The European law enforcement agency EUROPOL recently released a study detailing the potential risks of ChatGPT. EUROPOL is the European Union’s law enforcement arm and works to fight drug trafficking and terrorism within the EU. The study, conducted by the Europol Innovation Lab, analyzed the new Artificial Intelligence platform and identified three key areas in which criminals may take advantage of it—fraud, cybercrime, and disinformation.
The report focused on so-called large language models (LLMs), which are the type of AI that ChatGPT falls under. A large language model is one that can process, manipulate, and generate text through learning the connections between words after being fed huge volumes of data. ChatGPT was chosen as the primary platform to study due to it being the most well-known and used by the public.
Europol’s war-gaming simulations explored the various ways criminals can misuse ChatGPT. The report stated that LLMs have dark sides that are improving as time progresses and focused on the potential for abuse of AI for fraud, cybercrime, and disinformation.
In terms of fraud and social engineering, ChatGPT’s ability to create realistic text by mimicking language patterns and speech makes it an ideal tool for potential scammers. In the case of disinformation, ChatGPT excels at producing content quickly at scale, meaning it can be abused in propaganda and false information campaigns. Lastly, cybercrime, LLMs are also capable of generating code in various programming languages, making it easier for criminals with little to no technical knowledge to create malicious code.
Through this report, Europol aims to raise awareness of the misuse of LLMs and to urge AI companies to develop safe and secure platforms. The report suggests law enforcement remain up to date with advancements in order to anticipate and prevent potential misuse.
An Garda SÃochána, the national police force of the Republic of Ireland, received a copy of the Europol report in order to prepare for the projected increased use of ChatGPT by criminals.
The company mentioned in this article is ChatGPT, a large language model that is the highest-profile publicly accessible AI tool available to the public. ChatGPT is capable of generating text in response to user prompts, translating content, engaging in conversations, and producing code.
The person that the article mentions is Ciaran Knight, a sergeant and the Head of Europol’s Innovation Lab. He is responsible for investigating innovative technologies and analyzing their potential for criminal abuse. Knight and his team are the ones responsible for drafting the report, with the aim of raising public awareness of the potential risks of using large language models.
