9 ms·

AI and ML to Revolutionize U.S. Intelligence Community, Pentagon Official Says

116 points by bcaulfield 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
briga 9y ago
Were they not using AI and ML techniques before? Or is this announcement just indicating that they are going to put a greater emphasis on deep learning? I have trouble seeing how the NSA would function without ML techniques, for example.
- fnbr 9y ago
  I suspect that they were using classical ML techniques, and a lot of traditional scientific computing techniques, but not a lot of deep learning, given how new it is, and how slow government operates. It's also not clear how a lot of the classical ML can be translated into a DL setting- a lot of graph analysis [1] is traditionally solved using matrix factorisation, for instance, which doesn't directly translate into deep learning. You can find different ways of doing it with DL, but it's not as transferable. [1]: e.g. analysing an individual's social graph. I believe that Facebook uses a lot of classical techniques, like PCA. I've heard that Facebook has been pouring a lot of money into research that uses DL on arbitrary graphs.
  - deepnotderp 9y ago
    Random walks or spectral embeddings for graph convolutions already work exceptionally well.
    - visarga 9y ago
      I've been following the domain of Graph Neural Nets with interest for a while. It seems to be picking up.
  - danmaz74 9y ago
    > how slow government operates Government pioneered, or pushed contractors to pioneer, lots of technologies - just think about NASA. I'm pretty sure that, with their budget, the NSA is at the forefront of technologies that can be used in their field, but they obviously don't want to disclose what they do. Adopting a publicly available technology shouldn't be difficult at all.
- afarrell 9y ago
  They were definitely putting money into AI and Data Infrastructure projects. See: https://opencatalog.darpa.mil/MEMEX.html https://opencatalog.darpa.mil/MEMEX.html
- mirimir 9y ago
  Sure they were. But they have so much data. Potentially all Internet (and other telecommunications) data. There are limitations in private network bandwidth and processing, of course. But they get around that using distributed clusters. Analysis, and particularly extraction of actionable intelligence, is the key challenge. They have lots of analysts, for sure. But organizing and integrating their output has been a slow process. Reports, summaries of reports, summaries of summaries, etc. So yeah, they want godlike AI ;)
  - etiam 9y ago
    This is going to be a dark pseudogod indeed...
    - jonnybgood 9y ago
      To play devil's advocate: why is it dark? If an AI can process significantly more data than us humans to find actionable intelligence is that not a good thing? Imagine a building is on a strike list and the intelligence on it needs to be revetted. An analyst pulls in SIGINT, GEOINT, OSINT, HUMINT, etc. The analyst has 48 hours to get his products uploaded for battlefield commanders to make an air strike or not. The analyst can't possibly process all the data in time. The analyst assesses it's a weapons cache based on what they can process. In reality, it was a makeshift hospital. This is how mistakes happen in war.
      - FLUX-YOU 9y ago
        >why is it dark? I doubt the training data/AI will be accountable or visible to the citizens (yes, the analyst gets fired/van'd, but someone else takes his place). So we're trusting the intel agencies, but they're trusting an AI to some extent. They're plainly not dumb enough to let the AI drive, but it still plays a part. I'm not worried about an AI being able to sift data given a training set to some degree of accuracy. I'm more worried about the training set as a dark way of generating actionable intelligence, for good or bad purposes.
        9y ago
- nether 9y ago
  I've heard that most federal agencies are just starting to fix basic problems in their data management. Like vast troves of inconsistent spreadsheets being ETL'd into actual databases now. ML wasn't feasible because everything was such a mess.
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  Just because they used the old way doesn’t mean they are easily able to translate it to new systems .
localcdn 9y ago
Anyone have a link to watch the keynote?
ENGNR 9y ago
Count down until a contract includes extracting "anonymous", "aggregate only" models built from private communications back into their commercial activities, then techies start doing 'deep dream' type stuff to reveal swathes private data. 5 years..
- jackyinger 9y ago
  Hana; the cat is out of the bag now. Interesting idea
Iv 9y ago
Yay...
wslh 9y ago
Could Google convert into a defense provider?
- etiam 9y ago
  I suspect they see little reason to leave their successful and highly profitable role as a leading 'intelligence provider'.
empath75 9y ago
It's going to also eventually revolutionize warfighting, and I suspect that the US will be slower to adopt it than other countries because of the ethical and moral considerations of turning over decisions about life and death to machines. I worry that in 5-10 years, we might be facing a blitzkreig sort of a surprise as an ai powered drone army captures a huge amount of territory before human soldiers even manage to get their pants on to defend it, setting off a new and deadly arms race.
