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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

#511
US supporting Ukraine made sense, Russia was the clear aggresor.

US supporting Israel makes very little sense.

That being said, Trump signed bill to removed reporting of drone strikes by US military and he approved more strikes than Obama.

So US likely has amplified systems compared to Lavender and Gospel. We'd have no idea.

This season of Daily Show about AI comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20TAkcy3aBY

Everyone claiming AI is going to do great good, solve climate change yada yada is deeply in an illusion.

AI will only amplify what corporations and state powers already do.

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

#512
post #419

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…

> I wonder what the alternative is in a case like this. It seems obvious to me that the alternative would be a slower process for picking targets leading to fewer overall targets picked and the guarantee that a human conscience is involved in the process.

Or alternatively pressure from the top down on targeting specialists to get more and more targets selected resulting in less quality and effort spent on selecting targets and maybe leading to rubber-stamping proposed targets without adequate consideration. Which isn't to suggest that that would definitely make the AI better per se

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

#513
post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But you know soldiers are in a tank, and you know a pilot is in a plane. Who's in an apartment?

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

#514
post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It sounds like you think they should have autonomy and a democratic state, which most of the world also agrees with.

I think the implication is that Gaza does have semi-autonomy (it is a complicated situation - there's a blockade, but it has security autonomy within its region. Or did before October 7th).

And Gaza was pushed towards democratic elections, which they held, elected Hamas, and Hamas hasn't permitted a democracy since then.

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

#516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is having a human make those decisions really better? It was humans who ordered the Holocaust, My Lai, Wounded Knee, Rwanda, Tiananmen, etc. At least AI pretends to look at some data instead of just defaulting to tribal bloodlust... who's to say it can't be more ethical? It doesn't take much to beat our track record.

Perhaps it performs sentiment analysis of your social media posts.

So that's why I'm still alive. Hi, robo-overlords! Sarah Connor sux. Save me for last!

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

#517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Haaretz reports that the ground troops in Gaza are acting on their own and in a state of anarchy. https://archive.is/2024.04.02-205352/https://www.haaretz.com...

So like ground troops in every war, ever? There’s a whole school of thought around having the boots on the ground make their own in the moment decisions.

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

#518
post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine you get to tune the probability window of "person is >90% likely a Hamas terrorist" and choose how many innocent people you kill. Who set the window? "Hamas terrorist" criteria: a male of fighting age, give higher weight to those congregating with others of fighting age. Basically take out a generation of Palestinian men and you're all set. Lovely. >This sentence is horrifically dystopian... "in order to sa…

A war that would only kill 10% civilians would be a massive improvement over any recent conflict.

For every militant they correctly identify (90% of the time, they'd have us believe) and kill, they also kill dozens of innocents. This doesn't give them pause; on the contrary the Israeli public revels in the carnage and bring out lawn chairs to watch. It's genocide.
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