If President Vladimir Putin believes that Western sanctions are threatening his invasion of Ukraine, he may use AI to influence UK society and government departments.
According to Samuel Bendett, an expert on Russia’s artificial intelligence and military, briefed Express.co.uk: Russia’s most successful use of AI appears to be in information and cyber warfare, which may have an impact on both certain segments of UK society and specific government departments, agencies, and officials. This appears to be a threat that requires immediate attention, along with the potential for AI to breach cyber defenses in critical infrastructure.
During its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow appears to have used high-tech AI systems and weapons, including the recent deepfake video of President Zelensky appearing to tell his troops to surrender.
Photos have also emerged online of Russia’s KUB-BLA drones, also known as ‘suicide drones,’ which use artificial intelligence to identify targets.
Since the fighting began on February 24, images of damaged drones that appear to have been shot down or crashed have circulated on Twitter.
Despite Russia’s large arsenal of AI weapons and technology systems, they do not appear to have been used against the West so far.
According to Mr. Bendett, the Russian government and military have developed specific tactics to protect themselves from what they perceive to be a constant cyber and information attack from the West.
According to this logic, he continued, if the Russian government feels sufficiently threatened [by the West], it may use AI to send a message or even launch a more serious attack.
According to Mr. Bendett, Russia may see the harsh economic sanctions imposed by Western nations as a threat.
It’s not known how much the Russian economy can bend without breaking, he said, and there are different Western and Russian estimates on that.
It’s difficult to predict, he said, but it could happen if the sanctions take a very serious toll on the regular Russian population, who will then present grievances to the Russian government.
Russia will likely launch sophisticated cyber-attacks against infrastructure and specific agencies or individuals, he said.
At this point, it is difficult to predict whether this will take the form of a single warning strike or a mass attack.
However, he noted that Russia has so far refrained from using such tactics in the West.
However, if the West increases its involvement in Ukraine, like attempting to close the skies, Russia may feel that its military mission is directly threatened, and may initiate such AI-enabled activity as a warning, he cautioned.