- elefanten 9y ago
  I think it's unlikely there will be a confident enough solution to nuclear MAD within 5-10 years, which would be a requirement for being bold enough to blitzkrieg... even with AI drone armies.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Right. How many ICBM subs does the use still have? And how many warheads? Everyone in North America could be dead, and they'd probably still launch.
- Mikeb85 9y ago
  > It's going to also eventually revolutionize warfighting, and I suspect that the US will be slower to adopt it than other countries because of the ethical and moral considerations of turning over decisions about life and death to machines. I like your assumption that the US actually cares about moral or ethical considerations, considering how many governments they've overthrown, how many terrorists they've funded, etc... Not to mention the fact that they are already the leaders in drone warfare, and routinely use drones to drop bombs on civilians. I really don't see them giving a fuck if an algorithm bombs a wedding instead of someone staring at a screen pressing the button...
  - golergka 9y ago
    In your comment, you don't have a single statement that would actually compare US to any other government. I assume you understand the difference between absolute and relative value judgements?
agorabinary 9y ago
I encourage anyone working in these fields to find other engineering work. It's a great relief to not be working on advancing Skynet.
- akerro 9y ago
  Thanks nVidia for publishing this on your blog, so we know who is officially supporting Skynet managed by insane US administration.
  - saas_co_de 9y ago
    this is going to revolutionize Nvidia's stock price and probably not much else.
- padelt 9y ago
  Came to Ctrl-F for Skynet. Was not disappointed. This seems to be a classic situation of reasonable strategic action with problematic potential of stepping over the fine line to automatic actions based on AI-derived intelligence. Maybe not now, but think a decade into the future where enough time and space has passed between the initial planning/implementation personnel and those advancing what "has always been there". We can only hope the others love their children too.
- saas_co_de 9y ago
  It doesn't matter what field of ML you work in. The underlying tech is the same and can be applied to anything.
- _grep_ 9y ago
  People won't be leaving that field any time soon. There's already a massive shortage of data science talent in private industry, and adding demand from the government won't help. But with the government shelling out buckets of cash for programs with AI/ML, there will be even more demand, meaning contractors will need to lure in DS talent. People in DS will be making way too much money to want to leave the industry.
tpallarino 9y ago
Greaaaat...
groby_b 9y ago
Oh, yay. Given the magic of AI and ML, that's going to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions. If we're lucky, we'll even survive to tell the tale. It's going to be vulnerable to (accidentally or intentionally) biased training data, and on top of that we're making rapid progress on adversarial patterns. On top of all that, the results will be relatively inscrutable. (Yes, you can somewhat explain the results you get. But the lure of ML is that it's right most of the time, and you start trusting it. Not to mention that explanations cost time and money)
- Canada 9y ago
  It's a reasonable strategy for processing images and other sensor data. People aren't perfect for the task either. We're expensive, get bored easily, and even at the best of times we're also vulnerable to plenty of adversarial patterns.
  - tmalsburg2 9y ago
    Please define "reasonable" and explain how your definition accounts for the potential risks pointed out by OP.
    - Canada 9y ago
      Automated or not, the nature of the military mission guarantees it will take the lives and destroy the property of innocent people. (So don't take this as an endorsement of what the military is doing.) If all you care about is winning and you accept that human sentries sometimes shoot the wrong people, as all military forces do, then automation of sentry tasks makes perfect sense.
- DyslexicAtheist 9y ago
  poisoning ML training data is the new weapon against big-AI and the AI industrial complex :-D. Judging from your comment you probably have seen this already. Let me throw it out there for those who haven't: https://twitter.com/daniel_bilar/status/925541876484231168 https://twitter.com/daniel_bilar/status/925541876484231168
arudland1987 9y ago
No shit sherlock.
scalablenotions 9y ago
Reading this article, along with the following one, is striking: http://www.labsix.org/physical-objects-that-fool-neural-nets/ http://www.labsix.org/physical-objects-that-fool-neural-nets...
Dowwie 9y ago
The icing effect is real..
gras 9y ago
I guess this means I'll have to pirate my computer hardware to maintain my karma...

