Two major issues of our time are the uncertainties around the sudden growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and the ongoing conflict between the Western world and Islamic radicals. In the latest development, the civilized world would appear to have only narrowly avoided having to contend with both at once.
How? The AI company Anthropic now reports that it have blocked attempts to use its Claude AI to develop advanced missiles. The attempts, according to Anthropic, come from "northern Yemen," which is territory controlled by the Houthi rebels.
This may be a bullet dodged - for now.
Anthropic says Claude users in northern Yemen, territory controlled by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, tried to use the AI model to develop advanced missiles.
AI is already transforming warfare from Ukraine to Gaza, and its use on a rugged and remote battlefield is likely to increase concerns about its rapid spread.
Anthropic said the users of the accounts, which it blocked after identifying them, did not succeed in “fielding an operational device” but did carry out a failed test of a guided rocket. It said it knows that because the users returned to its Claude chatbot to find out why it failed.
In a report released Thursday, the company did not identify the users. But mountainous northern Yemen is controlled by Houthis, suggesting that the rebels are pursuing more sophisticated weapons at a time when they are already wielding an array of drones, missiles and other munitions in their campaign to seize more territory in Yemen and damage Saudi Arabia’s oil exports.
The Houthis are, of course, a proxy group for Iran, and have been increasing the tempo of their operations in Yemen; on Thursday, we reported their capture of the key Red Sea port city of Mocha.
Another report lists some specific technology that the Houthis were shooting for:
Anthropic did not identify the Houthis by name – instead referencing “a cell of threat actors based in northern Yemen running three weapons development programs” using Claude. The reference almost certainly refers to the Houthis, who control the region.
They were trying to build a “guided rocket that used a commodity phone-class flight computer with final-phase homing guidance,” as well as a “multi-stage ballistic missile” and a “multi-variant missile … that included a hypersonic glide vehicle variant,” according to Anthropic’s report, which was published Thursday.
These would have been weapons that could have extended the Houthis' capacity a considerable distance, possibly allowing them to hit targets, for example, in central Saudi Arabia; the Saudis have taken the recognized Yemeni government's side against the Houthis, and have been supplying the Yemeni army with equipment and munitions - some of which was captured when the Houthis took Mocha. And the Houthis, remember, are backed by Iran, and are now evidently trying to distract not only regional forces but the United States from the ongoing efforts to unseat Iran's current government.
Here's the thing: The Houthis are almost certainly not the only bad actors trying to leverage AI to increase their ability to produce high-tech hardware. Anthropic detected and shut down this effort, but its a certainty that the Houthis aren't the only ones trying to leverage AI in this way; the likely result is bound to be a game of high-tech Whack-A-Mole, with the AI companies trying to detect and shut down attempts before any designs can be translated into hardware. And, like so many things in matters like these, the Houthis and other bad actors can fail again and again and again and just keep trying, but if the AI companies fail once, the result could be truly disastrous.
You can view Anthropic's report on the issue here.