Britain’s MI6 intelligence chief says AI won’t replace human spies

The head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency says artificial intelligence will never replace human spies. Richard Moore will use a speech Wednesday in Prague to highlight evolving threats to the West from Russia and Iran, and argue that the “human factor” will remain crucial in an era of rapidly evolving machine learning. He is expected to highlight the ability of human spies to “influence decisions inside a government or terrorist group.” Speaking publicly about spycraft is still something of a novelty for Britain’s intelligence services. The government refused even to confirm the existence of MI6 until 1992, and public speeches by its leaders are infrequent.