Opinion Business Insight: AI has opened up big holes in cyber security
It is too late to stop the technology being used as a damaging weapon, so great investment in defences is urgently needed
A spate of incidents over the past two months has revealed just how serious a threat today's most advanced AI poses to cyber security. It has also provided an object lesson in how misguided political efforts could end up hindering, rather than helping, with the defences.
It began with a US move that in effect blocked Anthropic's most advanced new model, Fable 5, over worries it could be used to pick holes in commonly used software – though the move was later reversed. Anthropic later said plenty of other freely available AI could do the same, including at least one Chinese model released with open weights, a limited form of open-source software.