By Guy Faulconbridge
LONDON, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The chief of Britain's foreign
spy service warned on Tuesday that the West's adversaries such
as China and Russia were racing to master artificial
intelligence in a way which could revolutionise geopolitics over
the next decade.
The world's spies, from Langley and London to Moscow and
Beijing, are trying to grapple with seismic advances in
technology that are challenging traditional human-led spying
operations which dominated for thousands of years.
Richard Moore, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service,
known as MI6, said quantum engineering, engineered biology, vast
troves of data and advances in computer power posed a threat
that needed to be addressed by the West.
"Our adversaries are pouring money and ambition into
mastering artificial intelligence, quantum computing and
synthetic biology, because they know that mastering these
technologies will give them leverage," Moore, who rarely
surfaces for speeches, will say on Tuesday.
Moore, a former diplomat who became MI6 chief in 2020, said
technological progress over the next decade could outstrip all
tech progress over the past century.
"As a society, we have yet to internalise this stark fact
and its potential impact on global geopolitics. But it is a
white-hot focus for MI6," he said.
Of particular concern to the West's spies are Russian and
Chinese intelligence agencies which have rushed to harness the
power of a range of sophisticated technologies, sometimes at a
faster pace than in the West.
Western intelligence agencies fear Beijing could within
decades dominate all of the key emerging technologies,
particularly artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and
genetics.
China’s economic and military rise over the past 40 years is
considered to be one of the most significant geopolitical events
of recent times, alongside the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union
which ended the Cold War.
MI6, depicted by novelists as the employer of some of the
most memorable fictional spies from John le Carré’s George
Smiley to Ian Fleming’s James Bond, operates overseas and is
tasked with defending Britain and its interests.
Moore said the service would have to change to harness new
technologies.
"We cannot hope to replicate the global tech industry, so we
must tap into it," he will say. "We must become more open, to
stay secret."
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge. Editing by Andrew MacAskill)