Anthropic says a cell of threat actors in northern Yemen used its AI model Claude to help develop guided missiles and rockets.
On Thursday, claude published a detailed report on how it obstructed the illegal use of its chatbot in several countries. The report coincides with the aggressive offensive of Iran-backed Yemeni Houthis who are engaged in intense clashes with Yemeni government.
Anthropic said it had identified a cell of threat actors based in northern Yemen running three weapon development programs. The cell used Claude to develop guidance, navigation, and control software for the airborne weapons that would have otherwise required a team of engineers. Anthropic said it had banned the relevant account as soon as it had detected the illegal activity.
Those were “a guided rocket that used a commodity phone-class flight computer with final-phase homing guidance; a multi-stage ballistic missile with a stated range goal above 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles); and a multi-variant missile… that included a hypersonic glide vehicle variant”.
“We do not have evidence the actors succeeded in fielding an operational device; but they did test-fire a guided rocket,” Anthropic said. “This field test appears to have failed: within hours, the actors returned to Claude to work out why it failed,” it further noted.
read more: Houthis claim control of strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait
While the company did not identify the actors in question, it is likely to involve the Houthis, who control much of the northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa. Meanwhile, in the same report, Anthropic also claimed that it witnessed multiple cases of state-sponsored surveillance operations that used its artificial intelligence models and warned that governments and state-aligned actors are increasingly using AI to spy on ethnic minorities and dissidents.
These surveillance campaigns “targeted the same diaspora and dissident communities these regimes have historically targeted. These include pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong, Tibetan and Falun Gong communities across Asia, and Iranian minority communities and opponents of the Iranian regime abroad,” the report said.
“AI is now being used in place of an engineering workforce,” the report said. On Friday, the Houthis had claimed control of the Red Sea island in the middle of the Bab al-Mandeb shipping lane.
