The Department of Justice says one of its enforcement priorities moving forward will be policing artificial intelligence being used to commit crimes.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco spoke about the issue in keynote remarks Wednesday at the American Bar Association's San Francisco meeting on white-collar crime.
"The global threat landscape is changing rapidly," Monaco said in prepared remarks. "And, as always, we're evolving to meet new and emerging threats, including those from the malicious use of disruptive technologies."
She warned that the potential for AI to be used for illegal purposes looms larger than ever.
"Fraud using AI is still fraud," Monaco said. "Price fixing using AI is still price fixing."
She says enhanced sentencing, like increased penalties for criminals who use a gun, should be extended to criminals who use AI as a weapon.
Monaco warns that compliance officers should how well their company's programs mitigate the most significant risks of violations. And for a growing number of businesses, that now includes the risk of misusing AI.
The Justice Department says that it will now assess a company's ability to manage AI-related risks as part of its overall compliance efforts.
A new initiative called "Justice AI" will bring together leaders across industry, academia, law enforcement, and civilians to address the impacts of AI.
Monaco was attending the first of those meetings in San Francisco on Thursday.
"We will use these conversations to inform the Department's AI policy on a range of fronts, including the corporate compliance issues I've asked the Criminal Division to consider," she said.
On Wednesday the Justice Department brought charges against a former Google software engineer who is accused of stealing AI trade secrets from the company while secretly working with two China-based companies.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said the charges were the latest illustration of the lengths affiliates of companies based in the People's Republic of China are willing to go to steal American innovation.
