U.S. military nearly boarded a Chinese ship over a hallucinated AI intelligence report

In the spring of 2026, the U.S. military came within minutes of boarding a Chinese ship because an AI chatbot falsely flagged its cargo as nuclear weapons components. Armed soldiers were ready, aircraft were in the air. The error was caught just before the operation kicked off. The incident plays right into the hands of AI risk advocates who worry less about overpowered AI and more about sloppy systems being used by uncritical or bad-faith operators.