House Intelligence Committee Warns of 'Black Swan' Artificial Intelligence Risks

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has released a new report stating that U.S. intelligence agencies must step up preparations against "Black Swan" artificial intelligence risks.

Artificial Intelligence and Terrorist Threat

The newly released committee report emphasized that artificial intelligence technology could be used by terrorists and foreign powers to develop more dangerous weapons and plan deadly attacks.

The committee stated that the intelligence community and decision-makers must take careful steps to prevent the misuse of artificial intelligence tools by malicious individuals.

September 11 Attacks and Security

The report was drafted to evaluate the steps taken by the U.S. over the past quarter-century to address the intelligence failures that led to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Preventing terrorist groups from accessing equipment and expertise that could be used in the creation of weapons of mass destruction has been a focus of the national security establishment since 9/11.

Current Security Measures May Fall Short

It was stated that cross-border large language models could significantly facilitate the execution of destructive attacks by any malicious actor, including terrorists.

Lawmakers noted that although AI labs attempt to prevent models from generating harmful information such as bioweapons, infrastructure capabilities are developing rapidly and control is becoming difficult.

Call to Intelligence Agencies

The prepared report was authored by Rick Crawford, Jim Himes, Elise Stefanik, and Josh Gottheimer, and warned that current security measures may fail to keep pace with developments in artificial intelligence.

Lawmakers called on the intelligence community to responsibly adopt advanced artificial intelligence capabilities and keep the U.S. ahead of its competitors.