Using Augmented Intelligence to restore confidence in the On-line World
Project Glasswing which supposedly frightens Finance Ministers and Central Banks is but the latest step in using Augmented Intelligence to help identify predators and vulnerabilities and secure the on-line world. Will 2026 also be the year in which AI-driven chatbots, front-ending human-controlled guidance and reporting (as with Cyber-helpline) help restore confidence in the online world and the GSMA hosts co-operation to enable telcos, ISPs and law enforcement agencies to identify and remove abusers from the physical Internet (that morass of interconnected cables and circuits over which the data packets flow).
Augmented and Artificial Intelligence are portmanteau terms covering different approaches towards making money out of mixing networking, data collection and algorithmic analysis masking profound differences in motivation and business model. These range from the disciplined use of information sources of known provenance, ownership and quality control to the undisciplined use of whatever data is available at no charge or can be collected from those who have not protected it. We can adds the difference between those who look forward to seeing technology used to extend the abilities of humankind and those who believe that they/we could/should abdicate responsibility for “decisions” to systems that are “cleverer” than us.
As yet, most of that cleverness is one dimension but the human brain is a multidimensional mix of neuromorphic computing technologies, and more. In Learning for Change (written in 1982 for a workshop for the UK technical press organised by Donald Michie ), I described the “application of memory and logic which any properly programmed computer can do”. The technologies have advanced immensely since that was written but dreams of moving beyond one dimension are still largely hallucinogenic.
Meanwhile, as predicted twenty years ago (in a paper written for the 50th Anniversary of the LEO computer) trust in the on-line world has collapsed under a landslide of falsehood and misinformation. But at the time that paper was being written, the use of data analytics and machine intelligence to identify and reduce online fraud was already being pioneered by Paypal . Co-founder Max Levchin saw that using Augmented Intelligence to analyse and respond to customer complaints was the only way to prevent their business model from being torn apart by abuse. Today Paypal still “stands out from the pack” in making it easy for its customers to forward suspect messages for automated collation and analysis.
Peter Thiel , one of the other co-founders, then created Palantir to offer similar software to others to protect their businesses and customers. But the silicon valley investors of the day were not interested in a business selling counter-fraud software to users. Hence the long slow growth of Palantir, with customers persuaded to become shareholders in order to co-fund what they wanted.
To view Palantir as a defence contractor invading civilian markets would be wrong. But the FBI and Defence contractors were among the first to take up that offer. Hence the way that Palantir grew on that back of government shareholdings as opposed to government contracts . In consequence, in 2014 Peter Thiel described the business as being on a mission to “reduce terrorism while preserving civil liberties”.
Palantir has long provided analytics software to the US healthcare and banking service not “just” Law Enforcement and Defence . Today Palantir UK describes itself as Next Generation Defence Against Counter Fraud and those complaining about its NHS business appear to be those who give no priority to sorting out fraud and waste to free funds to better treat patients. The Palantir contract to provide the analytical software for Action Fraud should greatly aid the UK end of global co-operation in “taking out” organised crime networks.
Last March, at the first UK Comms Council Fraud Summit 2025 we learned that the telcos and mobile phone industry were beginning to not only use meta-data to track, trace and block the IP addresses responsible for originating fraudulent and abusive traffic, but to collate the pattens with their shared intelligence sources to unravel the organised crime networks involved and black list those who aided and abetted them, including by, for example, issuing uncontrolled blocks of IP address
Most UK calls for action against on-line abuse are addressed to Government and/or Regulators but the DCMS Select Committee 2016 Enquiry after the Talk Talk incident identified that the use of common and contract law via the Courts might be more effective.
Today we can see that approach gathering momentum in the among the Sovereign States of North America as their attorney generals bypass the lobbyists who paralyse the Federal Government and join their citizens in using use evidence of corporate mens rea to obtain punitive damages: US state court fines Meta for violating New Mexico consumer protection law in child safety case , Meta and YouTube found liable in social media addiction trial.
I will be asking the Centre for On-line Safety, Privacy and Identity (to which I am an advisor) to look at organising activities with the City Law School (former alumni include Gandhi, Jinnah, Mrs Thatcher and Tony Blair!) to help boards, their investors and their legal/technical advisors to discuss how to handle a world in which national regulators and legislators are unlikely to agree.