Cybersecurity

The AI Cybersecurity Arms-Race: The Bad Guys Are Way Ahead

Who will win the race to adopt artificial intelligence for cyber warfare--the defenders of vulnerable corporate networks or the cyber criminals constantly inventing new ways to attack them?

The promise—or unrealistic hope—that AI will “transform the world,” has given rise to a number of significant races. Most prominent is the race among nations for AI superiority, primarily the U.S. and China, with several European countries (e.g., France) and the European Unionattempting to position themselves not too far behind.

This reminds one of the nuclear arms-race and the use of the same technology for both beneficial and destructive purposes. In a recent paperwarning of the potential of AI to “upend the foundations of nuclear deterrence,” RAND researchers wrote: “The dual-use nature of many AI algorithms will mean AI research focused on one sector of society can be rapidly modified for use in the security sector as well.”