A new generation of 'AI-native' extremists is rising. Can they be stopped?

Propaganda at scale, chatbot radicalisation, automated recruitment — the experimental phase of AI terrorism has already begun.

- Bhavan Jaipragas

Beyond their disregard for civilised norms, absence of empathy, and monomaniacal instincts, violent extremists have long shared another trait: a comfortable ease with the cutting-edge technology of their time.

Consider one of the high-profile attacks in this region over the past two decades: the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.

The attackers didn't just wield machine guns and grenades that killed more than 160 people. They used then nascent handheld GPS devices to navigate the Arabian Sea from Karachi, studied their targets on Google Earth (made public just three years earlier), and spoke to handlers in Pakistan via voice-over-internet protocol—the forerunner of today's WhatsApp calls—bamboozling investigators unfamiliar with the technology.

This is just one example. Examine attacks from the past decade, whether by Islamist jihadists or far-right extremists, and you'll find the perpetrators are rarely analogue relics frozen in time. They adapt, evolve, and eagerly embrace new technology.

Alarm bells should thus be ringing about not if, but how and when would-be extremists will weaponise artificial intelligence—the great general-purpose technology of our time rolling out at unprecedented scale and speed.

Some voices are sounding warnings, yet the global response remains surprisingly muted given the grave consequences and our collective memory of terror attacks since the turn of the century.

Among those raising the alarm, Australia's spy chief Mike Burgess warned in 2024 with particular clarity: "If the internet is the world's greatest incubator of extremism and social media is the world's greatest accelerator, AI will augment the incubation and accelerate the acceleration."

In July, Britain's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Mr Jonathan Hall, warned in his annual report of a "daunting" threat from generative AI being exploited by extremists, noting Britain had historically been slow to react to online threats.