CIA’s Lakshmi Raman on integrating AI with intelligence work
The CIA’s proactive adoption of AI, along with the NSA’s focus on AI advancements, highlights the use of AI to enhance national security operations.
Lakshmi Raman, the Director of AI at the CIA, has had a remarkable journey within the intelligence community. Starting as a software developer in 2002, Raman rose through the ranks to lead the CIA‘s enterprise data science efforts. She credits her success to the presence of women role models at the agency, which has historically been male-dominated.
In her current role, Raman oversees and integrates AI activities across the CIA, emphasising the partnership between humans and machines. The CIA has been utilising AI since around 2000, particularly in natural language processing, computer vision, and video analytics. Raman highlighted the agency’s focus on staying abreast of new trends like generative AI, which aids in content triage, search, discovery, and countering analytic bias.
The CIA’s proactive approach to AI, along with NSA’s focus on AI advancements, reflects the security agencies’ efforts to utilise AI as a tool to increase their effectiveness and support their mission.
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