Of General ChatGPT and Admiral Claude
JUL 31, 2026
If you’ve been in or near the military, you’ve heard quips about military intelligence being the ultimate oxymoron or that it’s akin to military music, i.e. not very musical, unless you love pompous marches. But increasingly military intelligence isn’t even human anymore (some troops might argue it never was) as officers in particular look to AI programs like ChatGPT and Claude to do their “thinking” for them.
Reports indicate the Pentagon used Anthropic’s Claude AI to script the order for the attack on Venezuela, and apparently Claude was used again to plot attacks on Iran that led to the destruction of a girls school at Minab. (It’s unclear whether AI contributed to that disaster, though I’m guessing AI provides an illusion of certainty that could exacerbate targeting errors.) Americans in general place too much faith in technology, but AI modules aren’t immune from GIGO, or garbage in, garbage out. Or perhaps GIDO: garbage in, death out.
A colleague reports that military officers now routinely use AI to write orders and evaluations, with self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth pushing the wonders of AI. The military’s increasing use of AI, my colleague notes, “completely circumvents the use of human intelligence, emotion, and critical thought,” concluding that “When they’re in the trenches – they [officers] won’t have time to check Chat GPT when giving orders in this next war.”
AI, in short, is becoming a force unto itself in military circles, so much so that General ChatGPT and Admiral Claude may soon be the most influential “officers” within the flag ranks.
Flush with cash, the Pentagon also sees AI as an easy way to spend money while calling it an “investment,” as William Hartung notes here:
The task of getting Pentagon money has become less daunting as the department focuses on missions impossible like a leak proof missile defense system (Golden Dome), plus all manner of (potentially) AI-driven systems — from drones, to driverless military vehicles to uncrewed ships to targeting systems that facilitate dropping more bombs per minute (which is how Palantir’s systems were used to enable and accelerate Israel’s genocide in Gaza.)
They’re creating an AI “killer drone” system that makes one wonder how long it’ll be before Skynet takes over and starts killing all humans everywhere. Admittedly, that might be a “Terminator” fantasy, the real problem being mass surveillance and selective targeting by our human “leaders” directed against anyone with the temerity to resist them.
The AI industry, notes Caitlin Johnstone, “is a mix of military technology, mass surveillance technology, and people trying to become billionaires by turning human laziness and narcissism into a chatbot product.”
So much for an AI-driven utopia. They’re even destroying books now and feeding their contents to AI modules. Book shredding has replaced book burning with the goal of creating “smarter” AI modules.
Save your books, everyone, before they’re fed into the maw of Claude and similar AI behemoths.
I remember from “Lost in Space” there was an android that intoned “crush, kill, destroy.” I guess it’s now “slice, scan, shred.” It doesn’t bode well.
Note: No AI programs were consulted in the construction of this rant.
Bracing Views 
Dear Professor Astore,
I have enjoyed reading your post, and have therefore come to join you in reflecting on the significance of the post here.
In a sense, AI has turned the whole Earth into a petri dish, as vividly discussed in my post entitled “📈🌆 Growing Humanity with Artificial Intelligence: A Sociotechnological Petri Dish with Latent Threats, Existential Risks and Challenging Prospects 👨👩👦👦🤖🧫☣️“, which also discusses in great detail military use of AI, particularly regarding the complex geopolitical landscape involving multiple regions in the world as well as the NATO alliance.
There are indeed many salient issues, including whether AI can ever be truly conscious and sentient. There now arise many sobering implications of this brand new “species”, which is a very topical area for exploring the many outstanding tensions between (the sociopsychological states of) AI benevolence/sanity/stability and AI malevolence/insanity/instability, affecting even the very existence and survival of humanity.
As a multidisciplinary researcher, writer and independent scholar, I would like to mention to you that your recent foray into artificial intelligence is timely, necessary and commendable, as AI is impacting on societies and organizations on multiple fronts. Two of my expansive posts respectively entitled “📈🌆 Growing Humanity with Artificial Intelligence: A Sociotechnological Petri Dish with Latent Threats, Existential Risks and Challenging Prospects 👨👩👦👦🤖🧫☣️” and “👁️ The Purview of SoundEagle🦅 According to ChatGPT 💬 and the Incredulous 🤔 in the Age of God-like Technology 🚀” could be of some relevance to your pursuits. You can find them easily at the Home page of my website.
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In particular, we have to increasingly contend with and adapt to what artificial intelligence (AI) will bring, regardless of how much we embrace or reject the new technology. Even WordPress has already introduced and offered AI-rendered services and blogging tools. Whilst AI-generated contents can be speedily produced and reasonably satisfactory in their quality, on closer inspection, some of them are often highly problematic and can be soulless and formulaic. The recent advent of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) will accelerate such trends. Being concerned about how AI can both aid and disrupt peoples and societies, I investigated the topic both broadly and deeply in my aforementioned posts.
In the said posts, I have also discussed in great detail how social media, and increasingly, advanced artificial intelligence, have become the accelerant and magnifier of some of the most problematic aspects of human transactions and behaviours. As a concerned citizen, farseeing thinker, former educator and multidisciplinary academic, I tried my best to analyse the various issues and offer some solutions, as well as posing ten critical questions about the future of humanity and artificial intelligence. After all, artificial intelligence is so ubiquitous nowadays that whether we like it or not, and regardless of the degree of our avoidance, disdain and/or apathy, our lives will be affected even in the absence of our knowledge in one way or the other. Hence, I examine how these issues will affect people ranging from laypersons, artists, musicians, bloggers and writers to scholars, scientists and researchers.
These said posts are now several times longer than when they were first published. Each of the posts has multiple major sections instantly accessible from a navigational menu, which can help you to jump to any section of the post instantly so that you can more easily resume reading at any point of the post over multiple sessions in your own time. I look forward to your reading my posts and leaving some thoughts and feedback there, as I am keen and curious about what you will make of my said posts, given that your own experience and expertise have been extensive. Thank you in anticipation.
Wishing you a wonderful weekend and a fantastic August!
Yours sincerely,
SoundEagle🦅
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