A cybersecurity specialist claims that robots controlled by artificial intelligence have the capacity to assault the National Health Service (NHS) of the United Kingdom and cause a disruption comparable to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ian Hogarth, a member of the U.K.’s AI task group that was established to assist guard against the threats of AI, as saying that the developing technology is capable of an attack that might damage the nation’s NHS or even carry out a “biological attack.”
Hogarth pointed out that AI technology is developing quickly and forewarned that this would make it easier to carry out cyberattacks and other types of crimes.
According to a report, the government has given Hogarth’s AI task force £100 million ($124 million), with the group’s current work concentrating on safety research that could aid in the development of beneficial applications similar to ChatGPT.
According to the “AI tsar” of the U.K., it is crucial for nations to work together to reduce the hazards associated with AI. With the lessons learnt from the COVID-19 epidemic, Hogarth made it a point to especially mention how crucial it was to include nations like China in those discussions.
“Like pandemics, it’s similar. Hogarth remarked that it is the kind of situation where going it alone is not an option. Risks to our national security are the ones we are focusing on the most.”
He said that these concerns are inherently global. Likewise, he believes there is genuine value in international cooperation about the bigger scale risks, much like how we work with China on biosecurity and cyber security issues.
Hogarth observed that a significant portion of the IT sector has started to concentrate on AI, which has sped up the advancement of the technology but also brought attention to its risks.
The NHS’s 2017 WannaCry hack, which resulted in the cancellation of 19,000 patient appointments and cost the country’s health system £92 million, or $114 million, was cited by the AI specialist as evidence that attacks like this could become easier due to the quick development of AI technology.
The IT industry is currently flooded with people working to create AI systems that can write code faster than humans. According to Hogarth, that technology is improving every day. Fundamentally, that lowers the hurdles to carrying out a cyberattack or cybercrime of some form.
