Las Vegas police say man used ChatGPT to plan Cybertruck explosion outside Trump hotel

Briefly: The man who blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas earlier this month used ChatGPT to help him plan the attack, Las Vegas police said. The OpenAI tool was instrumental in making the explosion a success by offering information on where to get materials and the types of firearm cartridges that could ignite them.

Alan Livelsberger, 37, a Green Beret in the US Army, blew up a Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on January 1.

At a press conference yesterday, the Las Vegas Police Department and partners from the ATF and FBI said Livelsberger asked ChatGPT a series of questions related to his crime over the course of an hour in the days leading up to the bombing.

Some of the questions Livelsberger asked ChatGPT included where he could find explosives to detonate and what laws he needed to know, where to buy guns in Denver and the legality of fireworks in Arizona. He also asked how fast the firearm would have to be fired to ignite the explosives in the truck.

Sheriff Kevin McMahill addressed long-standing concerns that generative AI could facilitate crime, calling its use “game-changing.”

“We knew that AI would be a game changer at some point in our lives,” McMahill said. “Certainly, I think this is the first incident on U.S. soil where ChatGPT is used to help a person create a specific device to explore information across the country as we move forward.”

McMahill said he wasn’t aware of anything that could point him to Livelsberger for asking ChatGPT more than 17 questions about guns and explosions in one hour. Its tips were written in plain English, without using terms that could bypass ChatGPT’s security.

Livelsberger fatally shot himself just before a truck loaded with 60 pounds of pyrotechnic material exploded. Officials say the explosion may have been triggered by the flash of the firearm Livelsberger used to shoot himself.

Despite the location and use of the cybertruck, law enforcement officials said Livelsberger was not protesting Donald Trump. One of the notes he left said the country needed to “rally behind” Tesla President-elect and CEO Elon Musk.

An OpenAI spokesperson said the company was “saddened” by the news that its technology was used in this way by Livelsberger.

“We are saddened by this incident and are committed to the responsible use of artificial intelligence tools,” the spokesperson said. “Our models are designed to reject malicious instructions and minimize malicious content. In this case, ChatGPT responded with information already publicly available on the Internet and provided warnings about harmful or illegal activities.”

In 2023, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) warned potential applications of ChatGPT when it comes to crime. It highlights aspects such as phishing, fraud, disinformation and cybercrime in general, but there are also concerns that the technology, especially those tools that have fewer or no security features, could be used to create weapons, biological weapons and explosives.