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My question is: How far does the AI system go… is it behind the AI decision to starve the population of Gaza? And if it is behind the strategy of starvation as a tool of war, is it also behind the decision to kill the aid workers who are trying to feed the starving? How far does the AI system go? Also, can an AI commit a war crime? Is it any defence to say, “The computer did it!” Or “I was just following AI’s orders!…
No, the point of this program seems to be to find targets for assassination, removing the human bottleneck. I don't think bigger strategic decisions like starving the population of Gaza was bottlenecked in the same way as finding/deciding on bombing targets is.
> is it also behind the decision to kill the aid workers who are trying to feed the starving?
It would seem like this program gives whoever is responsible for the actual bombing a list of targets to chose from, so supposedly a human was behind that decision but aided by a computer. Then it turns out (according to the article at least) that the responsible parties mostly rubberstamped those lists without further verification.
> can an AI commit a war crime?
No, war crimes are about making individuals responsible for their choices, not about making programs responsible for their output. At least currently.
The users/makers of the AI surely could be held in violation of laws of war though, depending on what they are doing/did.
A rather opinionated site with no about page.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai...
Israel's evil keeps taking me by surprise. I guess when people go down the path of dehumanization there are truly no limits to what they are ready to do. But what is even sadder is that the supposedly morally superior western world is entirely bribed and blackmailed to stand behind Israel. And then you have countries like Germany where you get thrown in jail for being upset at Israel.
The name of Lavender makes this so surreal to me for some reason. I'm of the opinion that algorithms shouldn't determine who lives and dies, but it's so common even outside of war.
People thought this way about the machine gun, the armored tank, the atom bomb. But once the genie is out there's no putting it back in.
As an aside, I think this is a good example of how humans and AI will work together to bring efficiency to whatever tasks need to be accomplished. There's a lot of fear of AI taking jobs, but I think it was Peter Thiel who said years ago that future AI would work side by side humans to accomplish tasks. Here we are.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know about kill lists, but AI weapons kinda make sense. No weapons are nice, but if the good guys don't develop AI weapons, the bad guys will. From what I gather, many US engineers are morally opposed to them. But if China develops them and gets into a war with the US, will Americans be happy to lose knowing that they have the moral high ground?
Right, just like if the good guys don't develop a novel coronavirus in a lab, the bad guys will and unleash it on the world! Development of tools of death is not a good guy/bad guy thing. The "bad guys" think the "good guys" are bad. I think "killing" is bad, no matter who develops the tools.
> “We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” A., an intelligence officer, told +972 and Local Call. “On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
> It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. Okay, how is this not a war crime? There are ~2M civilians who live in Gaza, and many of them don't have access to food, water, medicine, or safe shelter. Some of those unfortunates live above, or below, Hamas operatives and their families. "Oh, sorry, lol." "It was unintentional, lmao, seriously." "Our doctrine states that we can kill X civilians for every hostile operativ…
As bad as this story makes the Israelis sound, it still reads like ass-covering to make it sound like they were at least trying to kill militants. It's been clear from the start that they've been targeting journalists, medical staff and anyone involved in aid distribution, with the goal of rendering life in Gaza impossible.