'I'd be astonished if the NSA wasn't using AI to scan communications,' warns artificial intelligence expert

Mark Bishop, professor of cognitive computing at Goldsmiths College: 'AI can be used by the intelligence agencies to spy on us quite effectively'

It would be ‘astonishing' if intelligence agencies such as GCHQ and the NSA weren't using artificial intelligence (AI) programmes in order to monitor the email communications of citizens, an expert in AI has claimed.

Mark Bishop, professor of cognitive computing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and chair of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, responded to a question on the issue from Computing at an AI debate hosted by ClickSoftware.

"AI can be used by the intelligence agencies to spy on us quite effectively. Even though there's no human listening in to every email you send, it is beyond my credulity to believe that the UK secret services are not monitoring by AI agents the content of every email that we send," he said during the panel discussion.

During a Q&A session following the debate, Bishop said he's "always believed that they're not doing their job properly if they're not using it [AI], regardless of belief of whether that's right or wrong".

Although Bishop admitted he's got no evidence to back up his claims, he told Computing he'd be "astonished if they weren't using the best AI they could to scan all electronic communication they could and say, no humans are doing this, it's done by a machine".

"Only if certain phrases crop up, will they then flag that up to a human operator who will then put an order out to intercept your emails because you used the phrase ‘blow up Houses of Parliament next week' or something. And I think then they'd go through the normal channels," he continued.

Bishop also suggested that government agencies like GCHQ and the NSA could be using AI to flag up the use of encrypted storage by members of the public.

"One of the complicated factors is with the public domain community we're getting fairly easy access to very strong encryption technologies," he said.

"Those people who do genuinely have something to hide can normally hide it, not perfectly, but with the resources that America and even the UK have, you can usually crack most codes given time," Bishop continued.

"You can certainly make life very difficult for the intelligence services by encrypting what you do," he continued, but added: "but then that also sends a message," referring to the fact that government agents, be they AI or human, will want to examine encrypted files.

"So I certainly believe that all my electronic communications are electronically scanned, but maybe I'm just paranoid," Professor Bishop concluded.

Last year, a report suggested that GCHQ has developed its own software tools to infiltrate the internet to shape what people see, with the ability to rig online polls, increase page view counts on specific websites, and psychologically manipulate people on social media.