Readout of Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco’s Trip to California and Participation in the 2024 RSA Cybersecurity Conference

Deputy Attorney General (AG) Lisa Monaco traveled to San Francisco this week to participate in the 2024 RSA Cybersecurity Conference and underscore the Justice Department’s efforts to combat cybercrime and other persistent and emerging threats to national security, including the abuse of disruptive technologies, particularly AI.

In a keynote conversation at RSA on “Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Double-Edged Sword,” the Deputy AG highlighted how the Justice Department is developing guardrails to harness the benefits of AI to fulfill the Department’s mission, while mitigating the risks posed by misuse. She spoke to AI’s potential to help identify, disrupt, and deter criminals, terrorists, and hostile nation-states — and shared how the Department is using AI tools to speed up response times to a variety of threats. She stressed that existing laws offer a firm foundation to confront misuse of AI, even as the legal framework around AI evolves. Deputy AG Monaco warned of AI’s potential to supercharge existing threats to election security — in a year when over half the global population will vote — and she urged vigilance in the face of AI’s potential to accelerate online hate and disinformation, imitate trusted sources of information, and proliferate deepfakes.

The Deputy AG was interviewed by former FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce at the 14th Annual Executive Dinner at RSA, where she discussed the progress of the Department’s Justice AI Initiative. Launched by the Deputy AG in February at the University of Oxford, Justice AI brings together stakeholders across industry, academia, law enforcement, and civil society to share expertise on both the promise of AI and the perils of its misuse.

At the RSA CEO Roundtable, she joined other senior government officials and leaders across the cybersecurity industry to discuss combating cyber threats, including the importance of public-private collaboration to the Department’s cyber strategy of protecting victims and prioritizing disruptions. Strong public-private partnerships have accelerated both the speed and scale of the Justice Department’s disruptive operations and have proven critical to dismantling nation-state-controlled botnets, taking down darknet marketplaces, and disrupting major ransomware gangs — such as the LockBit group, whose creator and administrator the Deputy AG announced was charged in the latest phase of a targeted international law enforcement operation.

The Deputy AG also led a roundtable convening, hosted by the Aspen Institute, with technology, financial, and venture capital executives to discuss the collective risks posed by the theft and abuse of disruptive technologies, especially AI, in a heightened geopolitical risk environment. She emphasized the work of the Justice Department’s Disruptive Technology Strike Force, a multi-agency effort to stop adversaries from siphoning our most critical technologies and innovations.

While in California, the Deputy AG visited the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California in Sacramento. In meetings with U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert, his leadership team, and the prosecutors and professional staff of the office, she thanked them for their hard work and dedication to the Department’s mission. Deputy AG Monaco also sat down with local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to discuss their collaboration to tackle violent crime and other public safety challenges.