Britain’s top espionage chief told on Wednesday how the nation’s spies will play an increasingly vital role in the AI era in protecting against hostile foreign states and terror groups.
In a speech in Prague, MI6 chief Sir Richard Moore was due to stress that his officers would be able to gain secrets “beyond the reach” of artificial intelligence.
However, he also emphasised that “the frontier of machine capability” would race ahead.
In his second public speech since taking over as “C” in the autumn of 2020, he explained: “AI is going to make information infinitely more accessible and some have asked whether it will put intelligence services like mine out of business?
“In fact, the opposite is likely to be true. As AI trawls the ocean of open source, there will be even greater value in landing, with a well-cast fly, the secrets that lie beyond the reach of its nets.”
He added: “The unique characteristics of human agents in the right places will become still more significant.
“They are never just passive collectors of information: our agents can be tasked and directed; they can identify new questions we didn’t know to ask; and sometimes they can influence decisions inside a government or terrorist group.
“Human intelligence in the age of Artificial Intelligence will increasingly be defined as those things that machines cannot do, albeit we should expect the frontier of machine capability to advance with startling speed.”
The head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service was also due to talk about Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and why his military chiefs were still failing to achieve his aims.
Putin’s invasion has floundered and after 15 months his forces are very gradually being pushed back by a Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Kyiv’s forces are only making limited gains in the south and east of the wartorn country.
But even this is a huge turnaround from Putin’s lightning invasion plan to seize Ukraine’s capital within days in February 2022.
Now bitter divisions have been exposed in his military top brass after the failed Wagner Group revolt.
Sir Richard was also due to highlight a “recent wave of Russian imperialism” in Africa.
He was also set to criticise countries such as Iran for arming Putin’s military with drones and other equipment, fuelling the conflict which has already killed thousands of civilians in often indiscriminate missile, drone and artillery strikes.
Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed, with Ukrainian forces also suffering high casualties.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced plans on Tuesday to modernise Britain’s armed forces with greater use of AI, quantum technologies, biology engineering, as well as learning the lessons from the Ukraine conflict.
The UK has led the West in arming Ukraine, first with anti-tank weapons, then Challenger II tanks and now Storm Shadow long range missiles.
