Will AI replace the IO?

How Effective Will Intelligence Officers be in an Age of Artificial Intelligence??

One of the main objectives of any intelligence agency or organization is to acquire information. Information is the commodity that the intelligence community brokers in. The collection of information is the raw material that can be refined into intelligence through analysis, verification, and corroboration. That intelligence in turn becomes what can be shared among other agencies, governments, and allies to make informed decisions moving forward on national security matters.??

So when all information is available in one form or other digitally, what role does an Intelligence Officer (IO) have, compared to the ubiquitous Artificial Intelligence (AI)??

Well, to answer this question, we first must look at the role of the IO in the Intelligence Community. Specifically,?what does an IO have to offer versus a digital program that can compromise the information holdings of a targeted entity—be that of an enemy nation state, a hostile intelligence agency or a terrorist organization?

One of the primary functions, if not the primary function, of an IO is to recruit sources of information to collect against targets.?

In my role as an intelligence officer, I recruited and ran human sources who had access to information that would advance national security investigations. Recruitment can be a hard gig that requires more than simply identifying access. It requires convincing the source that the information should be provided as well. The reasons can vary, but the result is the same—you provide information on the target, and in return, you are provided with something you value. This could include:

·??????A sense of satisfaction in knowing you are helping to increase or maintain national security.

·??????The excitement of being involved in the world of intelligence.?

·??????Simply getting some form of recompense for your time and effort.?

Artificial intelligence, on the other hand, can be used to acquire information via programming code used against a targeted entity, to compromise a computer system and then gain heightened privileges within the system to acquire more information. AI can become the spymaster of the digital world, creating sources of code and zero-day vulnerabilities to hack into systems and steal information.?

But there is one very big difference between the IO and the AI.?

As powerful as AI is in relation to the amount of information and speed at which it can be acquired, AI lacks context and is limited in relation to direction and tasking. For those of you unfamiliar with the terms “direction and tasking,” here’s a quick and dirty explanation:?

·??????IOs provide?direction?in relation to how a source acquires their information. Think about brainstorming with friends over how best to get a relative to attend a surprise party without them knowing—by finding out their schedule.?

·??????Tasking, meanwhile, involves specifying what information needs to be collected, and prioritizing that collection.?

As an example, an IO is informed by a source that a target has discussed the invasion of a third country with a military leader. However, the source provides the context that the conversation occurred in jest and there is no real threat here.??

Unless specifically noted in the text of a written document, if the same information was provided to AI via access to electronic media, a lack of context could lead to the misinterpretation of the information collected. This is a simple example, but hopefully one that demonstrates the difference between the interpretation with context as opposed to collection of information without it.?

Further, IOs are trained to scrutinize and evaluate the importance of the information provided by the source. This can help direct the source, with the assistance of the IO, to further their access to information as required. Contrarily, AI may be ever-present in a system to suck up anything that is provided to that system. But is the AI able to collaborate and direct the source to further access? Or is it simply able to collect all there is available through an electronic media??

This leads to another concern regarding IO vs AI.??What happens if the information never reaches the system the AI has access to??

Take a terrorist plot, for example. Discussions could occur between several members of a terrorist cell without anything ever being written or taken down. Unless a source (either human or an electronic listening device) is present to capture the information being discussed, the likelihood of it ever being entered into any system electronically is highly unlikely.?

The use of AI in the Intelligence Community remains to be seen and as a former practitioner in the Intelligence Community, I can see vast benefits to AI. But as with any other tool in its infancy, although the possibilities are limitless, it will be with the?assistance and instruction from Intelligence professionals that AI will be truly help advance with information collection.?

For the time being, the IO will still be required to make the decisions as to who could have access to the target, what needs to be collected, and how best to collect information.