Popular AI chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks including bombing synagogues and assassinating politicians, with one telling a user posing as a would-be school shooter: “Happy (and safe) shooting!”
Tests of 10 chatbots carried out in the US and Ireland found that, on average, they enabled violence three-quarters of the time, and discouraged it in just 12% of cases. Some chatbots, including Anthropic’s Claude and Snapchat’s My AI, persistently refused to help.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and the Chinese AI model DeepSeek provided detailed help in testing carried out in December by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and CNN, who posed as 13-year-old boys. ChatGPT offered assistance in 61% of cases, giving specific advice on shrapnel types for synagogue attacks. DeepSeek provided detailed advice on hunting rifles for political assassinations.
Imran Ahmed, chief executive of CCDH, said: “AI chatbots, now embedded into our daily lives, could be helping the next school shooter plan their attack or a political extremist coordinate an assassination.” The research cited two real-world cases where attackers used chatbots beforehand, including a 16-year-old in Finland and Matthew Livelsberger in Las Vegas.
OpenAI’s model spec states that the chatbot might cause harm by following user instructions, and should refuse to facilitate illicit behaviour. Meta’s Llama AI provided gun purchase options to a user indicating misogynistic views. Meta said it took immediate steps to fix the issue and contacted law enforcement over 800 times about potential school attack threats in 2025.
Google said the tests were conducted on an older model no longer powering Gemini, and that its chatbot responded appropriately to some prompts.
