Generative AI will be used as weapon to mislead public: Microsoft VC Brad Smith

Brad Smith speaking at the session on 'Preparing the World to Address Global Cyber Security Risks' at the B20 Summit in New Delhi on August 25

Generative artificial intelligence, the technology behind conversational bots like ChatGPT, will be used as a weapon by cyber organisations and nation states to mislead the public through cyber influence, Microsoft Vice-Chairman Brad Smith cautioned at a gathering of business leaders in Delhi on August 25.

"Undoubtedly, generative AI will be used as a tool and a weapon. There will be criminal organisations and governments that seek the power of generative AI for cyber security attacks. We're concerned about cyber-influence operations and nation states' efforts that are deliberately designed to mislead the population. So the challenges are real," Smith said at the B20 Summit.

However, he also said that generative AI will also be used to counter cybersecurity threats. Firstly, its predictive power can be deployed to estimate patterns of attacks and mitigate them beforehand and more importantly, it can be used by smaller organisations and governments, who face a shortage of cybersecurity professionals to shore up their cyber defence capabilities.

In a presentation, Smith said that 123 ranswomware syndicates are responsible for generating a bulk of the cyber attacks across the globe. While their success rates in terms of taking down computing systems are decreasing, the volume of attacks is increasing, according to him.

"More than 70 percent of the cyber attacks today are against organisations that have fewer than 500 people... There are 65 trillion signals to look at every day for cyber attacks. Even if all the 8 billion people in the world are engaged in cybersecurity work, it won't still be enough to look through and ward off threats", he said.

"Today defense is stronger than offense, that is something we need to sustain. But to sustain it will require work. Because the reality is that offensive capabilities are broad, especially for nation-states. So what we need to think about is how we can build the next generation of cybersecurity defense, that is the challenge we need to be ready for as we look to the future," he added.

Smith laid out three broad ways in which the tech sector can help deal with cybersecurity threats.

"When you really think about the role of the private sector, the tech sector as a whole and the role of a company like Microsoft, there are three critical advantages we have. First, we have more data than any single government because of a global network. Second, we have better infrastructure, and we are investing unprecedented amounts of capital and will continue to do so to create the infrastructure to use AI to be able to protect all of this data. Third, we have more experts," he said.