The Islamic State is leveraging artificial intelligence to recruit new members and further its ideology, according to a new report.   The Islamic State has not held any significant amount of land since 2019, yet it has found a way through AI to reinvent itself, Mohammad Taha Ali explained in a new report for the Middle East Forum.   “Unlike earlier jihadist movements that relied on physical sanctuaries, the Islamic State now thrives in virtual ones,” Ali wrote.   Ali, a postgraduate student from Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, India, specializing in conflict resolution and strategic affairs, told The Daily Signal he first became aware of the Islamic State’s use of AI at the end of 2023 and start of 2024, “when ISIS-affiliated online networks began regularly using generative AI to produce multilingual propaganda and automated recruitment material.”   Today, the Islamic State is using new technology tools to create deepfake videos and manufacture news reports that are sympathetic to radical Islamic propaganda. ISIS, according to Ali, takes advantage of crisis situations, such as the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, to flood various digital platforms with “AI-generated extremist content.”   “The goal is not just recruitment; it is to exhaust the algorithmic defenses of major social platforms and dominate online discourse,” Ali wrote.   Even within education, female Islamic State loyalists in refugee camps, such as the al-Hol Displacement Camp in Syria, are using “algorithmically produced martyrdom stories, ensuring the continuity of the movement’s narrative even without formal leadership,” he explained.   Video Games  Gaming is one of the key digital platforms ISIS uses to spread its message and recruit new people into jihadism.   Ali referred to the trend as “gamified radicalization,” in which terrorists target gamers, often in diaspora communities, with radical Islamic ideology.   “These recruits seldom cross a border yet become ideological soldiers in the Islamic State’s virtual army,” he said. “This fusion of gaming culture and jihadist mythology represents an entirely new front in extremist mobilization.”   Cryptocurrency   The Islamic State has also taken advantage of the advent of cryptocurrency, according to Ali. He explained that ISIS uses decentralized forms of currency to evade oversight. Cryptocurrency can be exchanged with anonymity, allowing financers of the “califate,” the establishment of the Islamic state, to fund fighters with greater trust that their identity won’t be exposed.   “In this way, the Islamic State’s ‘caliphate without borders’ morphs into a financial ecosystem without identities,” Ali said.  What Can Be Done?   The Trump administration is “partially” taking the necessary steps to combat the threat of the Islamic State’s use of AI and cryptocurrency, Ali said, explaining “there has been progress on crypto enforcement, but the U.S. still lacks a coherent strategy for tracking and countering AI-generated extremist content and synthetic networks.”  The new Islamic State is a “networked, AI-enabled insurgency,” Ali said, and must be treated as such.   To address the threat, Ali recommended intelligence agencies work with technology companies to monitor and detect AI-generated Islamic State propaganda. Second, specialists who investigate cryptocurrency transactions need greater support through the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body established to combat nefarious financial activity.   Finally, Ali recommended governments “fund diaspora-led digital literacy and counternarrative programs specifically in gaming communities where extremist recruiters are now operational.”   Defeating the “AI Caliphate,” according to Ali, will require policymakers “to think not like soldiers or theologians, but like engineers.”   The post How Terrorists Are Using AI  appeared first on The Daily Signal.