Page 16 - AI Vol 2: Risks of AI
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expect they will increasingly be under scrutiny learning and AI generally. Accordingly, this may
by individuals and groups leveraging AI for their be an area of concern that comes to the forefront
own purposes. relatively rapidly. It is also important to note that
this issue does not just affect public agencies
Another likely risk category of AI proliferation is and their systems directly but will also affect the
the increasing danger of cyber threats from bad vendors agencies rely on for various services. It
actors. Current LLM systems are very capable is not only essential for public agencies to assess
of computer programing and could be utilized their own systems for potential vulnerabilities,
to develop malicious code used to target public but also to ensure the vendors they work with
agency data infrastructure. This means that even are aware of and preparing for these future
relatively unsophisticated bad actors would be threats so as to ensure agency operations are
able to deploy viruses, malware, ransomware, not compromised by vendor downtime and that
and other vectors of attack with relative ease. agency data is not exposed through a breach of
More importantly, the same machine learning the vendor’s systems.
principles that make LLMs and AI so effective,
could be leveraged to increase the effectiveness Many of these challenges are not new. Agencies
of attacks. Imagine a virus that is able to learn are familiar with unscrupulous vendors using
from how its targets are able to neutralize prior one-sided and sometimes deceptive contract
attacks and autonomously adjust its code and terms to gain advantage. Agencies are certainly
methods to prevent that neutralization strategy familiar with CPRA requests and how they can
in the future. This virus could also initially sometimes be “weaponized.” Cyber threats,
spend time on the victim’s system probing for particularly ransomware attacks in recent years,
vulnerabilities and deploying an attack strategy have been at the forefront of public agency data
specifically tailored to the target’s unique system infrastructure challenges. What will be new is the
vulnerabilities. Just as AlphaGo was able to learn speed and complexity of these issues moving into
from its experience playing the game “Go” and the future. Bad or even just troublesome actors
to come up with unique gameplay strategies no will be able to utilize AI systems to supplement
human had yet thought of (discussed in Volume their own abilities, hypercharging the challenges
1) so could a malicious AI threat vector deploy agencies already face. Accordingly, even if an
surprising attack methods. agency itself decides not to implement AI in its
own operations, they will still have to adapt to a
Importantly, whereas corporations, public new AI centered reality.
agencies, and the general public are largely
engaging in a deliberative and thoughtful process
around AI deployment, it is very likely that bad AI IS A TOOL. THE CHOICE ABOUT
actors looking to leverage these new technologies HOW IT GETS DEPLOYED IS OURS.
are already actively developing new attack -OREN ETZIONI
vectors relying on advances made in machine
16 | VOLUME 2 RISKS OF AI | LOZANOSMITH.COM
