Oops, We Almost Started a War by Accident

A war between China and the U.S. was nearly sparked by a U.S. Navy attack on a Chinese cargo ship en route to Iran. An AI chatbot used by an “analyst” had misidentified the ship’s cargo. The report, generated with the help of AI, claimed that the Chinese ship was carrying components for nuclear weapons. U.S. Air Force planes had already been in the air to seize the ship.

CNN claims that the AI bot had mixed publicly available information with intelligence data, leading to a “misjudgment.” We can count ourselves lucky that humans noticed the AI’s error in time. Many victims of Israeli attacks — which were planned with the help of AI and carried out in violation of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare without consideration of “collateral damage” — were not so lucky.

Given the warnings about the rapid development of AI, this incident is further evidence that humanity should proceed with caution not only when it comes to the automation of warfare ...

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Read more https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/ausland/internationale-politik/id_101443180/usa-fehlerhafter-geheimdienstbericht-haette-fast-zu-krieg-mit-china-gefuehrt.html

Comment

For further confidential communication, we recommend that you include a reference to a secure messenger, such as Session, Bitmessage, or similar, below the comment text.

To prevent the use of this form by spam robots, please enter the portrayed character set in the left picture below into the right field.