{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.warner.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warner-reed-coons-press-pentagon-dni-for-answers-on-reported-ai-failures-in-military-operations/", "Warner, Reed, Coons Press Pentagon, DNI for Answers on Reported AI Failures in Military Operations", "2026-09-21", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "Senate", "VA", "Mark R. Warner", "W000805", "www.warner.senate.gov", "warner", "https://www.warner.senate.gov/news/press-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Jack Reed (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Chris Coons (D-DE), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense, called on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton to investigate reported failures involving the use of artificial intelligence in U.S. military and intelligence operations and provide relevant Inspectors General unrestricted access to examine the incidents.\n\nThe senators\u2019 letter follows public reports of an AI-targeting platform relying on outdated geospatial data in a kinetic strike in Minab, Iran, and an aborted military interdiction operation after AI-generated false information was included in disseminated U.S. intelligence.\n\n\u201cRecent events \u2013 including public reports of an AI-targeting platform relying on outdated geospatial data in a kinetic strike in Minab, Iran and a public report on an aborted military interdiction operation driven by potential AI-hallucination in disseminated intelligence by U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific \u2013 have given us growing concern about the extent to which agencies under your oversight have prioritized acceleration of AI capability adoption and \u2018experimentation\u2019 over effective governance,\u201d the senators wrote.\n\nWarner, Reed, and Coons warned that reported AI failures in targeting and intelligence systems could lead to serious operational errors and erode confidence in U.S. intelligence and military actions.\n\n\u201cPublic reports that AI targeting platforms have repeatedly generated spurious outputs (based on outdated input data or outright hallucination) risk serious operational error, in addition to undermining the confidence of both the American public and international partners in the accuracy and reliability of U.S. intelligence and intelligence-informed kinetic actions,\u201d they continued.\n\nThe senators called for the reported incidents to be investigated by the relevant Inspectors General, warning against sacrificing safeguards in the push to rapidly deploy AI across national security missions.\n\n\u201cThese potential mistakes \u2013 against the backdrop of the Department of Defense\u2019s harassment of a leading U.S. AI vendor over the latter\u2019s reluctance to allow its products\u2019 use in fully-autonomous kinetic operations \u2013 deserve immediate investigation by relevant Inspectors General, with a higher degree of public transparency in the ultimate findings, given the impacts these perceived failures have on public confidence in our intelligence and warfighting missions,\u201d the senators wrote.\n\nWarner, Reed, and Coons also stressed that AI can play an important role in intelligence analysis while requiring rigorous standards and human oversight, particularly when intelligence could lead to military action.\n\n\u201cWhile AI has appropriate applications in the analytic and other fields, strong tradecraft standards should ensure that no disseminated intelligence product contains AI-generated errors, particularly when such intelligence may serve as the impetus for a kinetic action against a nuclear-armed adversary,\u201d they wrote.\n\nThe senators pointed to the administration\u2019s rollback of AI governance measures, including the revocation of National Security Memorandum 25 and a Department of Defense AI strategy that characterizes governance policies as barriers to adoption.\n\n\u201cA \u2018Move Fast and Break Things\u2019 approach may serve for high-engagement memes on social media platforms, but it risks potentially grave operational miscalculations and represents a serious threat to morale; recruitment; and foreign perceptions on the thresholds, accuracy, and justness of U.S. military action,\u201d the senators wrote.\n\nWarner, Reed, and Coons concluded by calling for a broader examination of potential AI-related failures beyond the two publicly reported incidents:\n\n\u201cWe urge you to promptly investigate this matter, providing relevant Inspectors General with unrestricted access to both instances this year in which media reports have suggested significant errors in AI-enabled targeting workflows, as well as any additional instances that may have so far not been publicly reported.\u201d\n\nThe full text of the letter is available here.\n\n###", 1, "2026-09-22T09:42:49Z", "2026-09-22T09:44:35Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.warner.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warner-reed-coons-press-pentagon-dni-for-answers-on-reported-ai-failures-in-military-operations/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8724839426577091, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}