Washington: A false intelligence report produced with the help of artificial intelligence reportedly brought the US military close to intercepting a Chinese ship during the war with Iran earlier this year.
According to CNN, four sources familiar with the episode said the report claimed that a Chinese vessel in the Middle East was carrying components linked to a nuclear weapons programme.
US forces began preparing to intercept the ship, with armed personnel reportedly ready to board it and military aircraft sent into the air.
Officials discovered shortly before the planned operation that the intelligence had been generated with assistance from an AI chatbot. The chatbot had inaccurately identified material listed in the ship’s cargo manifest, according to the sources cited by CNN.
The report was subsequently described by one source as entirely false. CNN said it could not determine what the cargo actually was or establish whether the AI system involved was commercially available or operated by the US government.
The incident is significant because any US military action against a Chinese vessel could have carried a risk of direct escalation between Washington and Beijing.
CNN reported that the analyst had used an AI chatbot to combine information from open sources with classified signals intelligence before using AI again to package the findings into a standard intelligence report.
Neither US Special Operations Command Pacific nor the Pentagon responded to CNN’s request for comment.
The episode comes as the US military is rapidly expanding the use of AI for intelligence, battlefield decision making and other military functions.
In January, the US Department of War announced an AI Acceleration Strategy aimed at expanding access to advanced AI models across the department and integrating the technology into warfighting, intelligence and administrative operations.
