Spy work

Spies Like AI: The Future of Artificial Intelligence for the US Intelligence Community

America’s intelligence collectors are already using AI in ways big and small, to scan the news for dangerous developments, send alerts to ships about rapidly changing conditions, and speed up the NSA’s regulatory compliance efforts. But before the IC can use AI to its full potential, it must be hardened against attack. The humans who use it — analysts, policy-makers and leaders — must better understand how advanced AI systems reach their conclusions.

Dean Souleles is working to put AI into practice at different points across the U.S. intelligence community, in line with the ODNI’s year-old strategy. The chief technology advisor to the principal deputy to the Director of National Intelligence wasn’t allowed to discuss everything that he’s doing, but he could talk about a few examples.

At the Intelligence Community’s Open Source Enterprise, AI is performing a role that used to belong to human readers and translators at CIA’s Open Source Center: combing through news articles from around the world to monitor trends, geopolitical developments, and potential crises in real-time.