


Russia, AI, and the future of war

AI plays to Putin's strengths. (Alexei Nikolsky / AP)



  • The type of cyber break-ins for which Moscow has become famous — known as Advanced Persistent Threat operations — currently require scores of highly skilled hands directed by the Russian military. But in the future, this capability will be automated, and the software available for purchase on the black market.
  • Any country and non-state actor will be able to buy long-range AI-enabled drones with precision strike capability.
  • With trust among people already threadbare, AI risks shredding it further, allowing dead-easy forgery of audio and visual material. This rewards Russia's skillset, often leaning on deception that, over time, makes people doubt what they see and hear.
  • Russia is behind now, but that is not reassuring. "Russia was never a leader in internet technology either," writes Allen, "but the country has built a large and capable force of cyber hackers that knocked out a substantial portion of the Ukrainian power grid, infiltrated U.S. nuclear facilities and brought chaos to the 2016 presidential election."

On the overall threat, listen to Bloomberg View's Leonid Bershidsky: "Nations will be killing with AI long before the technology can cause mass unemployment."