U.S. intelligence leaders warned Monday that the country faces an “increasingly fragile world order” as it navigates a range of global threats exacerbated by adversaries’ use of emerging technologies like AI.
“The threat of malign actors exploiting these tools and technology to undercut U.S. interests and democracy is particularly potent as voters go to the polls in more than 60 elections around the globe this year,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the Senate Intelligence Committee at its annual hearing on the top threats to the nation.
U.S. intelligence agencies are focused on China’s efforts to manipulate the 2024 presidential election and the potential for bad actors to use AI tools to create and amplify disinformation campaigns. The U.S. is facing “an ambitious but anxious China, a confrontational Russia, some regional powers such as Iran, and more capable non-state actors [who] are challenging longstanding rules of the international system as well as U.S. primacy within it,” the intelligence community said in its new 40-page unclassified report on worldwide threats.
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The hearing represents an annual opportunity for lawmakers to publicly question the country’s top intelligence chiefs. In addition to Haines, CIA Director William Burns, FBI Director Christopher Wray, State Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Brett Holmgren, National Security Agency Director Gen. Timothy Haugh, and the head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen Jeffrey Kruse, appeared before the Senate panel. Here are some of the threats covered in the hearing and report.
China may target the 2024 U.S. elections
Intelligence officials assess that China “may attempt to influence the U.S. elections in 2024 at some level because of its desire to sideline critics of China and magnify US societal divisions,” according to the report.
Under President Xi Jinping, “Chinese leaders…
