The White House on Wed. launched a competition offering millions of dollars in prize money for creating new artificial intelligence systems that can defend critical software from hackers.
Competitors vying for some of the $18.5m in prize money will need to design new AI systems that quickly find & fix software vulnerabilities in electric grids, subways or other key networks that could be exploited by hackers, President Joe Biden’s administration commented.
Clarion Call
“This competition will be a clarion call for all kinds of creative people in organisations to bolster the security of critical software that American families & businesses & all of our society relies on,” the Director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, Arati Prabhakar, told a briefing.
To increase participation, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) running the competition will put $7m into funding small businesses that want to compete, according to the White House.
DARPA is collaborating with AI tech giants Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, & ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which will provide expertise & technology for the competition, Prabhakar commented.
Diverse Thinkers
The challenge is intended to “bring together diverse thinkers from all across the nation to think about how we can use AI to dramatically improve cyber-security,” Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber & Emerging Technology Anne Neuberger explained in the briefing.
The challenge was announced in Las Vegas at a cyber security conference ahead of a Def Con gathering where hackers will attempt to penetrate various AI systems.
Red Teaming
“We’ll have 1,000s of people over two & a half days ‘Red Teaming’ leading AI models to see how they stack up,” Prabhakar outlined.
‘Red Teaming’ is a tech industry reference to testing systems by fiercely attacking them in the way hackers would do.
“In cyber-security, there’s always a race between offense & defence,” Neuberger observed. “We see the promise of AI in enabling defence to be one step ahead.”
Risk & Promise
US President Biden examined AI’s “enormous” risk & promise last month at a White House meeting with tech leaders who committed to guarding against everything from cyber-attacks to fraud as the sector revolutionises society.
Standing alongside top representatives from Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft & OpenAI, Biden stated that the cutting-edge companies had made commitments to “guide responsible innovation” as AI penetrates ever more into personal & business life.
