The Google CEO stated in a column published in the Financial Times that it was important to guard against a future where attackers could innovate using AI and defenders can’t.
With cyber-attacks now a tool of choice for actors seeking to destabilise economies and democracies, the stakes were higher than ever, Pichai noted.
He said harnessing AI could reverse the so-called defender’s dilemma in cybersecurity, which they need to get right 100 per cent of the time, while attackers need to succeed only once.
“To empower defenders, we began embedding researchers and AI approaches in Google cybersecurity teams more than a decade ago. More recently, we’ve developed a specialised large language model fine-tuned for security and threat intelligence.
“We’re seeing the ways AI can bolster cyber defenses. Some of our tools are already up to 70 per cent better at detecting malicious scripts and up to 300 per cent more effective at identifying files that exploit vulnerabilities,” the Google CEO stated.
There is growing apprehension about the increasing power of AI in recent times.
Last year, leaders from 28 nations, including the U.S. and China, gathered at the inaugural AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park, England.
Hosted by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the summit aimed to collectively address the risks associated with rapid advancements in AI.
The leaders agreed to establish a shared understanding and responsibility regarding AI risks. Plans for additional meetings later this year in South Korea and France are in place to further address these concerns.
Reacting to this development, Pichai said those concerns were justified, “but with the right foundations, AI has the potential over time to strengthen rather than weaken the world’s cyber defences.”
He said, “I said last year that AI is too important not to regulate well. Europe’s AI Act is an important development in balancing innovation and risk. As others debate this question, the governance decisions we make today mustn’t tip the balance in the wrong direction.”
“Policy initiatives can bolster our collective security — for example, by encouraging the pooling of data sets to improve models or exploring ways to bring AI defenses into critical infrastructure sectors.”
Further, he disclosed that last year saw rapid and significant technological change powered by progress in artificial intelligence as millions of people continue to use it.
Pichai said as progress continues, society would need to decide how best to harness AI’s enormous potential while addressing its risks.
