Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming powerful enough to significantly enhance the capabilities of criminals, terrorist groups and hostile states unless governments and technology companies strengthen safety measures, according to a new report published by the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER).
The report warns that increasingly capable AI systems could make sophisticated cyberattacks cheaper, faster and accessible to a much wider range of malicious actors while also accelerating online disinformation, fraud, biological and chemical threats, and the military use of autonomous weapons.
The warning comes as competition among leading AI developers has produced a new generation of so-called “frontier” AI models, prompting governments and intelligence agencies worldwide to reassess the technology’s national security implications.
The Cambridge report comes at a time when companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta and xAI are releasing increasingly advanced large language models capable of reasoning, writing software, conducting scientific research and completing complex tasks with minimal human supervision.
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Unlike earlier AI systems designed primarily to generate text, today’s frontier models can write and debug computer code, analyse vast datasets, browse the internet, use digital tools, plan multi-step workflows and collaborate with users on lengthy projects.
These advances are expected to transform industries ranging from health care and education to engineering and scientific research. AI is already helping researchers accelerate drug discovery, improve productivity and automate time-consuming tasks.
But the same capabilities that promise enormous economic and scientific benefits could also lower the barriers for malicious use.
Frontier AI models are becoming more capable
According to the University of Cambridge report, AI is a classic “dual-use” technology — one capable of delivering profound benefits while simultaneously creating new opportunities for abuse.
The researchers stress that technological progress itself is not the threat; rather, the challenge is ensuring that safety measures evolve as quickly as AI capabilities.
The pace of progress has surprised even many experts.
Britain’s AI Security Institute has found that AI performance in several areas, particularly cybersecurity, is improving at remarkable speed, with some cyber capabilities doubling roughly every eight months. Recent frontier models have already demonstrated expert-level performance on selected cybersecurity tasks.
Those advances have prompted growing concern among intelligence agencies.
Earlier this week, the Five Eyes intelligence alliance — comprising the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — warned that AI models capable of enabling highly sophisticated cyberattacks against governments, businesses and critical infrastructure could emerge within months, calling cybersecurity an urgent leadership challenge rather than merely a technical issue.
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Cybercrime and misinformation top concerns
The Cambridge researchers identify cybercrime as perhaps the most immediate risk posed by advanced AI.
