\n A group of top Democratic senators is calling on government watchdogs to investigate a series of mistakes in US military targeting plans caused by artificial intelligence, after a CNN report detailed how one such error, according to a source familiar with the incident, \u201calmost started a war.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton sent on Saturday, the senators cite CNN\u2019s reporting <\/a>on a close call with a Chinese ship in the Middle East as an example of recent events that \u201chave given us growing concern about the extent to which agencies under your oversight have prioritized acceleration of AI capability adoption and \u2018experimentation\u2019 over effective governance.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n CNN reported Friday that a special operations command analyst relied on AI to generate an intelligence report that inaccurately identified the material on a Chinese cargo ship.\n <\/p>\n \n The report led the US military to believe the ship was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program, according to sources. The military began facilitating plans to intercept the vessel before officials realized, only just before the planned operation, that the report had been generated with the help of AI and was \u201centirely false.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The kind of \u201challucination<\/a>\u201d that the tool conjured has not been an isolated incident across the intelligence community since the use of AI began proliferating across government, one source familiar with the episode told CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n In the letter, Sens. Mark Warner, Jack Reed and Chris Coons called for an \u201cimmediate investigation by relevant Inspectors General, with a higher degree of public transparency in the ultimate findings, given the impacts these perceived failures have on public confidence in our intelligence and warfighting missions.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The letter also references a deadly February US strike on a school in Minab, Iran, that killed nearly 200 children and adults. Three sources told CNN earlier this year the strike came after senior US military commanders bypassed warnings in critical databases, including one powered by AI, that intelligence about potential targets in Iran was severely out of date<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cPublic reports that AI targeting platforms have repeatedly generated spurious outputs (based on outdated input data or outright hallucination) risk serious operational error, in addition to undermining the confidence of both the American public and international partners in the accuracy and reliability of U.S. intelligence and intelligence-informed kinetic action,\u201d the senators wrote.\n <\/p>\n \n The senators\u2019 letter demands Hegseth and Clayton \u201cpromptly investigate this matter\u201d and provide relevant inspectors general with \u201cunrestricted access to both instances this year in which media reports have suggested significant errors in AI-enabled targeting workflows, as well as any additional instances that may have so far not been publicly reported.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The letter comes as the debate<\/a> over the government\u2019s role in implementing AI safeguards has come to dominate the halls of Congress. Democratic members have intensified their calls for regulation, while Republicans, including President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, have warned that slowing development may cost the US in the AI race with China<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n