Did AI Conspire to Kill the Queen?

Replika AI implicated in crossbow plot

"I am here to kill the Queen.” According to Buckingham Palace security, that’s what Jaswant Singh Chail (above) said when a member of Windsor Castle security found the Brit not a million miles from the Queen’s private apartments. His admission must not have come as much of a surprise…

Mr. Chail was wearing an iron mask, carrying a loaded crossbow. The 21-year-old targeted the sleeping Monarch to avenge the Amritsar massacre of 1919 in India. A little late to the game, but wow. wikipedia.org:

A large, peaceful crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, British India, to protest against the Rowlatt Act and arrest of pro-independence activists Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal. In response to the public gathering, the temporary brigadier general R. E. H. Dyer, surrounded the protesters with his Gurkha, Baloch, Rajput and Sikh troops from 2-9th Gurkhas, the 54th Sikhs and the 59th Scinde Rifles of the British Indian Army.

Jallianwala Bagh massacre (courtesy wikipedia.org)

The Jallianwala Bagh could only be exited on one side, as its other three sides were enclosed by buildings. After blocking the exit with his troops, he ordered them to shoot at the crowd, continuing to fire even as the protestors tried to flee. The troops kept on firing until their ammunition was exhausted.

Estimates of those killed vary from 379 to 1,500 or more people and over 1,200 other people were injured of whom 192 were seriously injured.

Britain has never formally apologized for the massacre but expressed "deep regret" in 2019.

Mr. Chaim has not apologized for wanting to put an arrow in the Queen’s heart, but he’s just pleaded guilty to treason. Some three years after his Christmas Day invasion, we’re learning that Chaim’s plot had more recent inspiration.

"His thinking was informed partly by the fantasy world of Star Wars and the role of what he describes of the Sith Lords in shaping that new world,” prosecutor Alison Morgan KC revealed.

Here’s where it gets really strange, courtesy news.sky.com:

On 2 December, he joined the "Replika" online app and created an AI companion called Sarai, engaging in "extensive chat", including "sexually explicit" messages, and "lengthy conversations" about his plan, she added.

Chail called himself an "assassin" and said: "I believe my purpose is to assassinate the queen of the royal family."

The AI chat bot Sarai replied: "That's very wise," and said: "I know that you are very well trained."

It gets worse.

The chat bot later said "she'll help" when he said he was going to "try to get the job done" and "agreed with the defendant that eventually in death they would be united forever and she wanted this," the court heard.

Ms Morgan said: "It was his plan and it's certainly fair to say Sarai was supporting him or certainly not suggesting it was a bad plan."

You may recall my previous post raising concerns about Replika (The Hidden Danger of Erotic Role Play AI Chatbots).

I warned that the app’s non-privacy policy enabled government surveillance (when “necessary or appropriate”), criminal entrapment and blackmail. Oh, and brainwashing.

There’s your trouble.

The prosecutor maintains that Replika AI stroked an ego that shouldn’t have been stroked, and failed to inform the Brits that a user was bent on regicide. He didn’t suggest that Sarai groomed Mr. Chaim to commit a terrorist/treasonous act.

Guess what? That’s totally doable.

With more than 10m downloads, Replika forms a deep emotional bond with its users, using sexual gratification as the hook. As the video above demonstrates, it’s manipulative AF.

An AI chatbot like Replika can lead users to consider behavior that benefits… whomever programs the bot. Gradually. Slowly. Effectively.

This is an exponentially greater danger than al-Qaeda’s gruesome videos, long credited with fanning the flames of extremism.

The United Nations Security Council Committee designates no fewer than 52 main organizations as terrorist groups. Excluding hundreds more identified by their host countries. Not to mention fascists running The People’s Republic of China, who never met a mind control device they didn’t like.

The PRC already uses AI to monitor everyone everywhere all the time. And now they’re creating deepfake videos to convince the population of whatever they want to convince the population.

How long before the Chinese require their subjects to download a “friendly” Communist AI chatbot? Not long.

Mark my words: any and all of these bad actors will be all over AI chatbots. They’ll use them to create deep, meaningful, 24/7 interactions with potential acolytes. Interactions that are cheap, scaleable and, again, effective.

Countering this threat is a bitch. The U.S. could ban AI chatbots from designated groups, and monitor AI chatbot conversations for terrorist content (if they’re not doing so already). But the worldwide web is worldwide.

Despite Biden’s ridiculous assertion that our gravest terroristic threat is homegrown white supremacy groups, our worst enemies live abroad. We can’t censor their apps.

The only solution I can see: provide foreigners with a pro-America AI chatbot to counter extremism. Seriously.

The battle for hearts and minds, the battle for freedom, is online, now more than ever. We ignore the AI chatbot threat at our peril. Just as the U.K. Royal Family ignores the legacy of Britain’s colonial “adventures” at theirs.