TL;DR
The Alan Turing Institute has been awarded a £1 million EPSRC research grant to develop AI tools supporting intelligence analysis for national security and defence. The AiTASHA project will create explainable AI that complements—rather than replaces—human analysts.
The Intelligence Challenge
Intelligence analysts face an increasingly difficult task: making high-consequence, defensible assessments from vast, complex and uncertain datasets to identify indicators of hostile or malicious activities. They must work rapidly under intense pressure, making difficult choices about which data to analyse first and whether to gather additional intelligence at the cost of delay or increased risk.
This challenge is becoming more urgent as both the scale and complexity of intelligence datasets grow alongside evolving threats to UK safety.
A Consortium Approach
The Turing will lead a consortium spanning four leading British universities—Warwick, Southampton, Dundee and Cardiff—working closely with UK government defence and national security partners.
The researchers will build explainable, defensible AI designed to complement human analysts by recommending which existing data should be prioritised for review and which potential new data should be prioritised for acquisition.
Human-Centred AI Design
“Developing specialised artificial intelligence tools to support national security analysts is a vital area of research, aimed at keeping our country safe,” said Dr Richard Walters, Lead Research Data Scientist at the Turing’s Defence AI Research Centre.
“This work explores how machines can help intelligence analysts respond to increasingly complex threats and datasets in a more efficient way, whilst maintaining their existing high legal and ethical standards.”
Building on UK Strengths
Professor Jim Smith from the University of Warwick noted that the UK has led development of predictive models structured around human expert judgements for several decades. The AiTASHA project aims to translate these methodologies into national security applications.
Looking Forward
AiTASHA (AI Intelligence Triage & Acquisition Support for Human-centred Analysis) represents part of the Defence and National Security Grand Challenge at the Turing, which aims to protect the UK, its people and the places they inhabit. The project’s focus on explainable, ethical AI could establish templates for responsible AI deployment in high-stakes government applications.
Source: The Alan Turing Institute