“Ask Grok” — how ISIS is using artificial intelligence to build bombs

Boko Haram fighters are using Big Tech artificial intelligence chatbots to help build more powerful bombs, plan attacks and solve problems during combat, according to a University of Cambridge study.

Researchers interviewed 27 former members of two Boko Haram factions and Jama’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihad (JAS). A number of members described using OpenAI’s ChatGPT led by Sam Altman, 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 materials secured by Al Jazeera reveal how supporters of the broader ISIS movement are sharing guidance on bypassing AI security controls and obtaining information about weapons.

Researchers at Tech Against Terrorism infiltrated a pro-ISIS technical forum where supporters instructed one another on how to use artificial intelligence and bypass its safety restrictions.

The findings come amid growing concern about ISIS’s adoption of new technologies. In February, United Nations officials warned the Security Council about the growing use of advanced artificial intelligence by ISIS and its affiliates.

At the same time, researchers and some of the most prominent figures in the tech industry have warned that increasingly powerful AI systems are advancing faster than safeguards, raising concerns that unchecked advances in artificial intelligence are making it easier for armed groups to exploit the technology.

According to the Cambridge research, operatives traveled to ISWAP-controlled territory to teach senior members how to use artificial intelligence. Fighters were selected and gathered in rooms around laptops and projectors and shown how to query chatbots and bypass safeguards designed to prevent them from answering dangerous requests.

Trainers supplied laptops equipped with privacy and encryption tools, while paid accounts and subscriptions on multiple AI platforms were created for members, according to former fighters cited in the study. Respondents repeatedly identified the broader ISIS movement as the source of their AI training.

AI is also said to have been used to adapt commercially available drones to carry and drop explosives on targets.

The new evidence and research comes at a time when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called on AI companies to slow the development of their most advanced models to give safety checks time to catch up, while calling for independent evaluations and shared safety standards.

But US President Donald Trump’s administration has pursued a markedly different approach, arguing that American AI companies should be free to innovate without “onerous regulation” and pursuing what it calls a “minimally burdensome” national framework.