351–360 of 1001 posts
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."
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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...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident
> The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two marines, and one civilian NSA employee), wounded 171 crew members
The only consequence for them was "paying compensations" as if there was a price to put on human lives.
AI generated kill lists are sadly inevitable. Had hoped we'd get a few more years before we'd actually see it being deployed. Lots to think about here
They're great because the accountability for fuckups goes on the system, not on the people using the system. "Oops, the system had a bug" doesn't kill careers like "Oops, I made a bad call."
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It always starts with making a list of targets that meet given criteria. Once you have the list its use changes from categorisation to demonisation -> surveillance -> denial of rights -> deportations -> killing. Early use of computers by Germans during WW2 included making and processing of lists of people who ought to be sent to concentration camps. The only difference today is that we are able to capture more data a…
There's even books written about it. Shame on IBM for this. I suspect in the future we'll have lots of books like this, for other companies enabling this genocide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
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what do you mean "bribed and blackmailed"?
On AIPAC in the US: 1. “How the Israel lobby moved to quash rising dissent in Congress against Israel’s apartheid regime” 2. “Top Pro-Israel Group Offered Ocasio-Cortez $100,000 Campaign Cash” 3. “Senate Candidate in Michigan Says He Was Offered $20 Million to Challenge Tlaib” [1]: https://theintercept.com/2023/11/27/israel-democrats-aipac-b... [2]: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ocasio-cortez-aipac-offer-con... [3]:…
Not sure these three links show that "supposedly morally superior western world is entirely bribed and blackmailed". Especially on the "entirely" and "blackmail" parts.
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…
There has been no mass self-correction to my knowledge that would avert this kind of destructive behavior.
But in saying that, I am fully aware that most of such behavior stems from people who are in charge of the world at a political level.
Is it implausible to think that this is something that will have to change in order for the world to change?
The war doesn’t serve anyone but a few rotten minds who are trying to make decisions on behalf of millions if not billions of people.
And we share a similar nudge. I do think that was is happening in the world today is a mere preparation (of society) for a massive power struggle in various parts of the world that will inevitably lead to a full-blown war. But this is only my personal feeling/interpretation.
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The law of armed conflict acknowledges that civilian deaths are inevitable, and only prohibits attacks that are directed at civilians; rather than those which are directed at combatants with expected civilian casualties as collateral damage. The legal question is whether the civilian casualties are proportional to the concrete military value of the target. A question that's worth considering is whether, when consider…
> For example, the category "civilian" includes munitions workers or those otherwise offering support to combatants on the one hand, and young children on the other. It also includes members of the civil population who are actually involved in hostilities without being a formal part of an armed force. I wonder if you would say the same on the other side where every male or female above 18 years is required to serve i…
I don't think anything in the grandparent post suggested that. If someone used to be a combatant and then ceased fighting, usually they then become a civilian. They don't stay a combatant for life. Reserve forces not on duty are not generally combatants. You have to be in the fight to be a combatant.
Things get more complicated with combatants who don't fully wear uniforms, which is why failing to wear a uniform is a war crime.
It should be noted this isn't so much the grandparent's personal opinion as they are just paraphrasing what the geneva convention says. However there is of course a lot more details to it then that and the devil is in the details.
[Edit: i think i read the post too quickly. The grandparent is incorrect when saying "[Civilians] also includes members of the civil population who are actually involved in hostilities without being a formal part of an armed force.". If you pick up a gun and start shooting the other side, you are not a civilian. It doesn't matter whether you are formally part of the armed forces. Civilians get protected because we want to protect the innocents stuck in the middle. People who are taking part in a war dont get that protection]
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It's been pretty clear to me for a while now that Israel's long term plan for the Palestinians is to expel them all. Starvation isnt a requirement for that, but it is probably the path of least resistance. I will say that its happening a lot faster than I expected though, Israel definitely taking advantage of the situation here.
But in lieu of expulsion, it seems they're ok with starvation and mass murder as alternatives.
Accepting technological barbarism is a choice. Among engineers there should be a broad refusal to work on such systems and a blacklist for those who do.
It sure would be nice if this industry had the tiniest shred of collective consciousness and realized our capacity to exert some level of control over what gets built and what doesn't.
This needs to be applied to nation-states & so much more we're engineering.
I'd love to see a design methodology grounded in accounting for all nondual needs of humans. This idea usually comes with complaints of that being an impossible task, without really understanding the issue.