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[ARTICLE · art-102996] src=scmp.com ↗ pub= topic=artificial-intelligence verified=true sentiment=↓ negative

China’s J-36 fighter jet designers report danger of military AI hallucinations

Chinese engineers designing the J-36 stealth fighter have warned that AI models can 'defy basic physics, design principles or operational constraints,' inventing aircraft specifications and producing false radar data that could cause strategic miscalculations. Engineer Zhang Xianzhe published the warning on June 20 in Information Studies: Theory & Application, a journal run by China's state-owned arms maker Norinco, highlighting the severe consequences of AI hallucinations in defence intelligence.

read1 min views1 publishedAug 19, 2026
China’s J-36 fighter jet designers report danger of military AI hallucinations
Image: Scmp (auto-discovered)

Content generated by artificial intelligence models can ‘defy basic physics, design principles or operational constraints’

Large language modelsare expert in intelligence work, able to quickly mine key data and analyse

weaponsperformance – tasks that once took analysts huge amounts of time and effort. next generation J-36 stealth fighters, have urged caution.

In a paper published on June 20, engineer Zhang Xianzhe said that “AI models can invent aircraft specifications – length, payload, weapons, speed, combat radius – and get radar scan ranges and frequency bands wrong”.

“The so-called hallucination effect, where models produce plausible but false outputs, could have severe consequences in the high-stakes, low-error world of defence intelligence, possibly even causing strategic miscalculations,” he said.

Zhang’s work was published in Information Studies: Theory & Application, a journal run by China’s state-owned arms maker Norinco.

According to the paper, every fighter jet begins with a deep understanding of the enemy and the battlefield. Designers must answer critical questions: what is the opponent’s radar coverage and which frequencies do they use?

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