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'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing in Gaza

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Re: 'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing in Gaza

#202

Post by NickC25 »

snird wrote: post #144
jarenmf wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

>The HN crowd is overly enthusiastic to see Jews die, if anything.

I wouldn't be so quick to say that. I would guess that 99.99999% of us at a bare minimum don't want to see any innocent people die, regardless of ethnicity, religious creed, nationality, etc. In fact, I'd wager my life savings and my company on the guess that most rational adults don't want to see innocent people die regardless of where in the world they are. HN is no different.

Israel is not 100% scot-free and innocent here, and that needs to be stressed. I don't condone Hamas's behavior at all (it's abhorrent), nor do I condone bombing a clearly-marked vehicle delivering humanitarian aid (also abhorrent).

Also, Israel =! all jewish people world wide. You'll find some of Israel's largest criticisms come from non-Israeli Jews.

Re: 'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing in Gaza

#203

Post by tokai »

nemo44x wrote: post #196
fullstick wrote: post #162

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.

I think the algorithm, in this case, makes a suggestion and then a human evaluates it. The article claims they've only looked at the sex of the target (kill if male) but also claims 90% effectiveness. I'm curious if 90% is a good number or not? War will always have collateral damages but if technology can help limit that beyond what only a human could do then I'd say it's a net positive. I think the massive efficienc…

>During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based. One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing

Re: 'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing in Gaza

#205

Post by thomastjeffery »

wantlotsofcurry wrote: post #137

Upsetting how quickly the other thread was flagged and downranked.

I don't take any issue with people flagging a post, so long as an actual person makes the ultimate decision on whether to keep it up.

This is in contrast to how I feel about a statistical model flagging people to be murdered. That's not even remotely OK, even if the decision to actually carry out the murder ultimately goes through a person. Using a statistical model to choose targets is incredibly naive, and practically guarantees that perverse incentives will drive decision-making.

Re: 'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing in Gaza

#206

Post by shepherdjerred »

snird wrote: post #167
diyseguy wrote: post #74

The new political excuse for genocide: wasn't me, the AI did it.

[flagged]

It's a very complicated situation.

Genocide seems like a bit a stretch, but it is hard to tell. I would like to think that Israel is incapable of genocide, but at the very least it's clear they don't mind killing thousands of innocent people. Israel has done some truly inexcusable, horrific things.

I do sympathize with Israel. Israel is surrounded by countries that would like to see it wiped off of the map. Hamas has been attacking Israel from Palestinian territory for two decades. I'm glad that Israel exists and that the Jewish people have a home.

I'm afraid there doesn't seem to be a right answer, but Israel could at least show that it values human life.

Re: 'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing in Gaza

#207

Post by skilled »

Garvi wrote: post #160
Mgtyalx wrote: post #71

@dang Please consider that this is an important and well sourced article regarding military use of AI and machine learning and shouldn't disappear because some users find it upsetting.

[flagged]

That is not the case at all.

See this comment from dang:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39435024

There are more comments like this from him, you can find them using Algolia.

HN is not acting in bad faith whatsoever.

This story in particular “qualifies” for what would be interesting to HN readers while taking into account the sensitivity of the subject.

I fully expect the discussion to be allowed and the flag lifted, but HN mod team is very small and it might take a while - it quite literally always does.

Re: 'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing in Gaza

#210

Post by mikrl »

2devnull wrote: post #36

Probably going to be flame city in this thread, but I think it’s worth asking: is it possible that even with collateral damage (killing women and children because of hallucinations) that AI based killing technology is actually more ethical and safer than warfare that doesn’t use AI. But AI is really just another name for math, so maybe it’s not a useful conversation. Militaries use advanced tech and that’s nothing ne…

I think the concern is that the AI is making life or death judgements against people. Some may of course be lawful combatants under the rules that govern such things, but the fact that an AI is drawing these conclusions that humans act on is the shocking part.

I doubt an artillery system using machine learning to correct its trajectory and get better accuracy would be controversial, since the AI in that case is just controlling the path of a shell that an operator has determined needs to hit a target decided upon by humans.

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