AI will ‘pain whole swathe of UK economy before providing net benefit’
The chief technology officer of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) has said that artificial intelligence (AI) will harm a “whole swath” of the UK economy before it ultimately delivers a net benefit.
Ollie Whitehouse added that the biggest under-appreciated AI-driven cyber threat on the horizon is models that learn to find vulnerabilities in digital spaces.
Companies that fail to use AI effectively for cyber defense will “feel the weight” of the models that reveal these vulnerabilities, and it will be “a pretty painful fix”, he told a cybersecurity kickoff event at the National Theater in central London on Thursday.
Meanwhile, attendees heard the UK AI Security Institute (AISI) focus on the danger that advanced AI could create “chemical and biological threats, cyber capabilities and autonomous systems that cause truly widespread harm.”
The CTO of the NCSC, the UK’s cybersecurity authority, was asked on a panel about “the most under-appreciated AI-driven cyber threat on the horizon that we are not preparing for today”.
Mr Whitehouse said at the event hosted by Harmonic Security: “This is a place where AI is very effective at revealing what our vulnerability actually is and we don’t have the capacity to prioritize and respond to that.
“There is a beauty within us right now that we cannot know or measure its true extent; this will change rapidly.
“And then when we know the true level of our vulnerability across digital situations and software, we will be left with some really difficult decisions.”
He said this threatened “good corporate governance, future profits and other prosperity in the UK”.
NCSC staff are “AI optimists,” he told the room, “but I think the journey between where we are today and that sunny mountainous region will be rocky and bumpy.
“There will certainly be risk for those who can use AI for effective cyber defence, but large parts of the economy will not be able to do so and will feel the blow and consequences in a rather painful correction.
“But we will come out in a much better situation.”
Ben Dewar-Powell, AISI’s recently appointed chief information security officer (CISO), said: “At the institute, we focus on the most serious risks from advanced AI, namely things like chemical and biological threats, cyber capabilities and autonomous systems that cause truly widespread harm.”
Last year, the institute found that the models could generate expert-level knowledge about biology and chemistry, with some providing answers equivalent to doctoral-level experts. It was stated that these can be used for positive or harmful purposes.
Mr Dewar-Powell said AISI, part of the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, prioritizes things that “could cause serious damage”, are “uniquely enabled by cutting-edge AI capabilities” and where “Government-supported research actually adds value that others cannot”.
“My idea about the cyber piece is that it’s actually automation of the entire kill chain, so it’s not just bits and pieces going at the same pace at each stage.
“So weeks-long campaigns can run for hours in parallel and completely change the economy.”
The cyber kill chain outlines the stages that an attacker must successfully complete to achieve the operational goal.
The comments came after Alastair Paterson, CEO and co-founder of Harmonic Security, said the UK “cannot afford to rely on other countries for technologies that protect our infrastructure, our technology, our economy, indeed our way of life, but at the moment we are.”
A number of businesses have suffered major cyber attacks in recent months, including British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), high street retailer Marks and Spencer and nursery group Kido Schools.
Mr Paterson referred to JLR and said the attack had cost taxpayers £1.5bn in loan guarantees.
“Almost every week or every month we see headlines here that underscore how important this industry is,” he said.
But he said Britain had “always been left behind and outcompeted” by other countries, particularly Israel.
“Israel has an incredible ecosystem that really turns cyber start-up founders into serial winners, right? They come back, help each other over and over again. And they’ve built an incredible tech sector there, especially around cybersecurity.”
He added: “At the same time, the geopolitical environment around the UK is changing quite rapidly at the moment… Obviously, you’ve got the rise of China; you’ve got a Russia that’s expansionist at the moment (and) really aggressive, (and) there’s shadow wars going on; and unfortunately the US is also more inward-looking than it was before.”
