House Intelligence Committee Warns a New ‘Failure of Imagination’ Could Be Setting America Up for an AI Attack

A bipartisan group of House members say new and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, are reshaping the post-September 11th threat landscape, and the “failure of imagination” that allowed the 2001 attack to be planned and launched undetected could take America by surprise again.The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is looking at shortcomings in national intelligence agencies 25 years after the 9/11 attacks. It warns that progress is lacking toward addressing both persistent and new intelligence failures.“The nation’s current counterintelligence posture is eerily similar to the counterterrorism posture our nation had prior to 9/11,” the committee states in a review of recommendations from the 9/11 Commission Report published 22 years ago. “Our government must work to address these issues before it is too late.”Among them, the new report finds new and emerging technologies are presenting “novel threats” as rapid technological advancement has lowered the barriers to entry for terrorism.A professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Benjamin Buchanan, says the government’s policymakers lack urgency in addressing challenges associated with AI.“The government’s inability to take seriously a threat that did not fit existing categories and to connect information scattered across institutional seams led to devastating strategic surprise. Twenty-five years later, AI presents, in its own way, a similar kind of challenge,” Mr. Buchanan told the committee during July testimony on the next generation of threats. “The technology is advancing faster than our institutions are adapting, and the most important data points come from outside government.” Mr. Buchanan says AI tools have enabled America’s adversaries to conduct operations, including conducting sophisticated cyber operations, more efficiently, rapidly producing propaganda and gathering information in a matter of minutes with little to no cost or training. Mr. Buchanan says policymakers and the intelligence community must move faster to stay ahead of AI-enabled threats.The Intelligence Committee chairman, Congressman Rick Crawford, unveiled the new report Monday at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The original 9/11 report, released in July 2004, detailed intelligence, policy, and structural deficiencies that contributed to a failure to prevent the September 11th attacks. It led to sweeping reforms across the intelligence community. The new review evaluated the effectiveness of the reforms and gaps caused by today’s “increasingly complex and evolving threat environment.” The intelligence committee report states that emerging technologies complicate the threat landscape. They include a proliferation of drones and encrypted communications that give adversaries new ways to surveil targets, evade detection, and disrupt critical infrastructure. As these capabilities have become cheaper and more widely available, reads the report, policymakers need to modernize legal authorities, increase technical expertise, and improve interagency coordination to keep pace with the rapidly evolving threats.“The unfortunate reality is that our nation’s counterintelligence posture is outdated and outmatched by the scope and scale of threats presented by hostile foreign powers,” the report’s authors write. The report found that the counterintelligence threat landscape is vastly more complex and expansive than the threats presented during the Cold War but — today, as then — the current counterintelligence approach is reactive — focusing on identifying and prosecuting people after the damage is done rather than being proactive in disrupting operations of adversaries. The report warns that China is the greatest counterintelligence threat the nation faces. Russia and Iran are also singled out as major threats.“Our nation’s adversaries are actively exploiting our free and open society and are working in imaginative ways to achieve their strategic objectives. We must learn from our past and not lose sight of this reality,” the committee stated in the report.The House committee also found that questions remain as to whether the National Counterterrorism Center has all the authority and tools to deliver on its mission, “especially in a world where the line between domestic and foreign terrorist threats has increasingly eroded.”President Bush created the center in a 2004 executive order. Shortly after that order, Congress codified the center under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act but did not authorize it to collect intelligence pertaining to domestic terrorists and domestic counterterrorism.Testifying before the Intelligence Committee in May 20, a Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security, Bruce Hoffman, questioned why “the principal agency responsible for the analysis and synthesis of terrorist threats and implementation of coordinated counterterrorism strategic operations is legally barred from taking action to counter domestic terrorism.”

House Intelligence Committee Warns a New ‘Failure of Imagination’ Could Be Setting America Up for an AI Attack

House Intelligence Committee Warns a New ‘Failure of Imagination’ Could Be Setting America Up for an AI Attack

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