Earlier, I remarked that probabilistic parrots would not destroy the world. To be precise, however, unquestioning intellectual laziness might very well destroy it.
It is truly chilling to realize that blindly dancing to the tune of AI-generated intelligence brought the world to the brink of open conflict between the United States and China. What makes the CNN report most terrifying is the revelation that this near-miss occurred in “the spring of 2026, in the midst of the war with Iran.”
On February 28, 2026—the very first day military operations against Iran commenced—an airstrike struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in Minab, Hormozgan Province, southern Iran.
A Tomahawk cruise missile scored a direct hit on the school, killing at least 177 civilians, including more than 120 children, marking one of the deadliest civilian catastrophes of the conflict.
Tracing the background of this tragedy reveals a terrifyingly precise alignment with the issues described above.
Excessive Reliance on AI Targeting
Pentagon internal investigations and press reports have revealed that U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) had grown heavily reliant on AI systems embedded into its operational workflows, such as Palantir’s Maven Smart System and Anthropic’s Claude. Processing outdated satellite imagery—dating back to when the site was part of a military compound—alongside conflicting intelligence streams, the AI system failed to filter out the latest ground reality of the facility operating as an active civilian school, thereby cataloging it as a legitimate military target.
The Real Reason Trump Attacked Dario Amodei (Anthropic)
This background exposes why Donald Trump singled out Dario Amodei among all tech executives in his Truth Social post, sneering: “Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel.’” Following the Minab school catastrophe, severe public backlash and investigative scrutiny mounted over the role Anthropic’s models played in the targeting kill chain, leaving CEO Dario Amodei scrambling to deflect responsibility with the excuse that “humans, not AI, made the final decision.”
Against this backdrop, reading headlines such as “President Trump announces creation of ‘AI Force,’ declaring AI threat concerns ‘a hoax’” makes one wonder whether anyone at the helm remains tethered to reality.