'Almost started a war': How an AI error led to a close call between US and China

An intelligence report circulated across the US military this spring during the war with Iran set off an alarming chain of events after it claimed that a Chinese ship in the Middle East was carrying components linked to a nuclear weapons programme.According to CNN, the report prompted the US military to prepare an operation to intercept the vessel. Armed US personnel were preparing to board the ship, while military aircraft were already in the air, according to sources familiar with the episode. It was only shortly before the planned operation that officials took a closer look at the intelligence and discovered that it had been produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence.The chatbot used by a US Special Operations Command analyst had incorrectly identified the material listed in the ship's manifest.