AI is Already in the Hands of Terrorists: Here’s What They’re Doing

By David Gewirtz
There is no “what if” when it comes to terrorists and AI. They already have it. Of course they do.
Everyone else does.
The same generative AI tools we use every day to write documents, create images, translate languages, generate code, and analyze information are broadly available to anyone with an internet connection and a credit card.
But there’s an important distinction between terrorists using AI, and AI fundamentally changing terrorism. So far, the evidence points more toward efficiency than revolution. AI is helping extremists do familiar things faster, cheaper, and at greater scale. In that way, AI is providing terrorists with roughly the same value that it does for everyone else.
The First Big Use Case: Propaganda
The clearest evidence of terrorists putting generative AI to work is in propaganda.
Researchers at Tech Against Terrorism have documented thousands of pieces of AI-generated material circulating in terrorist and violent extremist communities. AI has been used to generate images, translate and transcribe existing material, and produce new versions of propaganda that can be distributed quickly and cheaply. The organization says AI is currently being used primarily to augment and accelerate work that humans were already doing.
One particularly striking example emerged after the March 2024 Islamic State attack on a concert hall near Moscow. Within days, Islamic State supporters were distributing a video news program called News Harvest. It used ...