The CIA recently revealed plans to use AI spies in the near future.
In an intelligence conference in Tampa, Florida on Sunday, CIA’s Science and Technology deputy director, Dawn Meyerriecks, revealed the agency’s plans to utilize AI spies in its missions overseas.
According to Meyerriecks, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is currently adapting to a new espionage landscape where their primary enemies are not humans but machines. In an interview with CNN, the CIA deputy director said that some countries have been using artificial intelligence for years now to monitor foreign agents.
“Singapore’s been doing it for years,” Meyerriecks was quoted as saying after her keynote speech at this year’s GEOINT Symposium that has been hosted by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation.
Meyerriecks further said that around 30 countries have already become so good at digital surveillance that they no longer need physical tracking. However, the CIA is not backing out.
In fact, for the past six months, the agency has reportedly been running about 140 AI projects. One of the said projects allegedly helps in keeping agents informed if they are being followed or how they could avoid cameras that continuously monitor them.
Meyerriecks claimed that a team of experts has made “a map of cameras in one of the big capitals” that the government has no direct access by utilizing “a bunch of unclassified overhead and street view” that they paired with machine learning and AI algorithms.
Meyerriecks also said that aside from cameras, there are other challenges faced by agents today. This includes social media and digital tracking in mobile devices and other gadgets.
“Even if you turn your phone off 10 minutes before you get to your place of employment, do you think anyone’s fooled by where you’re going?” she said.
Right now, the agency is said to be working on deceiving surveillance technologies to ensure that their agents remain below the radar during their missions. However, Meyerriecks didn’t elaborate how they would do it. One guess is by faking an agent’s location digitally or spoofing it.
“You went to see a movie with your family … but maybe that’s not where you actually are. It’ll look like your normal pattern of life,” Meyerriecks said.
Webshops might be the most cost-effective way to deliver spying equipment to targeted victims. Special factories would salt everything from clothes to nappies with bugs.