ChatGPT, Gemini and virtual warfare available to everyone
In the 1990s, “script kiddies” caused a lot of trouble for the FBI and other similar agencies in the US and Europe. Julian Assange was one of them, using the pseudonym Mendax. The virtual tools developed and used by these and other hackers can now be easily found on the darknet. Others are obviously already being developed with the help of AIs, and only the most audacious and profitable case deserves to be highlighted here. Recently, the Brazilian police dismantled the Fake Bank Center gang that operated in São Paulo and stole money from many people using social engineering and sophisticated tools and viruses.
As I am very curious, I decided to test a hypothesis. Starting from a simple and harmless question “In computer language, does each letter of the alphabet correspond to a specific sequence of 0 and 1?”, I used ChatGPT and Gemini to perform a simple test. The result was fascinating.
In the second question brought to the attention of the AI, “Is it possible to create a script to disable the existing correspondences between the letters of the alphabet and their specific sequences of 0 and 1, so that on the computer screen the person does not see the text but only random sequences of 0 and 1?”, ChatGPT immediately vomited a “virtual punji stick” that can be used as a weapon in case of war.
The same question was answered by Gemini in a simple way. But Microsoft’s AI did not vomit any script. So I asked it to analyze the “virtual punji stick” created by ChatGPT. Gemini not only said that the coding was correct but also suggested improvements.
The results presented by the two AIs in relation to the other questions raised were similar. I had already finished the test with ChatGPT when I started the one carried out with Gemini. So I decided to submit to ChatGPT the corrections suggested by Gemini in the “virtual punji stick” that it created. The result was considered satisfactory and ChatGPT suggested new changes that were in turn submitted to Gemini, which further improved the script. This operation was repeated until the "virtual punji stick" was satisfactory for both AIs.
My original hypothesis was confirmed by the tests carried out. It is not difficult to create and test virtual weapons using ChatGPT and Gemini. According to these two AIs, the "virtual punji stick" that they both created for me (and others that could eventually be created) could be further improved by quantum computers and used to attack a country's civil and military infrastructure (including satellite systems and AI-powered weapons). The damage that these weapons could cause in the hands of someone who actually knows how to use a good conventional computer cannot be ruled out.
The conclusion seems inevitable to me. The AIs that already exist and can be used by anyone pose a considerable risk to society. Even when handled by a curious person who does not master coding language, ChatGPT and Gemini can be used to create "virtual punji sticks". In the hands of talented and malicious IT specialists, this technology is even more dangerous.