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

972mag.com

441–450 of 1001 posts

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

#441

In war, the first casualty is the truth. We have no idea whether this story itself is relaying anything of value. For all we know, stories like this could be a part of the war effort.

What does that even mean? 972 is a local Israeli outfit, with contributors from Israel and Palestine. They have sources within the IDF, sources who may be center-left leaning and are "done" with how the far-right coalition is running this war and they are blowing the whistle on this practice.

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

#442

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…

To quote someone on social media:

> With unintended strikes, there's "we work hard to avoid this, but based on bad intel made a rare, tragic error," and "we've encouraged RoE that foreseeably makes tragic errors frequent, but this looks bad and in hindsight wish we hadn't done it."

> Israel's strike on WCK food aid workers is the latter

Israel has long had pretty plain issues with its rules of engagement. Recall that earlier in this conflict, the IDF shot three of the hostages whose recovery is one of the main goals of the operation!

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

#444

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…

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

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> B., a senior officer who used Lavender, echoed to +972 and Local Call that in the current war, officers were not required to independently review the AI system’s assessments, in order to save time and enable the mass production of human targets without hindrances. > “Everything was statistical, everything was neat — it was very dry,” B. said. He noted that this lack of supervision was permitted despite internal che…

Hm OK, I read this a bit differently. I read these sections: > 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 — just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male. > According to the sources, the army knew that the minimal human supervisio…

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

#446

I'm disturbed by the idea that an AI could be used to make decisions that could proactively kill someone. (Presumably computer already make decisions that passively kill people by, for example, navigating a self-driving car.) Though there was a human sign-off in this case, it seems one step away from people being killed by robots with zero human intervention which is about one step away from the plot of Terminator. I…

We crossed the line of machines that automatically kill a long time ago. A heat seeking missile, or a shell that detects and target tanks [1] are effectively doing that. Software selects the target. The soldier only points in the general direction. AI is only a small technical increment.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMArt_155

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

#447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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They've proven a lack of interest in the hostages. They've actively refused deals that involved the return of the hostages, and repeatedly carried out operations that put the hostages in danger.

Hamas will never return hostages on its own. It needs them to stay in power as insurance against destruction by Israel. Unfortunately, that means an offensive into central Gaza camps where some of the hostages are believed to be held and also Rafah ...

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

#448

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…

We need to consider what are the other options in that situation, my thinking is that due to Hamas being fully embedded in the civilian population, the only other "reasonable" method is to carpet bomb... After reading the article I much prefer the AI method.

Both of these options are war crimes. I think only talking about these two options presents a false dichotomy. There are many more options that could have been considered. For example, Israel could have accepted the hostage swap and then picked Hamas operatives slowly but surely given their superior military and intelligence. Israel however prefered killing lots of civilians as "collateral damage" in order to kill a few Hamas operatives and they didn't even manage to rescue hostages. The crime lies in the blatant disregard for civilian life in Gaza.

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

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wonder if you would say the same on the other side where every male or female above 18 years is required to serve in thr military and in the reserve afterwards? [1] 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 combatan…

>If you pick up a gun and start shooting the other side, you are not a civilian.

You're not a civilian while you're holding the gun, but you are once you stop shooting again: you lose your protection as a civilian during your period of direct participation. Should have been more clear on that.

It's probably also worth saying that -- while there's a degree of subtlety and complexity when considering the legal and moral position of Israel's armed forces -- there's very little to debate when it comes to actions like the Re'im music festival attack. That kind of action is obviously illegal and morally repugnant.

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

#450
post #272

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.

Lots of us are IEEE members bound to ethical standards: https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html

There are also numerous other organisations with such standards.

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