Editing Artificial intelligence (section)

==== Bad actors and weaponized AI ====
{{Main|Lethal autonomous weapon|Artificial intelligence arms race|AI safety}}

Artificial intelligence provides a number of tools that are useful to [[bad actor]]s, such as [[authoritarian|authoritarian governments]], [[terrorist]]s, [[criminals]] or [[rogue states]].

A lethal autonomous weapon is a machine that locates, selects and engages human targets without human supervision.{{Efn|This is the [[United Nations]]' definition, and includes things like [[land mines]] as well.{{Sfnp|Russell|Norvig|2021|p=989}}}} Widely available AI tools can be used by bad actors to develop inexpensive autonomous weapons and, if produced at scale, they are potentially [[weapons of mass destruction]].{{Sfnp|Russell|Norvig|2021|pp=987–990}} Even when used in conventional warfare, they currently cannot reliably choose targets and could potentially [[murder|kill an innocent person]].{{Sfnp|Russell|Norvig|2021|pp=987–990}} In 2014, 30 nations (including China) supported a ban on autonomous weapons under the [[United Nations]]' [[Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons]], however the [[United States]] and others disagreed.{{Sfnp|Russell|Norvig|2021|p=988}} By 2015, over fifty countries were reported to be researching battlefield robots.<ref>{{Harvtxt|Robitzski|2018}}; {{Harvtxt|Sainato|2015}}</ref>

AI tools make it easier for [[Authoritarian|authoritarian governments]] to efficiently control their citizens in several ways. [[Facial recognition system|Face]] and [[Speaker recognition|voice recognition]] allow widespread [[surveillance]]. [[Machine learning]], operating this data, can [[classifier (machine learning)|classify]] potential enemies of the state and prevent them from hiding. [[Recommendation systems]] can precisely target [[propaganda]] and [[misinformation]] for maximum effect. [[Deepfakes]] and [[generative AI]] aid in producing misinformation. Advanced AI can make authoritarian [[technocracy|centralized decision making]] more competitive than liberal and decentralized systems such as [[market (economics)|market]]s. It lowers the cost and difficulty of [[digital warfare]] and [[spyware|advanced spyware]].{{Sfnp|Harari|2018}} All these technologies have been available since 2020 or earlier—AI [[facial recognition system]]s are already being used for [[mass surveillance]] in China.<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Buckley |first1=Chris |last2=Mozur |first2=Paul |date=22 May 2019 |title=How China Uses High-Tech Surveillance to Subdue Minorities |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/world/asia/china-surveillance-xinjiang.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=2 July 2019 |archive-date=25 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191125180459/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/world/asia/china-surveillance-xinjiang.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=3 May 2019 |title=Security lapse exposed a Chinese smart city surveillance system |url=https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/03/china-smart-city-exposed |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307203740/https://consent.yahoo.com/v2/collectConsent?sessionId=3_cc-session_c8562b93-9863-4915-8523-6c7b930a3efc |archive-date=7 March 2021 |access-date=14 September 2020}}</ref>

There many other ways that AI is expected to help bad actors, some of which can not be foreseen. For example, machine-learning AI is able to design tens of thousands of toxic molecules in a matter of hours.{{Sfnp|Urbina|Lentzos|Invernizzi|Ekins|2022}}