Will AI Concerns Become a New Source of Terrorism?

CSIS has published an analysis titled "Will AI Concerns Become a New Source of Terrorism?" The analysis draws on the U.S. Terrorism Incidents Dataset, which the organisation maintains, and it concludes that concerns about artificial intelligence could become a recurring source of terrorism while stating that the evidence does not show that they have done so yet. The question is set out in the title and tested against the incidents recorded in that dataset rather than against hypothetical scenarios.

The analysis identifies two attacks motivated by AI-related grievances. According to CSIS, those two attacks establish that serious violence is possible. The analysis states, however, that the two incidents do not show that a broader campaign has arrived. It treats the gap between an individual attack and an ongoing campaign as the relevant distinction for assessing whether AI concerns have become a recurring source of terrorism.

The analysis therefore describes the prospect of AI-related grievances producing recurrent terrorism as a possibility rather than a demonstrated trend, placing the two recorded incidents on one side of that distinction and a broader campaign on the other. It does not describe AI-related violence as absent; it states that the evidence so far does not show that a recurring pattern has been established. The finding is presented as a conclusion drawn from the U.S. Terrorism Incidents Dataset.