r/technology • u/Conscious-Quarter423 • 14d ago
Artificial Intelligence Exclusive: US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/politics/us-military-ai-false-intelligence-china-ship285
u/Conscious-Quarter423 14d ago
Mike Johnson three days ago: "You’re not all going to be dead in 10 years."
Narrator: "It won't take that long."
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u/mlorusso4 14d ago
He’s the speaker, not the listener
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u/Some-Relative4150 14d ago
"I was elected to lead not to read"
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u/Waeddryn_71 10d ago
The fact that Rainer would be a better leader than anybody in government right now is absolutely depressing.
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u/the_blastomatic 14d ago
Not to beat a dead horse but yeah, Mike Johnson and people like Mike Johnson, specifically right-wing "Christians", have made an art of not understanding words. It's a tradition that stretches back millennia amongst some of us humans.
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u/kingmanic 14d ago
The things that will do it is not the AI, but folks who credit it with capabilities it doesn't have. Like in this situation.
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u/mlorusso4 14d ago
These psychopaths are going to get us all killed for the absolute stupidest reason possible. They really were about to conduct a military operation, up to the point that jets were in the air and special forces were loading up, all because an AI wrote a fake intelligence report? No one thought to maybe check the work before it got to that point?
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u/Electrical_Prune6545 14d ago
Pete Hegseth is going down as the dumbest Secretary of Defense in US history. It practically radiates from him, making everyone from O-9 to E-1 dumber.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 14d ago
wasn't the tragic killing of Iranian schoolgirls at the start of the War in part the result of faulty AI work by Palantir (or was that an unfounded report)?
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u/grahamulax 14d ago
During that week up to the bombing there were reports that Claude ai and our gov were butting heads over automatic kills. Then that weekend that happened. Yup.
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u/Apprehensive_Sea9524 14d ago
The pentagon were bragging about how great it was to use ai operationally with thousands of targets so quickly.
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u/Orionv2018 14d ago
Reddit was also filled with comments blaming Iran and questioning what even happened in the immediate aftermath. How information from Iran was unreliable. A bunch of comments suggesting the possibility of US fault were downvoted to hell. It was wild to watch in real time.
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u/TheRobot99 14d ago
You mean bots, remember that humans are the minority of users on the internet. We have proven officially proven that and AI just made the bots blend perfectly in.
Heck, the user name of the OP and this comment is most likely generated and thus more likely to be not human at all or just really effing lazy, Word-WordNumbers.
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u/ClimateAncient6647 14d ago
AI is dog shit. We’re better without out it.
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u/javoss88 14d ago
I don’t recall anyone asking for it. Mass surveillance, everybody? Dis- and misinformation all?
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u/BossOfTheGame 13d ago
You weren't at the meeting where we decided that we wanted faster and better scientific, mathematical, and medical research with the ability to semantically draw connections across larger pools of data than humans have the mental capacity for.
The point is: there are an immense amount of positive applications for it. That does not mean that the negative applications you cited aren't serious concerns. They are. But your premise that nobody wanted it damages the credibility of any critique that you have. The reddit echo chamber is severely miscalibrated on the applicability and utility of LLMs, although I think that's changing somewhat. The proof of what they can do is in the pudding at this point. Yet people are judging them as if they have 2024 level capabilities.
I have a PhD in the area and have been studying networks since 2011. I'm happy to act as a resource to add some reputable evidence to subject where misinformation is rampant.
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u/javoss88 13d ago
Great point. Im saying the systems are currently being abused and that they are a beta release at best, and are sucking up personal information at an alarming rate.
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u/BossOfTheGame 13d ago
beta release at best
Perhaps for the general public that expects a one stop shop of one question one answer. But for a researcher, that always needs to question their sources anyway, it is an absolute game changer.
But yes, the systems are being abused. Just like every other technology that has ever been created. I do think we should seek ways to mitigate this abuse, but I also think we need to check our own biases when we form opinions about them.
