A video shows an episode of Family Guy, one of the world's best-known cartoon comedy shows, in which Peter Griffin, the main character, drives a van containing a bomb at gunpoint over the bridge.

It is a clip from the episode "Turban Cowboy," which aired in 2013. However, the audio accompanying the video has changed, as Peter Griffin, normally voiced by show creator Seth MacFarlane, sings some unusual lyrics.

"Our weapons are heavy, our ranks are many, but the soldiers of Allah are more than ready," he warbles in the song in his distinctive Rhode Island accent, meant to encourage followers of the extremist "Islamist State" group (IS).

The animation obviously isn't MacFarlane's latest satirical tune but just one illustration of how extremist groups use advanced computing or artificial intelligence (AI) to create content for their followers.

The term AI covers a wide range of digital technologies and can mean anything from the faster processing of large amounts of digital data for analysis to what's known as "generative AI," which "generates" new text or visuals based on huge amounts of data. That's how this Peter Griffin song was created.

"The rapid democratization of generative AI technology in recent years … is having a profound impact on how extremist organizations engage in influence operations online," writes Daniel Siegel, a US researcher who analyzed how AI is used for malicious purposes in an article for the Global Network on Extremism and Technology in which he highlighted the Peter Griffin video.

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