The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is developing an AI chatbot, designed to help US agents sift through vast amounts of public data more efficiently.
The tool, which will be similar to the widely popular ChatGPT, will train on publicly available data and list sources alongside answers, allowing agents to verify the information’s credibility.
The AI tool is expected to be available to US intelligence agencies in the near future. However, lawmakers and the public will not have access to it.
Tool will be able to summarize large amounts of data
Randy Nixon, CIA’s director of Open Source Enterprise, stated the AI tool will enable agents look up information, ask follow-up questions, and summarize huge masses of data.
“The scale of how much we collect and what we collect on has grown astronomically over the last 80-plus years,” adding it could be “daunting” and “at times unusable for consumers,” he said.
Nixon envisions a scenario where machines are pushing the “right information, one where the machine can auto-summarize, group things together.”
Several US intelligence agencies will have access to the tool
The AI tool will be accessible within the 18-agency US intelligence bodies, including the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and military-run agencies.
While the CIA’s AI chatbot is said to adhere to US privacy laws, it has not been specified how it will prevent potential leaks or misuse of public data.
The US government’s decision to develop this tool may be influenced by China’s ambition to become the world’s de facto AI leader by 2030.