annual rate of 14.5 percent from 2012 to 2017, and poised to grow substantially faster in coming years as advanced computing technologies come on line, driving down computational costs.