116 points by bcaulfield 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Were they not using AI and ML techniques before? Or is this announcement just indicating that they are going to put a greater emphasis on deep learning? I have trouble seeing how the NSA would function without ML techniques, for example.

fnbr 9y ago
I suspect that they were using classical ML techniques, and a lot of traditional scientific computing techniques, but not a lot of deep learning, given how new it is, and how slow government operates. It's also not clear how a lot of the classical ML can be translated into a DL setting- a lot of graph analysis [1] is traditionally solved using matrix factorisation, for instance, which doesn't directly translate into deep learning. You can find different ways of doing it with DL, but it's not as transferable. [1]: e.g. analysing an individual's social graph. I believe that Facebook uses a lot of classical techniques, like PCA. I've heard that Facebook has been pouring a lot of money into research that uses DL on arbitrary graphs.
- deepnotderp 9y ago
  Random walks or spectral embeddings for graph convolutions already work exceptionally well.
  - visarga 9y ago
    I've been following the domain of Graph Neural Nets with interest for a while. It seems to be picking up.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  > how slow government operates Government pioneered, or pushed contractors to pioneer, lots of technologies - just think about NASA. I'm pretty sure that, with their budget, the NSA is at the forefront of technologies that can be used in their field, but they obviously don't want to disclose what they do. Adopting a publicly available technology shouldn't be difficult at all.
afarrell 9y ago
They were definitely putting money into AI and Data Infrastructure projects. See: https://opencatalog.darpa.mil/MEMEX.html https://opencatalog.darpa.mil/MEMEX.html
mirimir 9y ago
Sure they were. But they have so much data. Potentially all Internet (and other telecommunications) data. There are limitations in private network bandwidth and processing, of course. But they get around that using distributed clusters. Analysis, and particularly extraction of actionable intelligence, is the key challenge. They have lots of analysts, for sure. But organizing and integrating their output has been a slow process. Reports, summaries of reports, summaries of summaries, etc. So yeah, they want godlike AI ;)
- etiam 9y ago
  This is going to be a dark pseudogod indeed...
  - jonnybgood 9y ago
    To play devil's advocate: why is it dark? If an AI can process significantly more data than us humans to find actionable intelligence is that not a good thing? Imagine a building is on a strike list and the intelligence on it needs to be revetted. An analyst pulls in SIGINT, GEOINT, OSINT, HUMINT, etc. The analyst has 48 hours to get his products uploaded for battlefield commanders to make an air strike or not. The analyst can't possibly process all the data in time. The analyst assesses it's a weapons cache based on what they can process. In reality, it was a makeshift hospital. This is how mistakes happen in war.
    - FLUX-YOU 9y ago
      >why is it dark? I doubt the training data/AI will be accountable or visible to the citizens (yes, the analyst gets fired/van'd, but someone else takes his place). So we're trusting the intel agencies, but they're trusting an AI to some extent. They're plainly not dumb enough to let the AI drive, but it still plays a part. I'm not worried about an AI being able to sift data given a training set to some degree of accuracy. I'm more worried about the training set as a dark way of generating actionable intelligence, for good or bad purposes.
      - 9y ago
nether 9y ago
I've heard that most federal agencies are just starting to fix basic problems in their data management. Like vast troves of inconsistent spreadsheets being ETL'd into actual databases now. ML wasn't feasible because everything was such a mess.
zitterbewegung 9y ago
Just because they used the old way doesn’t mean they are easily able to translate it to new systems .

localcdn 9y ago

Anyone have a link to watch the keynote?

ENGNR 9y ago

Count down until a contract includes extracting "anonymous", "aggregate only" models built from private communications back into their commercial activities, then techies start doing 'deep dream' type stuff to reveal swathes private data. 5 years..

jackyinger 9y ago
Hana; the cat is out of the bag now. Interesting idea

Iv 9y ago

Yay...

wslh 9y ago

Could Google convert into a defense provider?

etiam 9y ago
I suspect they see little reason to leave their successful and highly profitable role as a leading 'intelligence provider'.

empath75 9y ago

It's going to also eventually revolutionize warfighting, and I suspect that the US will be slower to adopt it than other countries because of the ethical and moral considerations of turning over decisions about life and death to machines. I worry that in 5-10 years, we might be facing a blitzkreig sort of a surprise as an ai powered drone army captures a huge amount of territory before human soldiers even manage to get their pants on to defend it, setting off a new and deadly arms race.

elefanten 9y ago
I think it's unlikely there will be a confident enough solution to nuclear MAD within 5-10 years, which would be a requirement for being bold enough to blitzkrieg... even with AI drone armies.
- mirimir 9y ago
  Right. How many ICBM subs does the use still have? And how many warheads? Everyone in North America could be dead, and they'd probably still launch.
Mikeb85 9y ago
> It's going to also eventually revolutionize warfighting, and I suspect that the US will be slower to adopt it than other countries because of the ethical and moral considerations of turning over decisions about life and death to machines. I like your assumption that the US actually cares about moral or ethical considerations, considering how many governments they've overthrown, how many terrorists they've funded, etc... Not to mention the fact that they are already the leaders in drone warfare, and routinely use drones to drop bombs on civilians. I really don't see them giving a fuck if an algorithm bombs a wedding instead of someone staring at a screen pressing the button...
- golergka 9y ago
  In your comment, you don't have a single statement that would actually compare US to any other government. I assume you understand the difference between absolute and relative value judgements?

agorabinary 9y ago

I encourage anyone working in these fields to find other engineering work. It's a great relief to not be working on advancing Skynet.

akerro 9y ago
Thanks nVidia for publishing this on your blog, so we know who is officially supporting Skynet managed by insane US administration.
- saas_co_de 9y ago
  this is going to revolutionize Nvidia's stock price and probably not much else.
padelt 9y ago
Came to Ctrl-F for Skynet. Was not disappointed. This seems to be a classic situation of reasonable strategic action with problematic potential of stepping over the fine line to automatic actions based on AI-derived intelligence. Maybe not now, but think a decade into the future where enough time and space has passed between the initial planning/implementation personnel and those advancing what "has always been there". We can only hope the others love their children too.
saas_co_de 9y ago
It doesn't matter what field of ML you work in. The underlying tech is the same and can be applied to anything.
_grep_ 9y ago
People won't be leaving that field any time soon. There's already a massive shortage of data science talent in private industry, and adding demand from the government won't help. But with the government shelling out buckets of cash for programs with AI/ML, there will be even more demand, meaning contractors will need to lure in DS talent. People in DS will be making way too much money to want to leave the industry.

tpallarino 9y ago

Greaaaat...

groby_b 9y ago

Oh, yay. Given the magic of AI and ML, that's going to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions. If we're lucky, we'll even survive to tell the tale. It's going to be vulnerable to (accidentally or intentionally) biased training data, and on top of that we're making rapid progress on adversarial patterns. On top of all that, the results will be relatively inscrutable. (Yes, you can somewhat explain the results you get. But the lure of ML is that it's right most of the time, and you start trusting it. Not to mention that explanations cost time and money)

Canada 9y ago
It's a reasonable strategy for processing images and other sensor data. People aren't perfect for the task either. We're expensive, get bored easily, and even at the best of times we're also vulnerable to plenty of adversarial patterns.
- tmalsburg2 9y ago
  Please define "reasonable" and explain how your definition accounts for the potential risks pointed out by OP.
  - Canada 9y ago
    Automated or not, the nature of the military mission guarantees it will take the lives and destroy the property of innocent people. (So don't take this as an endorsement of what the military is doing.) If all you care about is winning and you accept that human sentries sometimes shoot the wrong people, as all military forces do, then automation of sentry tasks makes perfect sense.
DyslexicAtheist 9y ago
poisoning ML training data is the new weapon against big-AI and the AI industrial complex :-D. Judging from your comment you probably have seen this already. Let me throw it out there for those who haven't: https://twitter.com/daniel_bilar/status/925541876484231168 https://twitter.com/daniel_bilar/status/925541876484231168

arudland1987 9y ago

No shit sherlock.

scalablenotions 9y ago

Reading this article, along with the following one, is striking: http://www.labsix.org/physical-objects-that-fool-neural-nets/ http://www.labsix.org/physical-objects-that-fool-neural-nets...

Dowwie 9y ago

The icing effect is real..

gras 9y ago

I guess this means I'll have to pirate my computer hardware to maintain my karma...