Washington, D.C., September 19 (ANI): A false intelligence report generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) reportedly came close to triggering a U.S. military operation against a Chinese vessel in West Asia during the war with Iran, according to a CNN report citing multiple sources familiar with the episode.
According to CNN, the intelligence report, circulated across the U.S. military this spring, claimed that a Chinese ship in West Asia was transporting components linked to a nuclear weapons program.
The report immediately raised alarm within the U.S. military and prompted preparations to intercept the vessel, as reported by CNN.
Citing four sources familiar with the incident, CNN reported that the U.S. military moved toward an operation against the ship. Two of the sources said armed U.S. military personnel were preparing to board the vessel, while military aircraft were already in the air, according to two other sources.
However, shortly before the planned operation, officials examined the intelligence more closely and discovered that the report had been prepared with the assistance of an AI system. The chatbot used by a U.S. Special Operations Command analyst had inaccurately identified the material being transported by the ship, the sources told CNN.
CNN reported that it was unable to determine what the cargo had actually been. One source described the intelligence report as “entirely false.”
The same source told CNN that the incident “almost started a war,” warning that any U.S. military operation against a Chinese vessel could have risked escalating into an armed conflict between the two countries.
According to CNN, the analyst had queried a chatbot about intelligence reporting concerning the ship’s manifest. The original reporting had originated with U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific, based in Hawaii.
It remained unclear whether the chatbot involved was a commercially available system or a U.S. government-developed product.
The chatbot reportedly combined open-source intelligence with secret signals intelligence contained in government holdings before reaching the erroneous conclusion about the cargo.
The analyst subsequently used AI a second time to package the findings into a standard intelligence report. The report was then disseminated through military channels, according to CNN, citing sources.
The incident comes as the U.S. military and intelligence community accelerate the adoption of AI for a wide range of functions, including analyzing large volumes of intelligence, selecting targets for strikes, moving military assets and handling budgeting, logistics and supply chains.
The episode highlighted concerns over the use of AI-generated information in military targeting, particularly when decisions are being made during an ongoing conflict in West Asia.
Officials have argued that rapidly integrating AI is necessary to help the U.S. military make battlefield decisions faster and to avoid falling behind adversaries that could potentially use similar technologies.
In January, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth released the Pentagon’s “Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy,” which seeks to speed up the military’s adoption of AI.
“We will unleash experimentation, eliminate bureaucratic barriers, focus our investments and demonstrate the execution app
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