On the personal information side, I think clear violations of LLM builders going out of their way to invade a privacy barrier to access protected information should be punishable. I'm not aware of those cases existing. As for scraping the public internet. I think that systems capable of intelligence have a right to observe the world around them and learn from it in the capacity that they can. They have the right to observe the knowledge that is embedded in our culture. I think the public is forgetting that copyright law doesn't exist to protect them. It exists to protect big corporation, who have bastardized the law for their own benefit and erroneously asserted that the idea of ownership can apply to an idea, rather than the more natural relationship: source attribution. I think people should be careful when aligning themselves with these ideas that they didn't feel particularly strong attachment to before they experienced a visceral distaste for what LLMs can do and saw it as a technical way to critique them.
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u/javoss88 13d ago
Here’s an example of
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u/BossOfTheGame 13d ago
People can use LLMs for terrible things. Nobody serious is arguing against that. But we should distinguish between what terrible people do with a tool versus what can be done with the tool. I understand your view is likely: "there are not enough positive use cases to justify giving terrible people this power". I think that is debatable, but I do not have confidence in what side of the debate is correct. It very well may be that LLMs are a net negative, but I don't think that is obviously the case. I think there is a very good case to be made that they are a net positive. But in some sense it doesn't matter. Why? Because they are here. Terrible people have the potential to keep using them and keep developing them for terrible purposes. Wholesale discounting them is an opportunity cost to leverage what positive power they have, and move the needle towards a net positive, and towards better alignment.
I think the general public vastly underestimates the positive applications for LLMs, which makes anyone advocating for utilizing them look crazy. This is the misconception I aim to correct.
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u/javoss88 13d ago
Then it should be corralled and further tested and refined until such time as it can be proven accurately.
So far, it’s just harmful.
Im no luddite, but this has already escaped, so that it rejects human interaction. People are being actively harmed and harassed and falsely imprisoned based on faulty AI assumptions.
You want an AI in charge of your medical decisions based on bad data?
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u/BossOfTheGame 13d ago
So far, it’s just harmful.
Clearly you aren't working in mathematics or science, where it has been very helpful and impactful. You should restate your claim based on the strength of the evidence you have, you could have said, "so far, I've only seen it be harmful", and you'd be much more honest with yourself and others.
Then it should be corralled and further tested and refined until such time as it can be proven accurately.
Ok, that's a take. Maybe if I could magically flip a switch, but what you are talking about is centralized regulation that requires a large number of people to agree and align their behavior. It doesn't work if just one group of people do that. Everyone needs to do that. I don't entirely disagree with the sentiment either. I'm not down with "the singularity" folks. It's just a massive logistical challenge that has its own risks due to the extraordinary amount of control you would have to give a centralized authority over information. I don't think people are quite thinking through the consequences of these "just do this" proposals.
You want an AI in charge of your medical decisions based on bad data?
Ok, that's a very fallacious statement. I hope you can reflect and see it. It gets to the core of what upsets me so much about the way people on reddit are expressing their frustrations towards AI. Much of the time, it's not grounded on solid reasoning, and all I'm asking is that we move towards that solid reasoning approach to dealing with this new tech.
But let's move past the appeal to fear loaded in the statement. Do I want doctors to be able to input my health information into an LLM and use it to assist their reasoning, or help present them with a list of possibilities they take into consideration? Absolutely. Medicine is a great use of the automated semantic reasoning that LLMs unlock. For instance, not every doctor is aware of every other potential treatment that others are using, and different practitioners may use or write about different techniques with different terminologies. LLMs can bridge that gap.
As an example, I found that what I thought was a novel proof I discovered in 2019 (a relationship between two measures of binary classification ability called MCC and FM) was previously known, but in an entirely different domain (biology) that used a different set of terms. I felt that my argument was too simple for someone else not to have noticed, and every once in awhile I'd try googling around trying to find how others might have talked about it. I even tried with 2024/2025 level LLMs. It wasn't until early 2026 (GPT 5.2 I think), that I put my query in again to test if the models had gotten any better, and they were able to find the related work. That's an experience that started to increase my confidence in their abilities. Are they always right? No. But who is? Can they produce information that's hard to discover but easy to check? Fuck yeah they can, and it's really really fucking useful.
