\n In this particular instance, the analyst queried a chatbot about some intelligence reporting on the ship\u2019s manifest that originated with US Special Operations Command Pacific, based in Hawaii. It was not clear whether the chatbot was a commercially available one or a US government product.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe internal tools are mostly just copies of the commercial stuff wearing lipstick,\u201d a former senior US official familiar with the AI systems used by military and intelligence analysts.\n <\/p>\n
\n The bot fused together open-source intelligence with secret signals intelligence in government holdings and reached its fateful conclusion about the material the ship was carrying.\n <\/p>\n
\n The analyst then used AI again to package the findings into a standard intelligence report \u2014 the kind that is trusted by military officials \u2014 and disseminated it.\n <\/p>\n
\n US Special Operations Command Pacific and the Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.\n <\/p>\n
\n The rationale for the rapid adoption of AI is that it can help the military make battlefield decisions, like which targets to strike or which military assets to move where, faster. Officials say the US can\u2019t afford to fall behind in integrating AI in case it must one day fight China or another adversary who would potentially be able to stay one step ahead of the US.\n <\/p>\n
\n In January, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released his agency\u2019s \u201cArtificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy\u201d in a bid to speed up the military\u2019s use of AI.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe will unleash experimentation, eliminate bureaucratic barriers, focus our investments and demonstrate the execution approach needed to ensure we lead in military AI,\u201d Hegseth said in a speech announcing the strategy<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n The strategy also pushes for its broad use across the military, ordering the department to make AI available via several programs with the aim of \u201cdemocratizing AI experimentation and transformation across the Department by putting America\u2019s world-leading AI models directly in the hands of our three million civilian and military personnel, at all classification levels,\u201d a memo announcing the strategy said<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n But the effort is decentralized, multiple US officials familiar with the dynamic said, with different parts of the government using different tools under different orders and safety standards. There\u2019s no one set of standards for how the US verifies the information generated by these tools. The constellation of different AI systems being deployed by disparate corners of the military and intelligence community means that the relative reliability and functionality vary widely.\n <\/p>\n \n For weeks, Washington policymakers have been intensely debating AI after a series of dire warnings from Silicon Valley engineers and tech CEOs of the possibility that AI could break free of human constraints, with potentially civilization-ending consequences.\n <\/p>\n \n But the episode with the Chinese ship underscores a different, and more immediate risk: human beings making disastrous decisions based on inaccurate or misleading information generated by AI or other automated systems. Sources said that the military is rapidly turning to AI to help with targeting, an area which holds the obvious risk of fatal mistakes.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAI in targeting is definitely something that is ramping up and there is no real guidance for how having a human in the loop will prevent civilian casualties or fratricide,\u201d another source familiar with the military\u2019s current policies said.\n <\/p>\n![\"Secretary](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/c-gettyimages-2287087789.jpg\")
<\/p>\n