By Robert Booth,Dan Milmo
Publication Date: 2026-03-03 06:00:00
The use of AI tools to enable attacks on Iran ushered in a new era of bombing that is faster than “the speed of thought,” experts said, raising concerns that human decision-makers could be sidelined.
Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, was reportedly used by the US military in the spate of attacks because the technology “shortens the kill chain” – the process from target identification to legal authorization and launching the attack.
The US and Israel, which had previously used AI to identify targets in Gaza, launched nearly 900 strikes on Iranian targets in the first 12 hours alone, in which Israeli missiles killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Scientists studying the field say AI is reducing the planning time required for complex attacks – a phenomenon known as “decision compression” that some fear could lead to human military and legal experts merely rubber-stamping automated attack plans.
In 2024, San Francisco-based Anthropic deployed its model all over the world…