China warns terrorists could use AI to create and fire their own weapons

The real-world risk – “loss of control over knowledge and capabilities of nuclear, biological, chemical and missile weapons” – was put forward in an AI safety governance document China unveiled on Monday.

It updates the country’s first AI safety governance document that was made public last year. Both documents are grounded in China’s 2023 proposal of the Global AI Governance Initiative.

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“In training, AI uses content-rich and wide-ranging corpora and data, including fundamental theoretical knowledge related to nuclear, biological, chemical and missile weapons,” the latest framework says.

“Without sufficient management, extremist groups and terrorists may be able to acquire relevant knowledge and develop capabilities to design, manufacture, synthesise and use such weapons with the help of retrieval-augmented generation capabilities,” it said.

“Retrieval-augmented generation capabilities” is an AI technique that combines the ability to retrieve large amounts of information online or from an up-to-date knowledge base before generating a text response.

“This would render existing control systems ineffective and intensify threats to global and regional peace and security,” it said.

South China Morning Post