White House Memo Highlights AI Security Issues for Agencies

to DOJ, Commerce, State, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the CIA, the Director of National Intelligence and several other agencies. “Our competitors want to upend U.S. AI leadership and have employed economic and technological espionage in efforts to steal U.S. technology,” a White House fact sheet said. The memo “makes collection on our competitors’ operations against our AI sector a top-tier intelligence priority” and directs U.S. agencies to give AI developers “the timely cybersecurity and counterintelligence information necessary to keep their inventions secure." A senior administration official told reporters Wednesday that the memo addresses “the importance of protecting advanced AI technologies so that they’re not used against us by adversary militaries or intelligence services.” The memo warns about the risks of not taking enough steps to protect and harness AI. If the U.S. government doesn’t “act with responsible speed and in partnership with industry, civil society, and academia to make use of AI capabilities in service of the national security mission -- and to ensure the safety, security, and trustworthiness of American AI innovation writ large -- it risks losing ground to strategic competitors,” it said. “Ceding the United States’ technological edge would not only greatly harm American national security, but it would also undermine United States foreign policy objectives and erode safety, human rights, and democratic norms worldwide.”