Overview
- Sir Ken McCallum announced the launch of an AI Threat Assessment Centre on Tuesday and said MI5 has already caught terrorists trying to use AI to improve reconnaissance and to enable drone attacks.
- McCallum warned that, if technical guardrails fail, AI could give lower‑skill actors access to dangerous biological knowledge or even generate novel pathogens, a misuse he described as not yet realised but high priority.
- AITAC will pool expertise from the AI Security Institute, the National Crime Agency and the National Cyber Security Centre to produce joint, evidence‑based assessments and to separate hype from material risk.
- MI5 said its state‑threat caseload has quadrupled over the past decade and that the agency is now devoting more resources to countering Russia, Iran and China than at any time since the Cold War.
- The agency urged firms and the public to bolster cyber hygiene—warning startups to expect foreign spying—and experts said the announcement raises urgent questions about national resilience, international AI guardrails and who pays to secure critical services such as banking, health and transport.