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

721–730 of 1001 posts

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

#721

Post by abtinf »

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…

It would be difficult to deliberately design a set of rules that would prolong war and human suffering even longer than what you’ve described.

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

#722

Post by JumpCrisscross »

C6JEsQeQa5fCjE wrote: post #693
sequoia wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is obviously veering way off course of the topic of AI at this point, but I imagine the residents of kibbutz be'eri and the 100+ hostages still held in Gaza would disagree that Isreal is fighting for "basically no reason." I'm interested in analysis and criticism of Israel's use of AI in this case but suggesting Israel has no causus belli is absurd.

I never understood why the argument that only war can bring hostages back, or that it is the most reliable way, was allowed to be propagated in public for so long. > but I imagine the residents of kibbutz be'eri and the 100+ hostages still held in Gaza would disagree that Isreal is fighting for "basically no reason." On the contrary, I think that those exact people would agree the most. Do you think that they do not…

> the argument that only war can bring hostages back

The war has explicilty been about removing Hamas from power for a while now. To the degree there is opposition within Israel to the war, it's in the hostage-retrieval prerogative having been subsumed.

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

#723

Post by pvaldes »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #474
rowanseymour wrote: post #34

As bad as this story makes the Israelis sound, it still reads like ass-covering to make it sound like they were at least trying to kill militants. It's been clear from the start that they've been targeting journalists, medical staff and anyone involved in aid distribution, with the goal of rendering life in Gaza impossible.

> It's been clear from the start that they've been targeting journalists, medical staff and anyone involved in aid distribution I really doubt that's the case, seems more like a "fire first if any suspicion at all and ask questions later" policy. If there was an intentional policy to kills journalists, aid workers and medical staff you'd see a lot more dead. And you have to be extremely naive or one sided to not real…

> I really doubt that's the case, seems more like a "fire first if any suspicion at all and ask questions later" policy.

I will try to solve your doubt. Gaza is a closed area. You can't just cross freely the frontier unless Israel allows it. Before that, humanitarian organisations are required to inform directly to Israeli army about everything that they want to do, where they want to go, how many, an when. They are clearly identified by a logo at all times. Israel had every single piece of info necessary to avoid bombing aid workers and had it for weeks

Despite that, Israel can't avoid to keep killing this workers; and they were doing the same repeatedly, systematically, for the last six months, in multiple attacks that last tens of minutes (maybe even hours?), while singing "oops!, I did it again".

The theory of the honest mistake is getting really difficult to swallow.

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

#724

Post by Aliabid94 »

kobayashi wrote: post #700
lozenge wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm sure that's what was intended" Intended by who? You don't kill 13,000 children by accident.

[flagged]

The US and even Israeli governments consider these numbers as accurate. The Health Ministry provides the social ID numbers of every death so the deaths would be impossible to fake.

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

#725

Post by logro »

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…

So if you're just an 9-5 office based terrorist doing admin stuff, you're off limits?

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

#726

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tmnvix wrote: post #658
steviedotboston wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given the total failure to achieve any of its stated objectives, has this use of AI benefited the IDF at all? Hamas has been considerably diminished. It's not accurate to say the war has been a "total failure".

Politically and diplomatically, it could be argued Hamas have been considerably strengthened. They certainly think so. It seems to me that Israel's overall position - politically, diplomatically, and in terms of physical security - has become much worse since the October 7 attack and it has been their own actions that are responsible for the change. A different response should have seen them politically and diplomati…

> Politically and diplomatically, it could be argued Hamas have been considerably strengthened. They certainly think so.

That's delusional. Hamas’ operational capabilities have been highly diminished. Their leadership is in exile. It looks increasingly likely that their ground forces will be destroyed. While they've found sympathy among the Arab population, it's notable that not a single government--outside Iran--has offered to materially support them. And even Iran is starting to be constrained in its regional capabilities.

Israel isn’t winning. But Hamas isn’t either.

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

#727

Post by robbomacrae »

wruza wrote: post #596
robbomacrae wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disturbing indeed. I've been worried a push back in AI is coming and this sort of story could be a tipping point and certainly would justify a period of reflection. And your probably right that the alternatives maybe worse, the folks behind Lavender could probably even prove it with data.. but there should be a moral impetus to always have a human in the loop regardless. And any such attempt to justify it won't captu…

there should be a moral impetus to always have a human in the loop regardless I don’t understand how to come to this. War is crap, not a dinner party. There’s always a human on both sides who will drop a bomb and laugh on camera, with no responsibility. Go watch it (actually don’t, it’s NSFL). Reading this thread feels like everyone watched and believed in that movie where they tried to select and eliminate a target…

It's a good question. I also immediately found myself asking the same one of myself after posting that comment. I guess part of me just wants as many possible breakpoints along the process as possible.

But also at least then you have someone who is liable when things go wrong. When its fully automated, like the other comment mentions, they can just shrug and blame the AI. Who gets sued when a self driving car kills someone by accident? I don't know. Perhaps a lack of ownership is excusable. But when a weapon deliberately kills someone I think we need to have ownership somewhere.

Perhaps as a general rule the maker of the AI system should have liability for the AI up until someone else signs and accepts that responsibility. None of this "Company does not accept liability" crap. They have to make it clear that "customer accepts liability" or else it's them. That way they will be incentivized to make the military or whoever sign.

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

#728

Post by mateo1 »

mathandstuff wrote: post #409
yboris wrote: post #200

PSA: https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/

Actually, The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots fired its campaign manager Ousman Noor as a result of him advocating against the IDF's killings in Gaza. The Campaign initially denied that it was over his Gaza advocacy, but eventually admitted that it was because of him speaking to diplomats which he met through the Campaign. Many members of the campaign support the IDF's arguable genocide, despite how surprising that mi…

The absurdity is unbelievable but it is true!

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

#729

Post by nsguy »

Is the same system used to direct bombing in Lebanon against Hezbollah?

If so it's worth noting that we have much better data on that campaign. We know exactly how many Hezbollah members have died because that organization actually releases that information. We have good numbers on civilian casualties. