US intelligence agencies’ embrace of generative AI is at once wary and urgent; Associated Press, May 23, 2024

 FRANK BAJAK , Associated Press; US intelligence agencies’ embrace of generative AI is at once wary and urgent

"The CIA’s inaugural chief technology officer, Nand Mulchandani, thinks that because gen AI models “hallucinate” they are best treated as a “crazy, drunk friend” — capable of great insight and creativity but also bias-prone fibbers. There are also security and privacy issues: adversaries could steal and poison them, and they may contain sensitive personal data that officers aren’t authorized to see.

That’s not stopping the experimentation, though, which is mostly happening in secret. 

An exception: Thousands of analysts across the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies now use a CIA-developed gen AI called Osiris. It runs on unclassified and publicly or commercially available data — what’s known as open-source. It writes annotated summaries and its chatbot function lets analysts go deeper with queries...

Another worry: Ensuring the privacy of “U.S. persons” whose data may be embedded in a large-language model.

“If you speak to any researcher or developer that is training a large-language model, and ask them if it is possible to basically kind of delete one individual piece of information from an LLM and make it forget that -- and have a robust empirical guarantee of that forgetting -- that is not a thing that is possible,” John Beieler, AI lead at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said in an interview.

It’s one reason the intelligence community is not in “move-fast-and-break-things” mode on gen AI adoption."

With an unruly China, safeguarding intellectual property is vital to national security; The Globe and Mail, March 6, 2023

DAVID DURAND AND AARON SHULL, The Globe and Mail; With an unruly China, safeguarding intellectual property is vital to national security

"There is an urgent need for a new Canadian national security policy that considers new and emerging threats.

Such a policy should begin with a strong economic foundation that privileges the domestic development of intangible assets, IP, and the use and commercialization of data, as well as the strategic injection of Canadian technology into international markets. That, in turn, requires a better understanding of the relationship between IP and national security."

AI’s Role in Modernizing Intellectual Property and Bolstering National Security; U.S. Chamber of Commerce Technology Engagement, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, August 1, 2022

Michael Richards Director, Policy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Technology Engagement, U.S. Chamber of Commerce ; AI’s Role in Modernizing Intellectual Property and Bolstering National Security

Here are six recommendations for how the U.S. can lead on AI from the U.S. Chamber's fifth and final AI Commission hearing in Washington, D.C. on July 21, 2022.

"The U.S. may lose its position as a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) if we do not modernize our intellectual property system and bolster our national security strategy. That emerged as the key theme at the U.S. Chamber’s fifth and final AI Commission field hearing, hosted in Washington, D.C. last week. Experts from civil society, government, academia, and industry gathered to discuss this and other important issues related to the use and regulation of AI. 

U.S. Chamber President and CEO Suzanne Clark opened the hearing by noting several challenges ahead, such as cooperation between Russia and China to compete against the U.S., intellectual property (IP) theft, and regulation from abroad. With regard to the Commission’s forthcoming policy recommendations, she noted, “You can count on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to do something with this. You can count on us to not just produce a white paper but to really turn it into action, into work.” 

Here are six recommendations for how the U.S. can lead on AI:..."

It’s not a trade war with China. It’s a tech war.; The Washington Post, December 14, 2018

Michael Morell and David Kris, The Washington Post; It’s not a trade war with China. It’s a tech war.

"Michael Morell, a Post contributing columnist, is a former deputy director and twice acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency. David Kris is a former assistant attorney general for national security and co-founder of Culper Partners consulting firm.

The United States is in an escalating technological cold war with China. It’s not centered on tariffs and trade, which President Trump often cites; instead, it involves both China’s use of technology to steal information and the theft of technology itself."

