Code, Chaos, and Control: An Insight to a Hacker's mind.

- Ipsita

In the current global circumstances, the utilisation of AI is inevitable. But, 'With great power comes great responsibility. ' Jokes apart, to say the least, Artificial Intelligence at the moment is like Prometheus: a deliverer of fire, which can either enlighten civilisation or turn it to ashes. It animates information, gives ortho-intellection to technology, and reinvents the means by which we understand safety. However, the very intelligence that saves our systems has the power to betray the systems, as well. 

The opening of this digital play follows phishing. At one time, cybercriminals used to make fumbling emails with bad grammar. Now, when AI is linguistically accurate and insightful into the mind, it writes messages that are so convincing that even the suspicious succumb. One misleading email has the potential to unleash the dam of financial ruin, dragging banks and institutions along like a line of falling dominoes. And, all this was triggered by the machine perfection of faking trust.

The threat is compounded by DeepFake technology. It is a place in which the reality itself is bargainable, a well-known person is the one to promote a fake brand, a leader says what they never said, and the face of a stranger is the mask of a lie. Such hyper-realist illusions created by AI are not only deceiving the eye, but they also lead to the rotting of faith among the population. It is the theft of money, the destruction of reputations, and the fractured reality.

Again, Data Poisoning is more insidious. Provide an AI with bad information, and it starts to believe lies due to Machine Learning (ML). When an enemy controls information concerning an economy of a country or its military, the intelligence of the AI becomes a weapon with a loaded gun and is turned against the nation that developed it. One contaminated data point can silently paralyse empires that considered themselves as being invincible.

Even brute-force attacks have developed. It was at one time a matter of waiting and chance. In AI predictive logic, however, no more secrets exist in passwords, only patterns that can be broken. The lock could shine on the door, yet the key, invisible, is already in the hands of the algorithm.

Then there are AI-created viruses and malware, virtual serpents, which rewrite their own skin to get out of all traps. They penetrate without notice, evolve indefinitely, and infest whole systems faster than a human eye can open. One smart virus can bring to a standstill the beat of communication, business, and government in a few minutes.

However, in the midst of this mess, there is another side of AI, a saviour. It can predict generation ahead of the attack, as its patterns can be detected, and the slightest trace of a threat can be followed through a sea of data. It learns, adapts, and warns quickly than any human mind has been able to do. Besides, with the help of encryption and decryption codes, AI can generate digital bastions of inconceivable complexity, ensuring information in such languages that no hacker can decipher.

Then, it is not a matter of whether AI is good or evil. Whether humans can exercise their power without letting it corrupt their sense of morality is the question. AI is a projection;  it is a reflection of our will. Turned into armour in the possession of the wise, in the possession of the reckless, a weapon. Artificial Intelligence is not a case of machines learning to think, but rather, of humans.

- Sambuddha