Zürcher Nachrichten - Anthropic says UAE-linked AI op targeted UN experts over Sudan

In a report on misuse of its AI models on Thursday, Anthropic said it uncovered and disrupted the broad campaign it linked "with high confidence" to UAE government officials.

Aimed primarily at the Muslim Brotherhood, the operation used the company's Claude chatbot to generate reports, advocacy materials, social media content and testimony on Sudan.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), triggering what the United Nations has described as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

The UAE has repeatedly been accused, including by UN experts, of supporting the RSF and fuelling the conflict, allegations Abu Dhabi denies.

Last week, the UN's independent fact-finding mission on Sudan said that private entities, intermediaries and recruiters operating from countries including the UAE and Colombia used transit locations in Chad, Libya and Somalia to facilitate the delivery of personnel, training, weapons and logistics to the RSF in Sudan.

Anthropic said the operation focused on an AI persona known as "Deadshot", guided by a doctrine calling for "a coordinated transatlantic and regional operation to dismantle the Muslim Brotherhood globally".

Founded in Egypt in 1928, the Sunni pan-Islamist movement has been accused of links to the Sudanese army, which denies the allegation.

- Targeting UN critics -

Anthropic said the operation compiled what it described as "counter-accountability dossiers" on UN special rapporteurs who had criticised the UAE's conduct in Sudan.

Another effort involved appropriating the identity of a genuine Sudanese human rights organisation and drafting testimony for two named individuals so that "materials serving a party to the Sudan conflict would reach the UN as from independent local witnesses, rather than state messaging".

Anthropic said the operation also ghost-wrote official testimonies intended for delivery at the 62nd session of the UN Human Rights Council, drafting them under "specific restrictions" that neither speech mention the UAE.

The UAE did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

Anthropic said the operation ran roughly 300 fake social media accounts, though it could not determine whether the testimonies or dossiers reached their intended audiences or influenced policy decisions.

More than 200,000 people have been killed since the war began in Sudan, according to estimates by aid workers, while millions more have been displaced in what has become the world's largest displacement and hunger crises.

Attempts at diplomacy have floundered as fighting escalates on several fronts across Africa's third-largest country.

- 'Outdated' -

The UN Security Council renewed its arms embargo on western Darfur for another month on Friday, maintaining the existing restrictions as members continue to debate a US-led push to widen the measure to cover the entire country.

Moscow swiftly signalled its opposition to any broader sanctions. Following the vote, Russia's deputy UN ambassador Anna Evstigneeva said her country "will not allow even a hint of broadening the restrictions by the council on Sudan".

Russia, a permanent member of the Council with veto powers, has aligned itself with Sudan's army in its conflict with the RSF.

During a Security Council session late last month, the US argued that extending the embargo nationwide could help curb the flow of weapons and encourage a political settlement between the warring sides.

At Friday's session, US deputy ambassador Jeffrey Bartos said the existing embargo was "outdated" and "insufficient to address the realities of the war today".

"Inaction means more suffering and death," Bartos said. "That is unacceptable, and we refuse to rubber stamp another year of maintaining the status quo."

The Darfur arms embargo, in place for over two decades, expires on Saturday.

M.Hug--NZN