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Written by Piero Messina
It is a global Spectre, like in the 007 movies. Its task is to defend humanity, at least so they say, from the risks of artificial intelligence.
With this goal in mind, cyber security agencies from five continents first met in November in Great Britain and then drafted a joint document signed unanimously: “Guidelines for secure AI system development”. The project was conceived by the National Cyber security center of the British government but the document was approved and shared by the main “Atlantic” cyber security command centers: United States in the front row with the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), followed and accompanied by da Australian Cyber Security Centre, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security , New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre , Chile’s Government CSIRT , National Cyber and Information Security Agency of the Czech Republic, Information System Authority of Estonia) , National Cyber Security Centre of Estonia , French Cybersecurity Agency, Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security, Israeli National Cyber Directorate , Italian National Cybersecurity Agency, Japan’s National center of Incident readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity , Japan’s Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency , Norwegian National Cyber Security Centre, Poland Ministry of Digital Affairs, Poland’s NASK National Research Institute , Republic of Korea National Intelligence Service, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore . In short, the cream of Western intelligence.
What is that document for? What benefits do you intend to introduce into the complex and often incomprehensible world of artificial intelligence? And above all, what boundaries do they intend to restrain a technology that according to some of its main creators is about to become a risk for humanity, thanks to new algorithms capable of autonomously deciding which calculations to make?
The document drawn up in London explains that “ recommends guidelines for providers of any systems that use artificial intelligence (AI), whether those systems have been created from scratch or built on top of tools and services provided by others. Implementing these guidelines will help providers build AI systems that function as intended, are available when needed, and work without revealing sensitive data to unauthorised parties. This document is aimed primarily at providers of AI systems who are using models hosted by an organisation, or are using external application programming interfaces (APIs). We urge all stakeholders (including data scientists, developers, managers, decision-makers and risk owners) to read these guidelines to help them make informed decisions about the design, development, deployment and operation of their AI systems”.
According to cyber security gurus, there are four pillars on which to build a secure digital world: secure (It covers understanding risks and threat modelling, as well as specific topics and trade-offs to consider on system and model design); secure development (concerning life cycle, including supply chain security, documentation, and asset and technical debt management); secure deployment (protecting infrastructure and models from compromise, threat or loss, developing incident management processes, and responsible release); secure operation and maintenance (To provide guidelines on actions particularly relevant once a system has been deployed, including logging and monitoring, update management and information sharing).
What is most surprising about this document is the list of companies and institutions that contributed to its drafting. In that list we find Amazon, Google, Google DeepMind, IBM, Microsoft, OpenAI, as well as some institutions such as Georgetown University, which has always been a hotbed of great talent for US intelligence agencies. If the controlled becomes the controller, it is not good news.
somehow i have a feeling this is not a good thing. regulators are not experts but spy agencies.
*as well as some institutions such as georgetown university, which has always been a hotbed of great talent for us”
right, georgetown, jesuit historical breeding ground. how long would these clowns last in the east? hence the current geopolitical climate.
if i were rome i would deflect attention west incessantly and with acute precision while scheming towards the east. majority of the the population deceived…
the powers that be, and currently ruining the planet and its economies, have been shitting bricks ever since tim berners-lee gave us an open and free www. the powers that be didn’t like the fact that it was free of gov’t control, so they made up more bogeymen in order to convince the hoi polloi that their liberty, children, and finances, were under threat from an open and free internet. i think that gov’ts will find that the oppressed can code too.