- Cybersecurity expert Ian Hogarth warns that AI could attack the UK's NHS, causing major disruptions similar to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Hogarth's AI task force has received £100 million from the UK government for research, including the development of safety tools.
September 18, 2023: Ian Hogarth, a cybersecurity expert in the United Kingdom, has given a serious warning. He says robots run by Artificial Intelligence (AI) might attack the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).
The attack could be so big it would cause troubles like the COVID-19 pandemic did.
Ian works with a special group in the UK that thinks about how to keep people safe from AI risks.
The team he works with has got a lot of money from the government. They got about £100 million, or around $124 million. The money is for them to study how to keep things safe. They are even looking at tools like ChatGPT to help.
Ian says all countries should work together to be safe from AI. He thinks even China should join in the talks.
“You can’t fight these problems alone,” he said. “We are looking at risks that could hurt national security.” Ian thinks this is something the whole world needs to think about.
The fast growth of AI is both good and bad. It’s good because it can do many things better. But it’s also bad because it could be used for bad things like cyber attacks. Ian talked about a big cyber attack on the NHS in 2017.
It was called WannaCry and it messed up a lot of things. It canceled 19,000 appointments and cost the NHS £92 million, which is about $114 million. AI could make these kinds of attacks even easier to do.
Ian said that many smart people are working on making AI even better at writing computer code.
“This technology is getting better each day,” he said. “It makes it easier for bad people to use AI to do bad things.”
So, Ian’s warning is clear. We have to be very careful with AI. It can do a lot of good, but if we’re not careful, it can also cause a lot of harm.
