The Hague:
Artificial intelligence is organized crime from Turbo, from creating images of sexual abuse of children to money laundering via cryptocurrency, Europol warned Tuesday, with progress such as Quantum Computing, only ready to make things worse.
In a report that establishes the threats of organized crime, the European police organization said that criminals had offered the opportunities that AI had offered as a “catalyst” to accelerate their activities.
“Fast technological progress-especially in artificial intelligence (AI) reforms how crime is organized, performed and hidden,” EuroPol said in a detailed report of 80 pages “threat assessment”.
“These shifts make organized crime more dangerous and are an unprecedented challenge for EU security and its member states,” the police added.
The use of AI and other technologies help criminals throughout the portfolio – from drugs and human trafficking to cyber crime and identity theft.
Generative AI enables criminal gangs to get their goals more worldwide in several languages and even generate images of sexual abuse of children, warned the police report.
“Explicit images of adults can be manipulated to make the individual look younger or applications can 'push' non-explicit images,” the report said.
“The qualities that make AI revolutionary – accessibility, versatility and refinement – have made it an attractive tool for criminals,” Europol noted.
'AI-controlled criminals'
Technology also makes it more difficult for authorities to recover unlawfully obtained profits.
The seizure of the revenue of crime is about two percent, the police said, with the challenge “further aggravated by the increasing criminal exploitation of digital assets.”
Criminal groups use cryptocurrency to wash money white and move funds, making it difficult to follow and eventually seize.
“The criminal exploitation of cryptocurrency as a payment method has now gone beyond the reach of cyber crime and is increasingly found in more traditional crime areas such as drug trafficking or migrant smuggling.”
As the technology improves, the boost to criminal activities is likely to increase, according to Europol, where the rapid developments in Quantum Computing, the Metavern, 6G, unmanned systems and brain computers interfaces are noticed.
“The high levels of anonymity, speed and refinement currently demonstrated by criminal networks will probably only increase in the coming years,” the report warned.
Quantum Computing in particular enables criminals to easily crack current coding technology.
Finally, the police raised the dystopian prospect of criminal gangs that were fully performed by AI.
“The rise of completely autonomous AI could pave the way for fully AI-controlled criminal networks, which marks a new era in organized crime,” the report said.
(This story was not edited by Our staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
