The Language of Deception: Weaponizing Next Generation AIBy Justin HutchensWiley, 2023

The Language of Deception serves as a warning to readers about the potential misuse of new AI technologies and emerging risks associated with the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs). The author, Justin Hutchens is a cybersecurity expert who previously served in the US Air Force with technical expertise in Natural Language Processing (NLP).

The book is divided into eleven chapters and is intelligible and engaging. Hutchens explains the foundational concepts of social engineering, machine consciousness, sentience and social intelligence in the first five chapters before proceeding to describe how modern LLMs can be weaponized by malicious actors in the future. Chapter Six, ‘The Imitation Game’, in particular, explains how language models can achieve a convincing illusion of human intelligence through imitation of human language and reinforcement learning. Chapter Seven, ‘Weaponizing Social Intelligence’ details how automated bots will interact with people on the Internet under the guise that they are human for the purposes of social engineering. In conclusion, the author reflects on how the ‘runaway train’ of AI can be brought under control through regulation and safeguards that seek to protect human life and interests. 

In the beginning of his book, the author notes that since the launch of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, the app has become the most rapidly adopted technology platform in history (p.18). This is evident from the fact that within two months of its release, ChatGPT had over 100 million active users. The future of consuming information on the Internet would be “asking a direct question and getting the exact answer you were looking for, instantly” (p.42).

The phenomenal reception of ChatGPT has spurred widespread interest in AI and LLMs among tech professionals and the general public. Hutchens underlines that this newfound interest has also kickstarted a discussion of the threats posed by these new........

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