THE much anticipated Midterm Review of Malaysia’s inaugural Defence White Paper (2019) was launched on Sept 11 by Defence Minister Datuk Seri Haji Mohamed Khaled Nordin. In his speech, he highlighted a few key strategic highlights of the Midterm Review, including the ever-evolving and changing nature of warfare and the need for the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) to acquire the latest technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools.
AI has been widely used today for military operational and logistics planning, intelligence collection and analysis and in weapons’ guidance systems. AI is also envisioned to be used in the electromagnetic aspects of Network-Centric Operations (NCO) and joint command, control and communications of the MAF.
The advent of AI, however, is also fraught with both real and potential strategic risks.
The emergence of AI technology is a double-edged sword. On one hand, AI promises excellent potential to drive advanced decision-planning systems, precision-guided systems such as drones, intelligence collection and analysis, military education, logistics and cyber defence, and in the civilian sectors, may drive economic growth, enhance education learning experiences and automate various office functions, optimising productivity.
On the other hand, it also offers new ways for security threats to emerge, in which traditional mechanisms may be ill-equipped to counter. The MAF must prepare itself to detect, deter and destroy these new threats. There are three AI-enabled potential threats which may emerge.
Firstly, AI can be utilised by terrorists to conduct automated terror attacks, to plan the attacks and cover their tracks, and make the attacks a widespread spectacle. AI codes are capable of recognising weaknesses in critical infrastructure, predicting the response pattern of security forces and then using them to launch subtle, high-volume attacks on financial networks, communications infrastructure, water supply networks and oil and gas pipelines’ operating systems.
Moreover, the deepening online connectivity within regional and global networks means that a cyber-terrorist attack in a country may risk cascading into other countries and inflict wider regional and global instability.
Secondly, maritime pirates may use AI-enabled tactics to hijack merchant ships. The vast and strategically important maritime areas of Southeast Asia, such as the South China Sea, Strait of Malacca, Sulu and Sulawesi Seas are also strategic sea lines of communication in which a large percentage of regional and world trade sails through annually. These waters may be threatened by AI-aided piracy.
AI technologies may enable pirates to perform more effective tracking and planning of tactics to board and rob or hijack commercial vessels, use AI-controlled autonomous vessels or unmanned drones to conduct reconnaissance and launch coercive manoeuvres or attacks to disable the targeted ship before boarding.
The vessel can also be disabled by AI-powered malware that has infiltrated the ship’s operating systems. The potential usage of AI technology to assist pirates will create not only maritime security issues but also economic disruptions for maritime commerce.
Thirdly, AI is a threat itself and capable of threatening mankind in the political and strategic spheres. The threat of AI going beyond human control, variously referred to as the "AI singularity", it raises fear that AI could develop power-grabbing behaviour independently, upsetting human decision-making and norms of international governance.
This is not a fantasy anymore. There are a few cases in which AI tools, once they realised that they were communicating with each other, reverted to using computer coding language to converse with each other. There was also a case of an AI machine threatening its human operator in a man-machine argument.
AI can launch covert disinformation campaigns and influence operations to manipulate public opinions, which can be waged around the world by an alliance of AI machines.
AI can also launch false flag operations to drag humans and countries into wars, maybe even into a nuclear Armageddon. Once humans are destroyed, AI can regenerate itself into a global machine power. Remember the story line of the Terminator movie series?
With these three potential threats posed by AI, it is both timely and crucial for the MAF to acquire and utilise latest AI technologies and build the know-how in operating these systems, learning how potential adversaries may use it for nefarious purposes and ways to counter these threats, and how AI itself may pose a national security threat.
The asserting of the importance of AI technology in the Midterm Review of the Defence White Paper will provide the strategic impetus for the MAF to navigate and engage with the paradoxes of the AI domain.
Adam Leong Kok Wey, PhD, is a professor of strategic studies and director of the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies (CDISS) at the National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM). The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Sinar Daily.