Navy Official: Concerns About Intellectual Property Rights Becoming More 'Acute'; National Defense, NDIA's Business & Technology Magazine, November 29, 2018

Connie Lee, National Defense, NDIA's Business & Technology Magazine;

Navy Official: Concerns About Intellectual Property Rights Becoming More 'Acute'

"Capt. Samuel Pennington, major program manager for surface training systems, said the fear of losing data rights can sometimes make companies reluctant to work with the government.
“We get feedback sometimes where they’re not willing to bid on a contract where we have full data rights,” he said. “Industry [is] not going to do that because they have their secret sauce and they don’t want to release it.”
Pennington said having IP rights would allow the Defense Department to more easily modernize and sustain equipment.
“Our initiative is to get as much data rights, or buy a new product that has open architecture to the point where [the] data rights that we do have are sufficient, where we can recompete that down the road,” he said. This would prevent the Navy from relying on the original manufacturer for future work on the system, he noted.
The issue is also being discussed on Capitol Hill, Merritt added. The fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Pentagon to develop policy on the acquisition or licensing of intellectual property. Additionally, the NDAA requires the department to negotiate a price for technical data rights of major weapon systems."

China’s Intellectual Property Theft Must Stop; New York Times, August 15, 2017

Dennis C. Blair and Keith Alexander, New York Times; China’s Intellectual Property Theft Must Stop

"Perhaps most concerning, China has targeted the American defense industrial base. Chinese spies have gone after private defense contractors and subcontractors, national laboratories, public research universities, think tanks and the American government itself. Chinese agents have gone after the United States’ most significant weapons, such as the F-35 Lightning, the Aegis Combat System and the Patriot missile system; illegally exported unmanned underwater vehicles and thermal-imaging cameras; and stolen documents related to the B-52 bomber, the Delta IV rocket, the F-15 fighter and even the Space Shuttle.

President Trump’s action on Monday acknowledges the broad scope of the challenge. Central to Chinese cybersecurity law is the “secure and controllable” standard, which, in the name of protecting software and data, forces companies operating in China to disclose critical intellectual property to the government and requires that they store data locally. Even before this Chinese legislation, some three-quarters of Chinese imported software was pirated. Now, despite the law, American companies may be even more vulnerable."

How to rethink what’s ‘top secret’ for the Internet age; Washington Post, 12/16/16

Dianne Feinstein, Washington Post; How to rethink what’s ‘top secret’ for the Internet age:

"Rooted in a paper-based era, the existing classification system has become so complex and distorted that it no longer serves its fundamental goals: sharing secrets with our allies and partners while safeguarding this information from adversaries who would do us harm...

We may never fully eliminate the tendency of reviewers to overclassify information. But by working to implement these solutions, we can begin to change the dynamic. At the heart of this issue are dedicated government employees who truly want to do the right thing, and there’s an obvious natural instinct to protect secrets. But classification should shield secrets, not bury them."

Obama’s Secrecy Problem; Slate, 4/15/16

Fred Kaplan, Slate; Obama’s Secrecy Problem:

"Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, told me Thursday, “This is a time of particularly promising ferment over secrecy policy. There is a recognition, even within the national-security apparatus, that the classification system has overreached and needs to be pruned back.” Yet by all measures, the bureaucracies persist in resisting this pruning, Congress won’t allocate the money for the shears, and the president hasn’t mustered the full attention and commitment that the task requires. Information may want to be free, but Washington has it wrapped in a tangle."

Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets?!?, TechDirt, 3/13/09

Via TechDirt: Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets?!?:

"Plenty of folks are quite concerned about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations are being negotiated in secret. This is a treaty that (from the documents that have leaked so far) is quite troubling. It likely will effectively require various countries, including the US, to update copyright laws in a draconian manner. Furthermore, the negotiators have met with entertainment industry representatives multiple times, and there are indications that those representatives have contributed language and ideas to the treaty. But, the public? The folks actually impacted by all of this? We've been kept in the dark, despite repeated requests for more information. So far, the response from the government had been "sorry, we always negotiate these things in secret, so we'll keep doing so...

Can the US Trade Representative please describe the damage to national security if the public gets to see what's being proposed that would require governments around the country to enact significantly more draconian intellectual property laws?"

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090313/1456154113.shtml