The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence, is calling for the creation of a dedicated AI Crime Taskforce to “fight fire with fire” as threats posed by the technology accelerate.
Research from the institute shows financial crime, phishing, and romance scams have rocketed in recent months, with the report insisting: “AI-enabled crime is already causing serious personal and social harm and big financial losses.”
The new AI Crime Taskforce should sit within the National Crime Agency’s National Cyber Crime Unit to coordinate a national response to AI-enabled crime, the report adds.
The new unit should collect data from across UK law enforcement to monitor and log criminal groups’ use of AI, working with national security and industry partners on strategies, and work fast to scale up the adoption of AI tools to disrupt criminal networks proactively.
Cooperation with European and international law enforcement partners also needs to be improved. This, the report noted, will ensure there is compatibility in approaches to deterring, disrupting, and pursuing criminal groups leveraging AI.
The report also calls for a new working group in Europol focused on AI-enabled crime.
Lancaster University professor of international security Joe Burton, and one of the authors of the report, said: “We need to get serious about our response and give law enforcement the necessary tools to actively disrupt criminal groups. If we don’t, we’re set to see the rapid expansion of criminal use of AI technologies.”
The report warned that Chinese innovation in frontier AI is having a worrying effect, with criminals exploiting new open weight systems with fewer guardrails to carry out more advanced tasks.
And it is the ability of AI to automate, augment, and rapidly scale the volume of criminal activity that is behind the rise in AI-enabled crime. These tools are being used and shared by state, private sector, and criminal groups, which is prompting a surge in activity.
Alan Turing Institute senior research associate Ardi Janjeva, who is a co-author of the report, added: “As AI tools continue to advance, criminals and fraudsters will exploit them, challenging law enforcement and making it even more difficult for potential victims to distinguish between what’s real and what’s fake.
“It’s crucial that agencies fighting crime develop effective ways to mitigate this, including combatting AI with AI.”
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