Las Vegas Cybertruck Suspect Used ChatGPT – Police

Police in the United States have reportedly documented the first use of an artificial intelligence (AI) system to build an explosive device.

Reuters reported that the suspected driver of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day, had used OpenAI’s ChatGPT to plan the blast.

On New Year’s Day, active-duty US Army special forces soldier Matthew Alan Livelsberger, aged 37, had parked a rented Tesla Cybertruck in front of Trump International Hotel Las Vegas in Paradise, Nevada.

Livelsberger then apparently killed himself with a gunshot wound to the head, immediately before the Cybertruck was set afire by firework mortars and gas canisters.

Tech and terrorism

That explosion in Las Vegas came soon after Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a US citizen and former US Army soldier, had driven a rented Ford F150 pickup truck into a crowd of people in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, killing 14.

The vehicles in both incidents were rented from Turo, a peer-to-peer carsharing service, but the incidents are not believed by authorities to be connected.

However the FBI noted that Jabbar had visited New Orleans twice before the attack and recorded video of the French Quarter by using Meta smart glasses.

During his 31 October visit Jabbar recorded video using Meta smart glasses while he rode through the French Quarter on a bicycle as “he plotted this hideous attack”, Lyonel Myrthil, FBI special agent in charge of the New Orleans field office said earlier this week.

Now authorities in Las Vegas have revealed that Livelsberger also used cutting-edge technology to help plan his explosion.

According to Reuters, officials told reporters on Tuesday that Tesla Cybertruck driver Matthew Alan Livelsberger had used ChatGPT to plan the blast,

Livelsberger, who is reportedly to have suffered from PTSD, as well as confronting the collapse of his marriage, used ChatGPT to try and work out how much explosive was needed to trigger the blast, officials reportedly said.

“Of particular note, we also have clear evidence in this case now that the suspect used ChatGPT artificial intelligence to help plan his attack,” Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department reportedly told a press conference.

Authorities last week said Livelsberger acted alone. The FBI says the incident appeared to be a case of suicide.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was quoted by Reuters as saying on Tuesday that the Cybertruck blast was the first incident on American soil where ChatGPT had been used to build an explosive device.

AI risks

AI critics have previously warned the technology could be harnessed for harmful purposes, and the Las Vegas attack could add to that criticism.

Tesla boss Elon Musk, who has previously voiced his own warnings about AI, had tweeted last week that the “evil knuckleheads” had picked the wrong vehicle to carry the Las Vegas explosives.

Musk noted that the robustness of the Cybertruck caused the explosion to be directed upwards instead of sideways into the Trump hotel.