AI-hallucinated intelligence report nearly led US to board Chinese ship

The US military narrowly abandoned plans to intercept and board a Chinese ship in the Middle East after the AI-assisted intelligence report behind the operation proved "entirely false," according to a CNN report citing four sources. A US Special Operations Command analyst used a chatbot that fused open-source and secret signals intelligence and incorrectly identified the ship's cargo as nuclear arms program components; the US was preparing to board with air support when the error was caught. One source said the episode "almost started a war."