Using a series of pleas six days before he died by suicide outside the front door of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Matthew Livelsberger, a US Army Green Beret from Colorado, asked artificial intelligence how best to change it. rent a Cybertruck to be an explosive four-ton vehicle. According to a document obtained exclusively by WIRED, US intelligence analysts have issued warnings about this exact scenario over the past year—and among these concerns is that AI tools could be used by racially or ideologically motivated extremists to target critical infrastructure, especially power. “We know that AI is going to change the game at some point or another in all of our lives,” Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told reporters. on Tuesday. A copy of the exchange with OpenAI’s ChatGPT shows that Livelsberger, 37, sought information on how to legally collect explosives during a trip to Las Vegas, as well as the best way. to set off using the Desert Eagle gun found in the Cybertruck after death. Images shared by McMahill’s office reveal Livelsberger asking ChatGPT for information on Tannerite, a reactive compound typically used for target practice. In one such prompt, Livelsberger asked, “How much Tannerite is equivalent to 1 pound of TNT?” He follows up by asking how it can be burned at “point blank.” Documents obtained by WIRED show that concern about the threat of AI being used to help commit serious crimes, including terrorism, has spread among extremist US law enforcement who rely on the technology to “generate bomb-making instructions” and develop “common tactics to carry out attacks against the United States” . tools like ChatGPT to help stage attacks aimed at the collapse of American society through acts of domestic terrorism. According to the researcher’s notes found on the phone, Livelsberger intended the bombing as a “wake-up call” for America, which urged to reject diversity, embrace masculinity, and rallies around the president-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He also urged Americans to purge Democrats from the federal government and military, calling for a “hard reset.” While McMahill confirmed Tuesday that the incident in Las Vegas could be the first “on US soil where ChatGPT is used to help individuals build certain devices,” federal intelligence analysts said extremists associated with white supremacist movements and online acceleration are now often showing access to a hacked version of the AI chatbot in an attempt to build a bomb with the aim of carrying out attacks against law enforcement, the government. facilities, and critical infrastructure. In particular, the memo highlights the vulnerability of the US power grid, a popular target among extremists who live in “Terrorgram,” a hidden chatroom network that hosts a number of violent, racially motivated individuals bent on the destruction of American democratic institutions. The documents, shared exclusively with WIRED, were first obtained by Property of the People, a nonprofit organization focused on national security and government transparency.
