Using a series of prompts six days before he died by suicide outside the main entrance of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Matthew Livelsberger, a highly decorated US Army Green Beret from Colorado, consulted with an artificial intelligence on the best ways to turn a rented Cybertruck into a four-ton vehicle-borne explosive. According to documents obtained exclusively by WIRED, US intelligence analysts have been issuing warnings about this precise scenario over the past year--and among their concerns are that AI tools could be used by racially or ideologically motivated extremists to target critical infrastructure, in particular the power grid. "We knew that AI was going to change the game at some point or another in, really, all of our lives," Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told reporters on Tuesday. Copies of his exchanges with OpenAI's ChatGPT show that Livelsberger, 37, pursued information on how to amass as much explosive material as he legally could while en route to Las Vegas, as well as how best to set it off using the Desert Eagle gun discovered in the Cybertruck following his death. Screenshots shared by McMahill's office reveal Livelsberger prompting ChatGPT for information on Tannerite, a reactive compound typically used for target practice.

Artificial intelligence had a huge moment in 2022. The chatbot ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, gained notoriety for its ability to engage in seemingly human-like conversations, sparking curiosity and serious conversations about where this technology is headed. Applications in national security and space are poised to benefit from this new age of AI, says technologist Patrick Biltgen, principal at the defense and intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. He says the industry is just beginning to grasp the potential of so-called generative AI, with tools like ChatGPT that create coherent and convincing written content and models like DALL-E 2 that come up with realistic images from a description in natural language. Defense and aerospace organizations have long sought AI for its ability to automate tasks, shorten decision cycles and bring autonomy into systems.

For a long time, open source intelligence (OSINT) was primarily composed of insights from foreign news sources. It was supplemental public information that analysts could layer on top of classified intelligence to gain a full operational picture. Many in the intelligence community viewed it as a "nice to have" rather than a mission-critical data source -- something to confirm rather than to foundationally inform. First, the types and scope of open source intelligence have exploded in the digital age. From public legal records to social media platforms to the dark web, OSINT now encompasses every online channel that bad actors are using to communicate and mobilize.

Former military intelligence analyst Brett Velicovich said on Thursday that the report of federal agencies buying Chinese drones "poses a national security risk." Federal law enforcement agencies in the Biden administration are reportedly purchasing surveillance drones from China that have previously been labeled a potential national security threat by the Pentagon. The U.S. Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have recently acquired surveillance drones from the Shenzhen-based company DJI, around the same time the Defense Department deemed products from the Chinese company to be a potential national security threat, according to an Axios report. "The American people especially need to look at what this administration does, and not what they say, because they are clearly full of it if they don't stop this illegal activity immediately," Velicovich told "Fox & Friends." Velicovich argued that the purchase of Chinese-made drones is not only hypocritical to the Biden administration's stance on reducing America's reliance on technology, but it was also made illegal by the Department of Justice in 2019 when specific legislation was passed banning the purchase of drones and components made in China.

Ian Fitzgerald is an M.A. student in International Security at George Mason University with research interests in Great Power Competition, Cyber Warfare, Emerging Technologies, Russia and China. ACADEMIC INCUBATOR -- The explosion of data available to today's analysts creates a compelling need to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into intelligence work. The objective of the Intelligence Community (IC) is to analyze, connect, apply context, infer meaning, and ultimately, make analytical judgments based on that data. The data explosion offers an incredible source of potential information, but it also creates issues for the IC. Today's intelligence analysts find themselves working from an information-scarce environment to one with an information surplus.

At some point in our careers, we are asked to "stretch" beyond our core strengths--and then quickly scour all available resources to get up to speed. With more organizations leveraging AI for better, data-driven decision-making, these "stretch" opportunities are a daily reality for many. A study published by Element AI in 2018 estimated that only 22,000 researchers in the world are able to pursue serious machine learning research.[1] As talent gaps compete with rising demands, we've seen the emergence of the "citizen data scientist." A citizen data scientist is usually someone with a strong technical acumen who, while not a data scientist by training, relies more and more on self-service analytics and AI tools--the superpowers we need to thrive today.

Arguably, one of the biggest debates happening in data science in 2019 is the need for AI explainability. The ability to interpret machine learning models is turning out to be a defining factor for the acceptance of statistical models for driving business decisions. Enterprise stakeholders are demanding transparency in how and why these algorithms are making specific predictions. A firm understanding of any inherent bias in machine learning keeps boiling up to the top of requirements for data science teams. As a result, many top vendors in the big data ecosystem are launching new tools to take a stab at resolving the challenge of opening the AI "black box." Some organizations have taken the plunge into AI even with the realization that their algorithm's decisions can't be explained.

Lonelyhearts are paying an agency to stalk their first dates online to avoid the embarrassment of being'catfished'. The paid catfish hunters trawl publicly-available posts on social networks, including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and personal websites and blogs. This is used to verify whether the person on the other end of the dating app is exactly who they say they are. Dubbed Vet Your Date, the agency charges online daters a flat fee of £20 to obtain a full report of the person they're hoping to meet for an romantic date, however, a monthly subscription service is due to launch in the near future. 'Catfishing' originated as a term for the process of luring people into false relationships that has become increasingly prevalent with the rise of social media.

More than 3,000 Google employees have penned an open letter calling upon the internet giant's CEO to end its controversial'Project Maven' deal. Calling the deal'business of war', they said Google boss Sundar Pichai should'cancel this project immediately'. It was revealed last month that Google is allowing the Pentagon to use some of its artificial intelligence technologies to analyze drone footage. Google employees were reportedly outraged by the project from the beginning, but took their opposition a step further by publishing the open letter. Google employees penned a letter urging CEO Sundar Pichai to step away from'Project Maven,' where the Pentagon using TensorFlow software to identify objects in drone footage Project Maven involves using Google's artificial intelligence software to analyze aerial surveillance video to look for patterns that can help military intelligence analysts. Work on the project began last April.

The Pentagon may have gained a new, high-profile partner for its sophisticated AI system used to hunt for militants in Iraq and Syria. Silicon Valley giant Google is working with the Department of Defense to develop advanced artificial intelligence for analyzing drone footage, Gizmodo reported, citing sources close to the situation. The partnership centers around Project Maven, which is the codename for a system that analyzes aerial surveillance video to look for patterns that can military intelligence analysts. And it seems some Google employees aren't happy with the move. The Department of Defense announced Project Maven last April, which was tasked with identifying objects and people in drone footage.