Artificial Intelligence risks “undermining the fabric of our society” because people will no longer be able to tell the difference between truth and lies, according to Britain’s former cyber security chief.
Ciaran Martin warned as it becomes capable of impersonating real people AI could make it much more difficult to see what is `true and reliable’.
He said the Government could fall behind the curve in policing it as most technological advancements are the work of private companies in the US.
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Professor Martin, former head of GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, said: “AI is now making it much easier to fake things, much easier to spoof voices, much easier to look like genuine information, much easier to put that out at scale.
“So having a sense of what is true and reliable, it’s going to become much more difficult.
“And that’s something that risks undermining the fabric of our society.”
The cyber expert, now of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, said ministers face a tough time trying to impose controls on AI development.
“We’re all struggling to keep up with this,” he said.
“So much of the development is happening in the American private sector that there aren’t always the sort of levers that you can pull.
“You see this with something like the Online Safety Bill. You get into very controversial territory.
“And actually you end up being behind the curve in terms of the way in which the technology advances.
“The big question is how do you get technological markets to work in a way that validates information credibly and in a sort of economically efficient way.
“So is the Government doing enough?
“You can make a case that it isn’t.
“But it’s partly because it’s a really, really difficult challenge.”
Professor Martin told Times Radio governments need to take a `balanced look’ at the dangers of AI’s rapid expansion.
“They need to get with the industry experts and the academics. They need to test this and I think hype doesn’t help,” he said.
“Everybody was warning about the apocalyptic consequences of our dependence on cybersecurity in a way that could cause large-scale fatalities.
“We need to take a balanced and responsible approach to these risks.”
Professor Martin is the latest senior figure to raise questions about the risks posed by AI which some critics fear could destroy the human race.
Last week AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton quit Google to speak out about the potential dangers of allowing the rapidly evolving technology to go unchecked.
He warned it could pose a `more urgent’ threat to humanity than climate change which at least has a potential solution.
Last month GCHQ boss Sir Jeremy Fleming warned the Cabinet AI created a number of `potential applications and risks’ for Britain including the threat of sophisticated disinformation campaigns designed to undermine democracy.
SpaceX and Twitter billionaire Elon Musk has called for a six-month `pause’ in the development of the technology to allow society to consider the potential dangers.
Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer appeared to play down the possible threats this week describing AI as “both an opportunity and a challenge”.
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