'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing in Gaza • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by cmrdporcupine » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 5:10 PM UTC

mardifoufs wrote: post #227

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Because it's Israel. It's also why no western country has ever really officially condemned Israel no matter what they do. They are on "our side" so it's okay. And those civilians kind of deserved it anyways or something, and we can just trust every single word the IDF says and use them as an actual source to pretend the IDF isn't into mass civilian murder. The only thing that made this time a bit different is the cra…

Even when our own citizens are killed, they don't get condemned.

E.g. the IDF targeted and killed a Canadian UN peacekeeper in 2008 (because he got too squeaky) and the Canadian gov't barely lodged a protest.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/un-officer-reported-is...

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

#242

Post by thomastjeffery » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 5:12 PM UTC

supposemaybe wrote: post #168

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!…

> Also, can an AI commit a war crime?

"An AI" doesn't exist. What is being labeled "AI" here is a statistical model. A model can't do anything; it can only be used to sift data.

No matter where in the chain of actions you put a model, you can't offset human responsibility to that model. If you try, reasonable people will (hopefully) call you out on your bullshit.

> There’s so much about this death machine AI I would like to know.

The death machine here is Israel's military. That's a group of people who don't get to hide behind the facade of "an AI told me". It's a group of people who need to be held responsible for naively using a statistical model to choose who they murder next.

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

#243

Post by dfxm12 » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 5:12 PM UTC

diggan wrote: post #192

supposemaybe wrote: post #168

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!…

> How far does the AI system go… is it behind the AI decision to starve the population of Gaza? 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 a…

No, the point of this program seems to be to find targets for assassination, removing the human bottleneck.

There is also another AI system that tracks when these target get home.

Additional automated systems, including one called “Where’s Daddy?” also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.

I think "assassination" colloquially means to pinpoint and kill one individual target. I don't mean to say you are implying this, but I do want to make it clear to other readers that according to the article, they are going for max collateral damage, in terms of human life and infrastructure.

“The only question was, is it possible to attack the building in terms of collateral damage? Because we usually carried out the attacks with dumb bombs, and that meant literally destroying the whole house on top of its occupants. But even if an attack is averted, you don’t care — you immediately move on to the next target. Because of the system, the targets never end. You have another 36,000 waiting.”

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

#244

Post by xk_id » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 5:15 PM UTC

barbazoo wrote: post #171

Getting all these reports about atrocities, I wonder if the conflict in the area has grown more brutal over the decades or if this is just business as usual. I'm in my late 30s, growing up in the EU, the conflict in the region was always present. I don't remember hearing the kind of stories that come to light these days though, indiscriminate killings, food and water being targeted, aid workers being killed. I get th…

The weaponisation of online media for manipulating the perception of global audiences about the conflict, has definitely ramped up recently. For example, the official Twitter account of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has posted videos of muslim preachers appearing to denounce lgbt culture during public service in Palestinian mosques. Hamas themselves are denying their involvement in the 2023 massacre and accusing Israel of staging the graphic footage that was disseminated. This greatly polarises the debates on social media and it’s much more common now to see people who are deeply invested emotionally in the narrative of either side.

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

#245

Post by diggan » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #243

diggan wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How far does the AI system go… is it behind the AI decision to starve the population of Gaza? 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 a…

No, the point of this program seems to be to find targets for assassination, removing the human bottleneck. There is also another AI system that tracks when these target get home. Additional automated systems, including one called “Where’s Daddy?” also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences. I th…

Yeah, I wasn't 100% sure of using the "assassination" wording in my comment, but after thinking about it I felt it most neutral approach is to use the same wording they use in the article itself, in order to not add my own subjective opinion about this whole saga.

> In an unprecedented move, according to two of the sources, the army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians; in the past, the military did not authorize any “collateral damage” during assassinations of low-ranking militants. The sources added that, in the event that the target was a senior Hamas official with the rank of battalion or brigade commander, the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander.

I'd agree with you that once you decide it's worth to kill 100 civilians for one target, it's really hard to call it "assassination" at that point...

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

#246

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

tayo42 wrote: post #218

supposemaybe wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Don't think that's it. Hn is pretty against flame wars and politics and that's what anything with Isreal Palestine in the title or content will devolve into. Look at how the comments are going in those threads already. It's a mess

This is true, but being against flame wars in general means some important topics just don't get discussed, even though they're directly relevant to HN - here there's both a current news angle and a whole bundle of tech questions, from ethics to how one measures the success rate of a new technology.

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

#247

Post by mempko » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 5:20 PM UTC

factorialboy wrote: post #16

Can we please discuss the merits of this article — role of AI in future conflicts — without taking sides on any of the ongoing wars?

Why not both? Taking a side does not mean you are clouded in judgement on this point.

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

#248

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 5:21 PM UTC

snird wrote: post #156

Quanttek wrote: post #108

Years ago, scholars (such as Didier Bigo) have already raised concerns about the targeting of individuals merely based on (indirect) association with a "terrorist" or "criminal". Originally used in the context of surveillance (see Snowden revelations), such systems would target anyone who would be e.g. less than 3-steps away from an identified individual, thereby removing any sense of due process or targeted surveill…

[flagged]

This is demonstrably untrue (it happens of course, but is not ubiquitous as comabt footage demonstrates) and in any case does not obviate the LOAC.

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

#249

Post by rich_sasha » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

I don't like anything about this war, but in a way, I think concerns of AI in warfare are, at this stage, overblown. I'm more concerned about the humans doing the shooting.

Let's face it, in any war, civilians are really screwed. It's true here, it was true in Afghanistan or Vietnam or WWII. They get shot at, they get bombed, by accident or not, they get displaced. Milosevic in Serbia didn't need an AI to commit genocide.

The real issue to me is what the belligerents are OK with. If they are ok killing people on flimsy intelligence, I don't see much difference between perfunctory human analysis and a crappy AI. Are we saying that somehow Hamas gets some brownie points for not using an AI?

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

#250

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Apr 03, 2024, 5:27 PM UTC

xyzelement wrote: post #214

mckirk wrote: post #158

> “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people — it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs]” At that point I had to scroll back up to check whether this was just a really twisted April's Fools joke.

What part of this upsets you vs a baseline understanding of reality? There's often a criticism of the US military doctrine that our weapons are great but are often way more expensive than the thing we shoot them at (as exemplified in our engagement with the Houthis in the Red Sea.) If anything, the quote you pulled sounds like its talking about highly precise weaponry, and it seems to me that the way to minimize the…

Civilians aren't strategic targets like military decision-makers, but describing them as 'unimportant' is a sign of moral vacuity.