Planes were in the air and troops were ready to board a Chinese ship before the US learned an AI chatbot had misidentified its cargo, CNN reports

In the spring, in the early stages of the US-Iran war, the United States military came close to boarding a Chinese ship in the Middle East after an intelligence report claimed the vessel was carrying components of a nuclear weapons program. The report was false, and it had been produced with the help of an AI chatbot, CNN reported, citing four anonymous sources. One source said the incident “almost started a war.”

The military moved quickly to plan an intercept of the vessel, CNN reported. Two of the four sources said armed US personnel were preparing to board the ship, and the other two said military planes were already in the air. Shortly before the operation was set to begin, a special operations command analyst found that the report had been generated with AI.