Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

972mag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 1001 posts

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

#311

Post by shmatt »

stevenwoo wrote: post #145
randysalami wrote: post #109

I wonder how accurate this technology really is or if they care so little for the results and instead more for the optics of being seen as advanced. On one hand, it’s scary to think this technology exists but on the other, it might just be a pile of junk since the output is so biased. What’s even scarier is that it’s proof that people in power don’t care about “correct”, they care about having a justification to conf…

It's unconfirmed who authorized it but the recent food charity workers killed by Israeli bombing had a security person (death confirmed by family in UK) who is unarmed but by job description clears the way by telling Israeli authorities where the charity team is going to be so the chain of command knew who they were, so one is naturally lead to ask - who would authorize a targeted killing in this situation? The after…

War zones aren't as quiet and organized as you would imagine. More so when one side is disguised as regular civilians. All war zones also have people killed by friendly fire. I would assume friendly fire > killing western charity workers > killing civilians in order of importance to the military

Yet still, even that its the most important, friendly fire still happens

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

#312

Post by [deleted] »

giantg2 wrote: post #282

"Lavender learns to identify characteristics of known Hamas and PIJ operatives, whose information was fed to the machine as training data, and then to locate these same characteristics — also called “features” — among the general population, the sources explained. An individual found to have several different incriminating features will reach a high rating, and thus automatically becomes a potential target for assass…

[deleted]

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

#313

Post by [deleted] »

myth_drannon wrote: post #304
prpl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the entire family and neighbors family. Sure would be convenient if Hamas is 6% of the population

So why it didn't happen? 40000 operatives, x30 family members would mean the entire Gaza population is gone in a matter of weeks.

[deleted]

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

#314

Post by [deleted] »

skilled wrote: post #103

The Guardian has this story on the front page also, they were given details about it pre-publishing, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai... And, personally, I think that stories like this are of public interest - while I won’t ask for it directly, I hope the flag is removed and the discussion can happen.

[deleted]

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

#315

Post by surfingdino »

spxneo wrote: post #300

The most disturbing part for me (going beyond Israel/Palestine conflict) is that modern war is scary: - Weaponized financial trojan horses like crypto - Weaponized chemical warfare through addictions - Drone swarm attacks in Ukraine - AI social-media engineered outrage to change publics perception - Impartial, jingoistic mainstream war propaganda - Censorship and manipulation of neutral views as immoral - Weaponized…

War has always been scary. We are busy inventing new ways of killing each other and there is no sign of stopping.

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

#316

Post by [deleted] »

pixl97 wrote: post #258
CommieBobDole wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also interesting (and I guess typical for end-users of software) how quickly and easily something like this goes from "Here's a tool you can use as an information input when deciding who to target" to "I dunno, computer says these are the people we need to kill, let's get to it". In the Guardian article, an IDF spokesperson says it exists and is only used as the former, and I'm sure that's what was intended and…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_says_no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_Don%27t_Argue

[deleted]

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

#317

Post by mrs6969 »

Any human being would not accept this. If it is happening to Palestinian people, it will happen to any other country in the world. Israel is committing genocide in front of the world. 50 years from now, some people will be sorry while committing another genocide.

be ready to be targeted by AI, from another state, within another war

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

#318

Post by amarcheschi »

giantg2 wrote: post #282

"Lavender learns to identify characteristics of known Hamas and PIJ operatives, whose information was fed to the machine as training data, and then to locate these same characteristics — also called “features” — among the general population, the sources explained. An individual found to have several different incriminating features will reach a high rating, and thus automatically becomes a potential target for assass…

This literally looks like any aborrhent ai "predicting" system such as the ones we've heard a ton about in the past, with the same mistakes (I wonder if they're really mistakes, bugs, or ahem... Features)

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

#319

Post by KingMob »

yonisto wrote: post #307
smt88 wrote: post #21

I know many people won't read past the headline, but please try to. This is the second paragraph: "In addition to talking about their use of the AI system, called Lavender, the intelligence sources claim that Israeli military officials permitted large numbers of Palestinian civilians to be killed, particularly during the early weeks and months of the conflict."

[flagged]

> What can one do when criminals have embedded them self in the civilian population? Why don't they get out and meet the police on the battle field?

We wouldn't tolerate a SWAT team blowing up a hospital if the mafia had taken over the basement, I have no idea why you think this is acceptable.

> It is much better than the carpet bombing used by other nations.

It is exactly like the carpet bombing used by other nations.

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

#320

Post by [deleted] »

dw_arthur wrote: post #14

Two sources said that during the early weeks of the war they were permitted to kill 15 or 20 civilians during airstrikes on low-ranking militants. Attacks on such targets were typically carried out using unguided munitions known as “dumb bombs”, the sources said, destroying entire homes and killing all their occupants. The world should not forget this.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN