AI is speeding up intel work, including release of JFK files: Tulsi Gabbard

Artificial intelligence is speeding up the work of America's intelligence services, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Tuesday.

Speaking to a technology conference, Gabbard said AI programmes, when used responsibly, can save money and free up intelligence officers to focus on gathering and analysing information. The sometimes slow pace of intelligence work frustrated her as a member of Congress, Gabbard said, and continues to be a challenge.

AI can run human resource programmes, for instance, or scan sensitive documents ahead of potential declassification, Gabbard said. Her office has released tens of thousands of pages of material related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and his brother, New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, on the orders of President Donald Trump.

Experts had predicted the process could take many months or even years, but AI accelerated the work by scanning the documents to see if they contained any material that should remain classified, Gabbard said during her remarks at the Amazon Web Services Summit in Washington.

We have been able to do that through the use of AI tools far more quickly than what was done previously which was to have humans go through and look at every single one of these pages, Gabbard said.

The intelligence community already relies on many private-sector technologies, and Gabbard said she wants to expand that relationship instead of using federal resources to create expensive alternatives.

How do we look at the available tools that exist largely in the private sector to make it so that our intelligence professionals, both collectors and analysts, are able to focus their time and energy on the things that only they can do," she said.

Gabbard, who coordinates the work of 18 intelligence agencies, has vowed to shake up America's spy services.

Since assuming her role this year, she has created a new task force to consider changes to agency operations as well as greater declassification. She also has fired two veteran intelligence officers because of perceived opposition to Trump, eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programmes and relocated the staff who prepare the President's Daily Brief to give her more direct control.