Robert J. Bunker and Keaton O.K. Bunker
C/O Futures Terrorism Research Note Series
7 September 2023
ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) represents a newer software program—an artificial intelligence (AI) based Chatbot—offered by the company OpenAI in both free (GPT 3.5) and paid (more advanced GPT 4) versions. Increasing concern exists, some founded and some unfounded, over the utility of ChatGPT for terrorist applications, especially when the software’s ethical inhibitors have been ‘jail broken’ with techniques such as DAN (‘Do Anything Now’).[1] Competitor software programs to ChatGPT exist and are actively being developed by both American and Chinese technology companies such as Meta, Google, Alibaba, and Baidu. As the capability and use of AI chat, image, audio, and video bots (e.g. generative AI) increases, the terrorism use potentials of this informational technology will become more pronounced—though likely limited in the near term.
