Q&A: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & CYBERSECURITY IN MILITARY TECH

josh Lospinoso’s first cybersecurity startup was acquired in 2017 by Raytheon

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His second, Shift5, works with the U.S. military, rail operators and airlines including JetBlue. A 2009 West Point grad and Rhodes Scholar, the 36-year old former Army captain spent more than a decade authoring hacking tools for the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command.

Lospinoso recently told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee how artificial intelligence can help protect military operations. The CEO/programmer discussed the subject as well how software vulnerabilities in weapons systems are a major threat to the U.S. military. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: IN YOUR TESTIMONY, YOU DESCRIBED TWO PRINCIPAL THREATS TO AI-ENABLED TECHNOLOGIES: ONE IS THEFT. THAT’S SELF-EXPLANATORY. THE OTHER IS DATA POISONING. CAN YOU EXPLAIN THAT?

A: One way to think about data poisoning is as digital disinformation. If adversaries are able to craft the data that AI-enabled technologies see, they can profoundly impact how that technology operates.

Q: IS DATA POISONING HAPPENING?

A: We are not seeing it broadly. But it has occurred. One of the best-known cases happened in 2016. Microsoft released a Twitter chatbot it named Tay that learned from conversations it had online. Malicious users conspired to tweet abusive, offensive language at it. Tay began to generate inflammatory content. Microsoft took it offline.

Q: AI ISN’T JUST CHATBOTS. IT HAS LONG BEEN INTEGRAL TO CYBERSECURITY, RIGHT?