Worthy Christian News > World News > U.S. Alleges China’s Theft of AI Technology Boosting Espionage Against American Citizens

U.S. Alleges China’s Theft of AI Technology Boosting Espionage Against American Citizens

by Emmitt Barry, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies warn about China’s use of artificial intelligence, indicating potential risks beyond intellectual property theft. They are concerned that China could use AI for massive data collection on American citizens. The FBI has highlighted the importance of safeguarding artificial intelligence as a vital U.S. technology in response to China’s aim for substantial AI advancements by 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported.

At a press conference in Silicon Valley earlier this year, FBI Director Christopher Wray pointed out that China has been implicated in several major incidents of personal data theft. He suggested that artificial intelligence could act as an “amplifier” to enhance future hacking operations.

“Now they are working to use AI to improve their already massive hacking operations using our own technology against us,” Wray said.

For years, U.S. intelligence analysts have been concerned about the potential long-term espionage benefits that China might gain from collecting vast amounts of hacked personal data belonging to American officials and business leaders.

In the last ten years, Beijing has been implicated in significant data breaches involving Marriott International, Equifax, Anthem, and the Office of Personnel Management, affecting hundreds of millions of customer records and over 20 million U.S. government personnel files. These frequent, large-scale hacks led former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to accuse China of attempting to hack into virtually everything. However, China has consistently denied involvement in these breaches.

China’s proficiency in data theft, involving billions of data pieces as per U.S. officials, criminal indictments, and cyber-threat researchers, has resulted in an overwhelming accumulation of information. This vast cache is too extensive for human analysis to discern meaningful patterns. However, artificial intelligence faces no such limitations in processing and utilizing this vast trove of data.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Glenn Gerstell, a former general counsel at the National Security Agency, highlighted the potential threat posed by China’s use of AI. “China can harness AI to build a dossier on virtually every American, with details ranging from their health records to credit cards and from passport numbers to the names and addresses of their parents and children. Take those dossiers and add a few hundred thousand hackers working for the Chinese government, and we’ve got a scary potential national security threat.”

China has refuted claims of its involvement in such activities. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin countered by labeling the U.S. as the “biggest hacking empire and global cyber thief” in the world.