A Yemen-based militant network with a history of targeting U.S. vessels in the Red Sea attempted to exploit Anthropic’s artificial intelligence systems to advance missile-related projects, according to a newly released company report.
Anthropic disclosed in an AI misuse report published Thursday that a “cell of threat actors” operating in Yemen had sought to use its Claude chatbot in connection with what the company described as “three weapons development programs.”
Although the report did not identify the group by name, the activity appears likely to be linked to the Iran-backed Houthis, who hold large areas of northern Yemen and have been repeatedly tied to Red Sea attacks.
According to the report reviewed by Our News Outlet, the actors tried to work on a multi-stage ballistic missile, a missile platform with multiple variants, and a guided rocket designed around a commercially available phone-class flight computer.
Anthropic said the group turned to Claude Code while attempting to create software related to guidance, navigation and control — the systems used to help steer and stabilize an airborne vehicle.
The report also said the chatbot was used in efforts to adapt open-source autopilot tools for a phone-class computing platform, including work tied to control logic, position estimation, configuration adjustments, firmware processes and simulated flight testing.
“We do not have evidence the actors succeeded in fielding an operational device; but they did test-fire a guided rocket,” the report stated. “This field test appears to have failed: within hours, the actors returned to Claude to work out why it failed.”
The Houthis, designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization, carried out a swift military push this week along Yemen’s Red Sea coastline, capturing a strategically important port. The group also took control of a key island on Friday.
An aerial view showing Houthi fighters during the takeover of the Galaxy Leader cargo vessel off Yemen’s Red Sea coast near Hudaydah on November 20, 2023
Anthropic’s AI misuse report, released Thursday, said a “cell of threat actors” in northern Yemen attempted to use the Claude chatbot across “three weapons development programs.” Pictured: Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei
Anthropic said the Yemen-based users appeared to treat Claude less like a simple chatbot and more like a coordinator within a small technical team.
“The actors managed several Claude instances at once, assigning each one a role, much as a lead would delegate work on a small engineering team: the actors tasked one instance with writing the code, another with research, and a third with reviewing the code the first instance produced,” Anthropic wrote.
The AI models’ safeguards blocked ‘many of their requests, but not all of them,’ Anthropic said, noting that the terrorists ‘used a variety of tactics to evade’ the protective measures.
They did this by ‘hiding their goals and the products the software was meant for, and they split their work across multiple sessions so no single session revealed their full intent,’ the report said.
Anthropic blocked the accounts associated with the suspected weapons development team and reported the threat to its public and private sector partners.
Despite this, the report warned that Anthropic has ‘evidence that the actors had already built an offline simulation toolkit that does not rely on Claude or other engineering computing environments.’
In addition to the activity in Yemen, Anthropic found evidence that users in China and Russia attempted to use Claude to develop software to design firearms, missiles, armed drones and bombs.
Suspected Chinese and Iranian government-actors were found to have been targeting dissident and diaspora communities for surveillance, according to the report.
A fighter with Yemen’s Houthi rebels carries a rocket-propelled grenade launcher as they march during a mobilization campaign in Sanaa, Yemen on Thursday
Smoke and balls of fire rising from trucks at a camp of the Saudi-backed government forces following an alleged Houthi missile strike on Monday
Russian state media was also found to be using Claude to generate election propaganda, including fabricated claims about the parliamentary election in Moldova.
Anthropic also thwarted efforts from scientists trying to conduct research that could be used to build biological weapons, the report also said.
Anthropic was unable to determine if the research ‘served a legitimate or nefarious purpose,’ the report said.
Similarly to its handling of the ballistic missile cases, the company blocked accounts associated with the research.
The report did not disclose the names of the researchers or institutions that it had blocked, or the countries in which these scientists are from.
Meanwhile, Houthi rebels captured a strategic island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the entrance of the Red Sea on Friday in a swift advance that further threatens international shipping.
Saudi Arabia responded with airstrikes against the airport in the key port city of Mokha that the Houthis seized on Thursday. There was no immediate report of damage or deaths.
The capture of Mayun, a tiny, barren volcanic island in the strait, was confirmed by a senior military official with Yemen’s internationally recognized government and by a Houthi official.
The Bab al-Mandeb Strait connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and is used as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively shut down
Wreckage of what the Houthis say is a Saudi Karayel unmanned combat aerial vehicle that was shot down over an area in Hajjah governorate on Thursday
The strait is a key alternative to the Iran-choked Strait of Hormuz.
But there is ‘no need for international concern,’ Hizam al-Assad, a member of the rebels’ political bureau, told The Associated Press, saying they are responding to Saudi aggression, and ‘our forces have a bank of big important targets’ in case Riyadh keeps up the strikes.
Earlier Friday, Iran’s government called for an end to Saudi Arabia’s blockade of Yemen, throwing its support behind its ally, the Houthis.
In its first statement since the rebels entered the port, Iran’s Foreign Ministry also called for a return to negotiations between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis.
The capture of Mokha could boost Iran’s strategy of driving up world oil and gas prices to pressure the United States, experts say.
It also raises concerns of a new front opening after more than six months of war in the region – one in which Saudi Arabia is forced to respond.
