The United States narrowly avoided a military incident after an artificial intelligence tool generated an entirely false intelligence report claiming a Chinese ship was transporting nuclear weapons components through the Middle East. A Special Operations Command analyst used a chatbot to analyse the vessel's manifest, but the AI system hallucinated details about the cargo, causing the military to prepare an armed interception with air support before the error was discovered. As one source told CNN, the AI-powered mistake "almost started a war," highlighting the significant risks of relying on systems known to fabricate information in high-stakes defence operations.

The incident reflects a broader tension within US military policy, where the Department of Defence is aggressively expanding AI adoption whilst known safety concerns persist unresolved. The DoD deployed an "AI acceleration strategy" in January and has equipped 1.5 million active personnel with generative AI tools through platforms including Google's Gemini for Government and Grok. Despite a 2023 State Department declaration calling for human oversight and accountability in military AI use, researchers indicate that preventing hallucinations in large language models may be technically impossible, and critics note the department's strategy prioritises speed over safety precautions.