UA Little Rock lands $5 million to counter AI-amplified information warfare

Dr. Nitin Agarwal, Maulden-Entergy chair and Donaghey Distinguished Professor of Information Science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has received a $5 million award to research and develop strategies to evaluate and defend against coordinated cognitive threats.

A coordinated cognitive threat is an effort to influence what people think, believe or feel by spreading misleading or manipulative information, often through social media, videos or online networks.

The award will fund research and development of artificial intelligence – informed socio-computational models to enhance situational awareness by detecting, examining, evaluating, measuring and predicting the coordinated cognitive threat level or impact of adversarial information campaigns. Unchecked online information environments can evolve rapidly, allowing adversaries to disrupt military operations through protests and other non-lethal resistance.

Agarwal, founding director of the Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS) Research Center at UA Little Rock, and his team will expand their work to understand and mitigate cognitive threats in the digital age.

“We need to develop scientific approaches to mitigate emerging cognitive threats in a global context, equip our warfighters with these capabilities, and strengthen community resiliency,” Agarwal said.

AI-enhanced cognitive threats have already become a key factor in tensions between the U.S. and China. Agarwal said that misleading narratives in the Indo-Pacific region often portray the United States negatively, with adversaries working to manipulate local opinions by spreading falsehoods.

“Such influence operation tactics can be employed clandestinely in a low-cost, low-risk context,” Agarwal said. “Military leaders can expect to encounter an increased volume of adversary-generated, AI-amplified, social media–driven information campaigns. Socio-cognitive threats are increasingly becoming: 1) a collective phenomenon, and 2) multimedia-centric. This project aims to advance socio-computational science and AI to mitigate AI-enhanced cognitive threats and strengthen community resiliency. The developed approaches will be validated and demonstrated in real-world use cases.”

The award has received support from U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., who is a strong advocate for the innovative research taking place at UA Little Rock and COSMOS.

“I am pleased to support UA Little Rock and its Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies,” Boozman said. “This award recognizes the significance of this program to our national security. The important research conducted here will enhance our ability to counter the use of novel social media tactics by foreign extremists and terrorist groups threatening the United States and our allies.”

The award also provides funding for training exercises focused on the evolving security landscape of big data analytics, data management, machine learning and AI applications. The award is expected to support about 15 graduate assistantships, several postdoctoral research fellowships, and additional positions for data engineers and network administrators.

Students working on the project will gain valuable skills in data science, artificial intelligence, natural language processing and machine learning.

“Through these projects, we are training our students to be future-ready innovators prepared to tackle real-world challenges,” Agarwal said. “These skills are highly transferable across any technology-driven environment. Even before graduation, COSMOS students receive job offers from top tech companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and other Forbes 100 companies. For those pursuing academic careers, many secure tenure-track faculty positions at leading universities. Our research is not only advancing the disciplines of social computing and AI but also establishing COSMOS and UA Little Rock as leaders in innovation.”