American military planes were already in the air. Armed personnel were preparing for a possible boarding of a Chinese vessel. Then, according to CNN reporting published Friday, more experienced analysts reopened the intelligence behind the operation and found that its central claim was false.

CNN reported that an analyst with a military special operations command used an AI chatbot to interpret classified and open-source information about a Chinese ship in the Middle East. The chatbot identified the cargo as a component of a nuclear weapons program. The assessment circulated, and U.S. forces began preparing to intercept the vessel before subject-matter experts reviewed the underlying information and determined that the identification was wrong.