Britainupdated 1h ago2 min read
MI5 Director Ken McCallum Warns AI Supercharges Russia And Iran Threats To Britain
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Russia remains aggressor number one and escalates hybrid warfare threatening UK and allies. Iran intensifies targeting fortified sites in Britain, including military bases.
36 outlets told this the same way.
MI5 warns on AI
MI5 director general Ken McCallum warned Tuesday that Britain has entered a “new era of national security” as artificial intelligence “already supercharging” threats from states and terrorists. McCallum said MI5 is devoting more resource to countering state threats than during the Cold War, and he told the BBC that threats from foreign adversaries had quadrupled in the last decade.
McCallum warned that the biggest threat from the misuse of AI is extremist groups using the technology to harness new and existing bioweapons, while he said MI5 has “caught terrorists seeking to exploit Al” including by integrating the technology with drones. McCallum said Russia remains “aggressor number one,” and he described Russia’s hybrid warfare as operating below the threshold of conventional conflict while its progress in Ukraine is “minimal and horrifically costly.”
Iran, Fairford, and arrests
Prime Minister Andy Burnham told MPs on Monday that there is a “high likelihood” of Iran’s involvement in what is suspected to be a plot targeting the RAF Fairford base, used by American bombers to strike Iran. MI5 said the Fairford incident “is not unique,” and McCallum added that “We have seen Iranian interest beyond RAF Fairford in the UK.”
McCallum said investigations linked to Iran have resulted in “more than 50 arrests in the United Kingdom over the last 12 months,” and he said much of this Iranian aggression has been aimed at Jewish communities. McCallum said Tehran intends to “attack more complex targets, such as military installations,” and he said the suspected plot at Fairford was “almost certainly” directed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as Burnham described it.
New centre and stakes
McCallum announced that MI5 launched this year a new AI Threat Assessment Centre, housed in its headquarters, to assess AI-related threats and separate “the bluster from the realities.” McCallum warned that AI could “change the stakes” on bioweapons, and he said the technology has the “potential to change the stakes on existing or even new bioweapons.”
McCallum said MI5’s terrorism and state threats operational missions are “pretty much of equal scale,” and he described that as “a huge shift across recent years.” McCallum said the UK intelligence community is working closely with the UK’s globally respected AI Security Institute to take on the risks, and he said “These risks are real.”