We need an open source intelligence center>
Newsposl – Samuel Toch
The roughly 6.6 billion smartphone users, 5 billion internet users, and 5,500 active satellites in orbit, as well as countless other apps, surveillance cameras, and sensors have created unprecedented opportunities to observe patterns of human life based on their digital exhaust. By some estimates, human engagement with these devices and sensors is expected to generate some 463 exabytes of data daily by 2025 — roughly equivalent to 22,047 copies of the Library of Congress’ current digital collection (for reference, Library of Congress’s digital collection was 21 petabytes in 2022). As this data is being generated, new AI tools are becoming increasingly available and essential aides for researchers to sift through for patterns and trends. Large language and computer vision models can now generate insights from massive data sets of text, images, and video. AI-enabled tools could also build out predictive models to analyze open source data.

Congressmen Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) and Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) introduced a bill in the last Congress to create an Open Translation and Analysis Center with the mission of conducting open source work and making translations available to the public. Similarly, each Intelligence Authorization Act over the last five years has carried a number of open source provisions. However, these proposed initiatives and programs have either not come to pass or have fallen short. This government entity would have a national mission to collect, process, analyze, and disseminate publicly and commercially available data related to foreign rivals. To be successful, it would need to have several key attributes. First, the entity would need a voice in the intelligence community to influence and plug into the intelligence cycle. Second, it must serve as a gateway between the Intelligence Community, the rest of the U.S. Government, and outside partners in business, academia, and civil society. Third, the entity would need to employ a hybrid workforce of both cleared and uncleared personnel. Meaningful connections to the national security apparatus require security clearances; however, many routine open source tasks are not sensitive and do not need to be concealed. Apart from the benefits of harnessing open and commercial source information, such an entity could also serve as a training ground for future AI algorithms. The less classified environment would make it easier to experiment with commercially-available AI tools, streamlining adoption and — in the process — enabling the organization to become operational faster. In a race for actionable insight to compete with the PRC, an open source agency would prepare the IC to sprint. And the better it performs, the more it would encourage other IC agencies to push the pace.
Link: https://www.newsposl.com/we-need-an-open-source-intelligence-center/