CIA to build its own ChatGPT-style AI bot for investigations: Report

The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is planning to build and deploy its own ChatGPT-style artificial intelligence (AI) bot for investigations, according to a report from Bloomberg. 

The CIA reportedly plans to equip its analysts with the new AI tool to better access open-source intelligence. This includes sifting through public information for leads in investigations.

Agency officials said they intend to roll out the tool soon. Randy Nixon, director of the CIA’s open source enterprise, told Bloomberg that they have gone from utilizing “newspapers and radio, to newspapers and television, to newspapers and cable television, to basic internet, to big data, and it just keeps going.”

The development comes after critics have described the current methods through which the CIA processes available public data as “slow.”

Bloomberg reported that the new tools will allow its users to see the original source of the information being sourced, along with a chat feature.

“Then you can take it to the next level and start chatting and asking questions of the machines to give you answers, also sourced.”

There was no mention of the model from which the CIA is building its new tool nor its privacy protections, though Nixon said it “closely follows” privacy law in the United States.

The tool will reportedly be available across the 18 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence. This includes the CIA, National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and military-run agencies.

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This development from the CIA comes after recent confirmation from other governmental agencies of the use of AI. 

On Sept. 12, Gary Gensler, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair, confirmed to the U.S. Senate that his department is currently employing AI tools to monitor the finance industry to search for clues of fraud and manipulation.

In a speech on July 17, Gensler praised the use of AI tools, saying SEC staff could benefit from greater use of AI in “market surveillance, disclosure review, exams, enforcement and economic analysis.”

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