The queryable war: When AI turns ‘could’ into ‘must’

The US–Iran war reveals a quieter power of generative AI: it can turn unfolding reports into plausible futures, reshape what citizens expect, what leaders think they can politically afford and what adversaries prepare to resist—without falsifying a single fact. The question “what happens next?” is as old as war. What is new is that almost anyone can now ask a machine to build the answer while reports are still arriving. Ask a web-connected chatbot what would follow another round of US strikes on Iran and it may return several orderly futures: Iranian retaliation in the Persian Gulf, a wider regional confrontation, an energy shock or a negotiated exit. These are not reports of events already established; they are constructed futures. […]