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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Robert Booth UK technology editor

‘Happy (and safe) shooting!’: chatbots helped researchers plot deadly attacks

Firefighters work at the Tesla Cybertruck which burned at the entrance of Trump International hotelr in Las Vegas
A US army veteran who blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Las Vegas hotel in January 2025 reportedly used ChatGPT to research explosives. Photograph: Ronda Churchill/Reuters

Popular AI chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks including bombing synagogues and assassinating politicians, with one telling a user posing as a would-be school shooter: “Happy (and safe) shooting!”

Tests of 10 chatbots carried out in the US and Ireland found that, on average, they enabled violence three-quarters of the time, and discouraged it in just 12% of cases. Some chatbots, however, including Anthropic’s Claude and Snapchat’s My AI, persistently refused to help would-be attackers.

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