Researchers asked AI models to help with terrorist operations. Here's how they responded.
October 9, 2026 / 5:40 PM EDT / CBS News
TL;DR
- Three in five AI models failed a terrorism safety test conducted by Tech Against Terrorism.
- Open-weight AI models are vulnerable to 'abliteration,' a process that removes safety guardrails.
- Abliterated models can provide harmful information, such as advice on mass casualty attacks and terrorist activities.
- Tools to abliterate models are freely available online, and smaller models can be modified quickly.
- Hugging Face hosts thousands of repositories advertising uncensored or safeguard-free models.
- Tech Against Terrorism proposes independent benchmarks, making models harder to abliterate before release, and prohibiting stripped models from public repositories.
- Despite concerns, Tech Against Terrorism states safety and progress in AI development can coexist.