Watchdog Says Google Alert Over 'Zero-Day' Cyber Attack Proves Better AI Oversight Is Urgently Needed

Watchdog group Public Citizen is raising alarms after tech giant Google on Monday revealed that a group of criminal hackers used artificial intelligence to detect a previously unidentified software vulnerability.

As reported by The New York Times, Google said that it had "high confidence" that the hackers used AI to discover and exploit the vulnerability.

While Google said that the attack had been thwarted, the Times noted that the company "did not say precisely when the thwarted attack happened, whom it was targeting, or which AI platform the hackers used."

While the discovery of so-called "zero-day vulnerabilities" were once a rare occurrence, the proliferation of AI models has made them much easier for hackers to detect. In fact, AI software vendor Anthropic earlier this year said that it had developed a model that was so good at exploiting these vulnerabilities that it would not be releasing it publicly.

John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google Threat Intelligence Group, said in an interview with Cyberscoop that this kind of AI-assisted attack "is probably the tip of the iceberg and it’s certainly not going to be the last" to occur.

“The game’s already begun and we expect the capability trajectory is pretty sharp,” Hultquist explained. “We do expect that this will be a much bigger problem, that there will be more devastating zero-day attacks done over this, especially as capabilities grow.”

JB Branch, AI governance and technology policy counsel at Public Citizen, said the attempted AI exploit once against showed how reckless Big Tech has been in aggressively pushing this technology out the door.

"Cybersecurity experts are sounding the alarm, yet AI companies continue racing to release increasingly powerful models with little regard for the societal consequences," Branch said. "It is unthinkable and irresponsible to release technologies capable of destabilizing critical systems and then worry about the fallout afterward."

Branch also said it was well past time for Congress to step in and slap strict guardrails on the development of AI.

"We need enforceable AI regulations that require rigorous safety testing, independent review, and meaningful oversight before these systems ever reach the public," he said. "Regulators cannot remain in a perpetual game of catch-up while Big Tech gambles with the safety and stability of modern society."

While calls for more AI regulation have grown in recent months, Silicon Valley elites are planning to spend massive sums of money in this year's midterm elections to prevent candidates who support AI regulation from winning public office.

Leading the Future—a super political action committee (PAC) backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and other AI heavyweights—is spending at least $100 million to elect lawmakers who aim to pass legislation that would set a single set of AI regulations across the US, overriding any restrictions placed on the technology by state governments.