Innovations & technologies

US intelligence agencies are beginning to build AI spies

A US intelligence director says a lot of espionage is more boring than you might think, and much of it could be handed over to artificial intelligence.

“A significant chunk of the time, I will send [my employees] to a dark room to look at TV monitors to do national security essential work,” Robert Cardillo, head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency told reporters including Foreign Policy. “But boy is it inefficient.”

Cardillo calls out recent advances in artificial intelligence, giving algorithms the ability to analyze vast amounts of images and video to find patterns, give data about the landscape, and identify unusual objects. This kind of work is critical for assessing national security concerns like foreign missile-silo activity, or even just to check in on North Korean volleyball games.