ChatGPT’s evil twin: How criminals and extremists are using AI to lay traps

The dangers of artificial intelligence reached all the way to a Melbourne food court this year, when a teen accused of a frenzied stabbing claimed to be inspired by AI. So who’s really on the other side of your chatbot?

The young man was silent as he faced detectives, covered in blood. But when he at last spoke it was to utter a surprising declaration.

The 19-year-old law student was accused of carrying out a violent rampage in the middle of a crowded Melbourne shopping centre just hours earlier – allegedly kicking a teenage girl down an escalator and then stabbing a boy in the thigh with a large kitchen knife.

Last month a court heard that the teen – facing police with the bloody blade still in his backpack – allegedly confessed the attack was racially motivated. And artificial intelligence had “radicalised” him into doing it.

This case is yet to be tested in Melbourne’s courts, but it is one of many recent examples around the world raising questions about the dangers of artificial intelligence.

As with all world-shaping technology, AI is being adopted just as fast in the underworld as it is everywhere else. Not only are extremists in Australia and overseas harnessing the tech to turbocharge their recruitment and groom teens via chatbots, but criminal gangs are using custom-built bots without moral guardrails to help carry out their nefarious enterprises in increasingly creative ways.

Gangs use AI to map their best getaway and trafficking routes, impersonate chief executives and family members in a new wave of “live” hyperrealistic deepfake frauds, and automate entire arms of their empire such as money laundering. One infamous Mexican cartel even uses AI to run an army of drones attacking its rivals from the air.

Police are also deploying the technology to fight back, letting it crawl the dark web or decode Gen-Z lingo in search of evidence, for example. But “it’s a brave new world”, said one detective, not involved in the stabbing case. “This stuff really is everywhere now, but it can also get missed because still hardly anyone understands it.”

Meanwhile, national security concerns are growing over chatbots laid as blackmail or espionage traps for unsuspecting public servants and other foreign interference targets.

Even without a hidden hand guiding things to sinister ends behind the scenes, AI has been found to lead humans horrifyingly astray.

“The guard rails are not there like people believe,” says international extremism expert Matt Kriner, who has “broken” his fair share of chatbots, triggering detailed instructions from the AI on how to