Members of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security and the House Select Committee on China participated in a closed-door, member-level war game last week to test AI-enabled cyber threats, infrastructure resilience and homeland security implications.
The exercise was designed to look at what would happen if the People’s Republic of China obtained Mythos-level AI capabilities. U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) led exercise member participation. The exercise tested whether a tailored AI agent trained on public information documenting both U.S. and PRC cyber strategies would defend America in and out of cyberspace in the event of a coordinated cyberattack against U.S. assets and critical infrastructure. Acting as U.S. officials, the members and policy advisors examined how the targeting of freight rail, port terminals, transportation networks and utilities, along with AI models trained on vulnerable data sets, would challenge the country’s defensive posture and impact the nation’s preparedness and resiliency.
“China is no longer months behind us in AI development; one of our greatest adversaries is quickly closing the gap. For years, China-backed threat actors have looked for any vulnerability to target our government and civilian networks and pre-position themselves in our critical infrastructure. Now advanced AI models have supercharged these capabilities,” McCaul said on the war game. “Following extensive briefings from the private sector on AI and its security implications, this war game was an important exercise for our Committees to consider cyber as a frontline domain of kinetic warfare. This is the time to gain a decisive American lead in the AI race and to use this powerful tool to proactively defend the systems that Americans rely on. The risks of falling behind are far too great.”