Last Vegas police say the soldier who exploded a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas used generative AI including ChatGPT to help plan the attack.
For those who want to laugh at the headline and not take 3 minutes to read the article:
An investigation of Livelsberger’s searches through ChatGPT indicate he was looking for information on explosive targets, the speed at which certain rounds of ammunition would travel and whether fireworks were legal in Arizona.
Kevin McMahill, sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, called the use of generative AI a “game-changer” and said the department was sharing information with other law enforcement agencies.
So the embarrassment comes from the sheriff’s response, thinking ChatGPT is a game changer for its… Advanced googling and potential hallucinations.
Anyway, while I don’t want to fuel better terrorism, the gearhead in me is seething with this other part.
stopped to pour race-grade fuel into the vehicle, which it then dripped
High octane gas is not extra spicy gasoline. Race gas is not super spicy gasoline. The higher the octane, the less flammable it is. Marginally, but octane is not an explosiveness rating. It’s literally anti explosiveness - called anti-knock capability. Knock is when the fuel/air mixture self ignites, namely before the spark. High performance engines tend to have higher compression and run hotter, making predetonaion (knock) more likely. Higher octane fights this condition so it combust at the correct time.
Stop putting high octane in cars that say use regular. Some can account for it, but high octane is wasted on many normal cars. And it’s not cleaner. Gas station chains may add cleaners to upsell you on vpower or invigorate, but that’s just a marketing ploy. Get injector cleaner once a year for a lot cheaper if you must.
Interesting how they just casually state that they have full access to his chatgpt history. This case is a speedrun of all the ways cops can jump across ethical boundaries.
Unless there was some statement specifically stating M$ gave them that data, its more likely the cops raided the home and went through the guys computer, where its trivial to just look at the search history. You know Occam’s razor and all.
It’s so amusing, I’m not a demolitions expert (tbh I would have thought an SF guy would have had better knowledge there, or at least better sources to go to) but the idea of trusting anything chatGPT said to help you lay out a plan like that… seems ludicrous.
Yeah that’s a fair point—like it’s fine as a brainstorming tool, but I’d never trust… uhh life and death details to it. And as OP mentioned, you can easily answer many of the questions with a web search.
Not to further fuel the learned terrorists, but race gas generally isn’t gasoline, like your first statement. I don’t think any racing orgs allow pure alcohol anymore in the US, but some related form or nitromethane. Anyway, none of this belongs in a regular car, either 😬
I assumed it was just very high octane, often available at stations near race tracks. Regular (US system at sea level) is 87, premium is 93, “race” is 105-110. Could be used in dedicated race cars or ones set up to be retuned on site at the track
I ignored this excellent point. Definitely lots of folks who have street legal vehicles (or race in street legal circuits) that have to run gasoline and tune for that. Thanks for pointing it out 🙂
For those who want to laugh at the headline and not take 3 minutes to read the article:
So the embarrassment comes from the sheriff’s response, thinking ChatGPT is a game changer for its… Advanced googling and potential hallucinations.
Anyway, while I don’t want to fuel better terrorism, the gearhead in me is seething with this other part.
High octane gas is not extra spicy gasoline. Race gas is not super spicy gasoline. The higher the octane, the less flammable it is. Marginally, but octane is not an explosiveness rating. It’s literally anti explosiveness - called anti-knock capability. Knock is when the fuel/air mixture self ignites, namely before the spark. High performance engines tend to have higher compression and run hotter, making predetonaion (knock) more likely. Higher octane fights this condition so it combust at the correct time.
Stop putting high octane in cars that say use regular. Some can account for it, but high octane is wasted on many normal cars. And it’s not cleaner. Gas station chains may add cleaners to upsell you on vpower or invigorate, but that’s just a marketing ploy. Get injector cleaner once a year for a lot cheaper if you must.
Interesting how they just casually state that they have full access to his chatgpt history. This case is a speedrun of all the ways cops can jump across ethical boundaries.
More likely than not they just pulled the history off his home computer or phone.
This is why privacy minded people only use local llms or duckduckgoai in tor browser (whonix)
Unless there was some statement specifically stating M$ gave them that data, its more likely the cops raided the home and went through the guys computer, where its trivial to just look at the search history. You know Occam’s razor and all.
It’s so amusing, I’m not a demolitions expert (tbh I would have thought an SF guy would have had better knowledge there, or at least better sources to go to) but the idea of trusting anything chatGPT said to help you lay out a plan like that… seems ludicrous.
At least cross reference it. ChatGPT is good at helping you figure out what to look for, it’s not great at providing reliable information.
Yeah that’s a fair point—like it’s fine as a brainstorming tool, but I’d never trust… uhh life and death details to it. And as OP mentioned, you can easily answer many of the questions with a web search.
Ha. That’s the exact same sentiment I have about Tiktok.
The irony is that if he’d just looked up how to build a fertilizer bomb on YouTube he’d have got much better advice.
Not to further fuel the learned terrorists, but race gas generally isn’t gasoline, like your first statement. I don’t think any racing orgs allow pure alcohol anymore in the US, but some related form or nitromethane. Anyway, none of this belongs in a regular car, either 😬
I assumed it was just very high octane, often available at stations near race tracks. Regular (US system at sea level) is 87, premium is 93, “race” is 105-110. Could be used in dedicated race cars or ones set up to be retuned on site at the track
I ignored this excellent point. Definitely lots of folks who have street legal vehicles (or race in street legal circuits) that have to run gasoline and tune for that. Thanks for pointing it out 🙂
And it really depends on the kind of racing you’re doing.