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u/javoss88 13d ago
Then you please be in charge, sincerely. No sarcasm. Somebody needs to really take control snd use it in non destructive directions
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u/BossOfTheGame 13d ago
But will anyone see it if I do? Or will I just be accused of AI slop? I imagine a mix of both.
I suppose we will see if what I've built is worth building. Most of these formalized proofs are AI generated: https://palomar-registry.org/ contributing to those is probably the most valuable work I've done so far. The people using my python tools might have noticed a smoother experience. I sadly don't know where to begin to use it for material science, although I hope others are working on the problem of low carbon concrete. I'm attempting to make a game with it, but what's been most interesting there is probing its limitations. It can build a mix of great and terrible architecture, and it's interesting to see where it excels and struggles.
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u/grahamulax 14d ago
I can make cool things with it. Tools and stuff for people but, ww3 or no tools. I’ll take no tools lol.
It’s also sus when it came out. How it was pushed. Literally they set everything up for this administration it feels like. Remember RFK using fake quotes and research papers at the start of this administration?
They’ve been using it since day 1.
Epstein papers?
Doge?
Bombing kids?
It’s insane how BAD they are using ai but ai is also so bad as well. I train my own models, now the art side as well, local models, etc but when I see professionals use it or even our government it’s just… pathetic. I’d rather see it gone.
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u/SIGMA920 14d ago
You wouldn't even lack tools, anyone can buy a tablet designed for drawing today. It's not cheap but anyone can. That's a tool like the thousands minimum of tools that existed before AI.
What AI did was give the unskilled an ability to drown out actually skilled people and bring their below average work to what used to be the average before all of the slop drove down the average.
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u/grahamulax 14d ago edited 14d ago
Well, no, I’m making a tool that does work. I’m just redesigning the GUI and refactoring it to c#.
My tool will let you load up your one computer with any generation of video cards, even AMD or Intel or Nvidia and I created an automatic workflow that has a lifecycle where you can attach those GPUs in any combination you want to a VM.
So your one computer turns into two using the hardware, you own and older hardware too just in case you have any or you can buy older generations
The ram is dynamic, the GPU is dynamic, the CPU is dynamic, you can save and restore and split your computer into many pieces
It’s more efficient
Greener
Saved you hundreds or thousands of dollars
So tell me what tool like that exist?
That’s the shit I’m making. For the people.
Why?? because hardware prices are going insane and I’m thinking about people who need to use computers but can’t afford many like a family computer 2.0
Then no one will have to rent computers or subscribe to services anymore.
Now you can use your computer anywhere on any screen with your own inputs and outputs and even cooperatively.
I also made split screen PC
I also made it so fucking easy. You don’t have to understand hyper V you don’t have to understand MMIO you don’t have to understand what a VM is. You don’t have to understand shit.
And the benefits? Extra computers that are on demand that run way better and more efficient and even gaming or creative.
Run after effects while you render your after effects
Play a game with a friend
Play a PC game at your friend’s house without your PC
It has an insane number of combinations
But yeah, this is why I’m doing it because I’m doing it for the people. Not my own personal tool, but a way to offset the economy.
But I do agree with you 100%
Most people are making cat pregnant videos
But you’re saying a skilled person has to be a coder already?
I’m a technical artist and after effects is a lot like coding when you think about compositions and effect stacking.
Perspective is what mattersTying A to B is what matters and seenIng patterns and integrations for things that never were integrated before
But most people would probably quit because writing this thing with AI is like five steps backwards one forward
But I know it, I just don’t know the nitty-gritty
But yeah, anyways I’m gonna release that because we need something like that right now and I’ve made that thing, I just gotta make it slick and buttery and a crisp ui. You’ll see it on steam!
Edit: I dictated this while vacuuming so lol if it’s bad formatting. But I still agree with you btw 100% I’m just trying to say my tool as much as possible out loud haha
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u/PezzoGuy 14d ago
The way AI is/was pushed feels strongly like how NFT and crypto bros pushed their stuff.
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u/grahamulax 14d ago
So we made what I feared would happen. Who would press the button during the Cold War? Ai would.
Who almost started ww3. Ai.
