Boko Haram fighters are using the artificial intelligence chatbots of Big Tech companies to help build more powerful bombs, plan attacks and solve problems during combat, according to research by the University of Cambridge. Researchers interviewed 27 former members of Boko Haram’s two factions – the ISIL affiliate in West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Jama’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihad (JAS). A number of members described using Sam Altman-led OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, Elon Musk’s Grok, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta AI and China’s DeepSeek as a routine source of technical and military advice before, during and after attacks.
Meanwhile, exclusive material obtained by Al Jazeera reveals how supporters of the wider ISIL (ISIS) movement are sharing instructions on bypassing AI safety controls and obtaining weapons-related information. Researchers at Tech Against Terrorism infiltrated a pro-ISIL technical forum where supporters instructed one another on how to use AI and circumvent its safety restrictions. The findings come amid growing concern over ISIL’s adoption of emerging technologies.
In February, United Nations officials warned the Security Council of increased use of advanced AI by ISIL and its affiliates. At the same time, researchers and several of the technology industry’s most prominent figures have warned that increasingly powerful AI systems are advancing faster than safeguards, raising concerns that unchecked advances in AI are making it easier for armed groups to exploit the technology. Deep inside a rebel stronghold in northeastern Nigeria, former fighters described a strikingly organised and sophisticated system for putting the technology to use.
According to the Cambridge research, operatives travelled to ISWAP-controlled territory to teach senior members how to use AI. Fighters were selected and assembled in rooms around laptops and projectors and shown how to query chatbots and circumvent the safeguards designed to prevent them from answering dangerous requests. Respondents repeatedly identified the wider ISIL movement as the source of their AI training.
What followed, the research suggests, went far beyond occasional use of ChatGPT by individual fighters. Both ISWAP and JAS established dedicated AI units staffed by people with specialist operational knowledge, including engineers, weapons specialists and bomb-makers. One former JAS commander described a specialised unit of 23 people working from a solar-powered room, where its members answered questions, analysed information and trained senior commanders gathered around a laptop.
We used it a lot.” Another former member was similarly enthusiastic: “God has helped us, and so will AI.” Often, according to the study, bomb-makers would keep laptops beside them, each time returning to the chatbot when they encountered a problem while they assembled explosive devices. Antonia Juelich, who authored the Cambridge study, told Al Jazeera roughly 10 of the 27 people interviewed discussed the use of AI in relation to explosives, including attempts to make bombs more powerful and recover explosive material from military ordnance. But what Juelich found most concerning was not simply that fighters could obtain information about weapons – much of that has long been available in manuals and online.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
