The U.S. State Department is making online training and tools available to enable diplomats to use artificial intelligence to translate and monitor global news websites and social media platforms, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Friday.
During a presentation in Washington, Blinken said the AI.State portal would be a "central hub for all things AI at the department."
It's a "home for all of our internal State Department AI tools: libraries of prompts and use cases," he said, according to an official transcript.
The State Department has an "incredible" software program that's "able to basically ingest a million articles every day from around the world ... and then immediately translate, synthesize, and give you a clear picture of what's happening in the information space immediately," Blinken said.
The software also works on social media websites and can help officials understand "what's actually happening in the information space in a given place on a given issue at a given time," he said
The program, called Northstar, was "launched a couple of months ago" and department employees "can go right now and get access," chief data and AI officer Matthew Graviss said during the presenation.
Blinken said AI could be used "as a way to combat disinformation, one of the poisons in the international system today" and "for helping negotiations in multilateral organizations."
Blinken also acknowledged concerns about the "broader threats that the misuse, the mal-use of AI could pose, including to our national security, enabling other countries, enabling other groups to weaponize technology in very, very dangerous ways."
"But I think if you look at this, as long as we're focused on these potential downsides, as long as we're thinking up front about them and taking the necessary steps to mitigate, the potential benefits far outweigh what we have to be rightly concerned about," he said.