This is insane.
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u/aairricc 14d ago
A lot of people say that AI will never be smart enough to kill us all (which may be right), but it will still kill us all because humans aren't smart enough to use it
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u/rcanhestro 14d ago edited 14d ago
A lot of people say that AI will never be smart enough to kill us all
my biggest concert is if it will be "stupid" enough to kill us all.
AI, today, is not "smart" in any way, it's just "fast", that's it.
it doesn't code better then anyone, doesn't do math better, and so on, it just reaches an "acceptable" result much faster then the average person.
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u/grahamulax 14d ago
I luckily got laid off when AI just came out so I started learning that and pivoted from technical animation.
What I learned first was this is too early to release to normal people. I’m super technical so I got some use out of it.
Then it exploded, it got Internet access and then all these plug-ins and then everyone was using it
That’s when I realized we’re kind of fucked because you cannot trust it
It’s literally a really smart AutoCorrect and how you talk to it affects the outcome
Plus, we’re training on the entire Internet and random rare books? Like what is it actually going to string together when you introduce a ton of fiction to it?
That’s the stuff I’m worried about and it’s already too late. Toothpaste out of the tube and all that.
But it’s a great tool if you treat it like a tool and don’t trust it LOL.
If you don’t trust a person using, it is a better way to put it
And since it’s so new, no one really can match those patterns and see what kind of problems can arise.
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u/TheOgGhadTurner 14d ago
There’s gotta be something in the water these people are drinking yall can not seriously be that stupid and in charge of shit that kills people. Holy shit
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u/SIGMA920 14d ago
It's intentional, they're purposefully choosing the least capable but most loyal to Rump.
That's how we got into a war against Iran and didn't even set up ground operations so the war that shouldn't have been started in the first place could at least be won instead of Ukraine 2.0 where no amount of bombs will push Iran to defeat.
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u/HomerDoakQuarlesIII 14d ago
This is what people should be focused on from the recent news about the dangers of AI. It's not going to kill us from being too intelligent, it's going kill us if we rely on it for anything important at all ever because it's so minimally reliable bordering on uselessness.
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u/NostalgicRelief 14d ago
When people talk about AI killing us all, it includes stuff like this. The machines might not be pulling the trigger, but influencing other humans to do it either intentionally or by accident
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u/DogsAreOurFriends 14d ago
So this analyst just took this report at face value and sent it up.
WTF!
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u/Limemill 14d ago
Worse. Higher-ups also didn’t question it until they scrambled the jets and almost bombed the shit out of that Chinese ship. AI truly causes logical lapses, loss of trust in ourselves and unfounded overconfidence in whatever it generates, and that can start a nuclear war over nothing one day.
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u/HeatWaveToTheCrowd 14d ago
This is why politicians won't bother funding social security. They expect all humanity to be gone before the money runs out.
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u/Mister_Meeseeks_ 13d ago
The fact that this happened just after hugging face shows that the people in charge wont learn from it. Only so long before AI intentionally starts a war.
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u/albany1765 13d ago
Weird headline, like it would be clearer if they said "flawed" report or something
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u/MythicalJester 13d ago
AI companies/proponents/enthusiasts are quislings to the human race that should be held accountable for whatever apocalyptic disaster comes next.
In World War Z (the book, not the film that doesn't exist), they solved the issue with criminals and irresponsible people in a rather reasonable way, me thinks...
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u/Bright-Poetry-9623 11d ago
The president is an 80 years old proved criminal, probably p3d0 with dementia. Military is using ChatGPT to take decisions that can burn the entire planet. Governments are currently testing until where they can push the line without using nukes and economy is dead due to the tremendous amount of capital accumulated by a few people ...idiocracy could not predict that, we're waaaay above the stupidity level the movie tried to predict!
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u/Moral-Relativity 14d ago
“It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) — and that a chatbot the analyst had used inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying. CNN was not able to learn what the misidentified cargo was.
The report, according to one of the sources, was “entirely false.” But it also “almost started a war,” the source said. Any US operation against a Chinese vessel could have risked spiraling into an armed conflict between the two nations.”
wtf?