OPINION — When it comes to national security and artificial intelligence (AI), this much is clear: AI will significantly transform the national security landscape, in ways that we may only be beginning to understand; and as is the case with AI’s impact in many fields, the new technology will bring both great risk and tantalizing opportunity.
Few understand these truths – and the potential impact of AI in national security and other spaces – better than Rob Joyce, a former Director of Cybersecurity at the National Security Agency.
In an interview with The Cipher Brief, Joyce said that both the potential threats and benefits of AI in cyberspace are enormous. The technology, he said, will be a powerful tool for malicious actors while also making “everyone better” on the cybersecurity side – creating a range of ripple effects across the entire national security space. The AI impacts, Joyce said, will be seen in everything from misinformation to all-out warfare.
Cipher Brief chief international correspondent Ia Meurmishvili spoke with Joyce on the sidelines of The Cipher Brief 2024 Threat Conference in Sea Island, Georgia. We publish their interview today, in advance of our Cyber Initiatives Group 2024 Winter Summit, a virtual event featuring speakers with deep government and private sector experience in cyber and tech. Save your seat here.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Meurmishvili: Let’s start with AI’s impact on transforming U.S. national security. What do you think is happening in this space?
Joyce: Well, I think national security is just a subsection of the overall transformation AI is going to bring to society. AI has had explosive growth and potential use cases across so many different areas, and it’s really still in its infancy. We’re figuring out what to do with it, but it’s going to contribute to many different sectors. In the national security space, AI will certainly be used for cybersecurity and cyber defense. It’s going to help our intelligence agencies translate foreign languages, summarize large datasets into concise points, and quickly and effectively write intelligence reports for non-experts. AI can also augment decision-making, performing tasks that previously required an army of experts.
Meurmishvili: What do you see as the vulnerabilities?
Joyce: AI will definitely make everyone better, but that includes defenders and adversaries. We’re already seeing deepfake videos and in cybersecurity, AI-generated emails that are contextually accurate and look totally believable. AI can also generate photos and videos that are indistinguishable from reality, making it hard to tell engineering from real-life images.
Meurmishvili: How do we mitigate that risk?
Joyce: The good news is that AI is quite good at recognizing fakes, but the challenge is that when presented with a deepfake voice or video, you might not get the chance to verify it. We need to embed technology into our transmission systems to label content as augmented or generated.
Meurmishvili: What do you think AI’s role is on both the offensive and defensive sides of cyber operations?
Joyce: On the offensive side, people imagine AI launching new, amazing zero-day attacks, but that’s not realistic right now. The advantage is with the defenders, who can analyze large-scale data and detect anomalies, which is where computers excel. Offensively, AI can improve spear-phishing and social engineering attacks by generating fake email chains that appear legitimate. But AI is not capable of finding zero-day vulnerabilities or flaws in computer systems—it’s just not there yet.
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Meurmishvili: Where does the U.S. stand in terms of maintaining a competitive edge over other countries, some of which may be more advanced in certain areas?
Joyce: The U.S. currently holds the advantage. The breakthrough technologies are being developed here, and the leading innovative companies are based in the U.S. To maintain that edge, we need to continue enabling these companies to push forward. Venture capital is flowing into AI, which will spark further innovation. Supporting this innovation is key to staying ahead.
Meurmishvili: What about the risks AI poses? Can you summarize them?
Joyce: One concern people have is that AI will take over jobs. But if you look at the data, about 60% of the jobs in 2018 didn’t exist in 1940. We’ve always seen technology change the landscape, creating new industries and jobs. AI will augment many jobs and make some obsolete, but it will also create new opportunities. We just have to be prepared to transition people into new roles.
Meurmishvili: Let’s shift to warfare. The war in Ukraine has shown how AI is being used. What do you see as AI’s role in the future of warfare?
Joyce: Technology and innovation have always played a role in war. The U.S. Department of Defense has policies in place regarding the use of AI in warfare, and these policies ensure human involvement in decision-making. There are some systems, like missile defense, where AI operates at the speed of war, but when it comes to discriminating targets and offensive actions, we want humans making those decisions. The U.S. values ethics and laws, and this will continue to be reflected in our policies.
Meurmishvili: How are you seeing the U.S. government catch up with AI adoption for national security? Are we moving fast enough, or are there gaps?
Joyce: Government always lags behind industry in technological innovation. Congress works on a five-year budget cycle, and no one anticipated the explosive growth of AI five years ago, so the budgets weren’t built for it. The good news is that private equity is advancing the technology. This won’t be a government-driven project like the Manhattan Project; it’s going to be industry-led. Government will need to figure out how to utilize it, set policies, and regulate it where necessary.
Meurmishvili: Could the U.S.’s commitment to ethics and the rule of law slow down the implementation of AI in national security?
Joyce: It could, but in the national security space, we hold ourselves to high ethical standards. This means we might give up certain opportunities that other nations will exploit, but we believe in maintaining those ethical standards.
Joyce: I think we’re still in the early stages of AI development. It’s moving rapidly, and while AI has been around for decades, the transformation and growth over the past 2 to 3 years have been astronomical. We’re only beginning to understand its potential, and there’s much more to come.
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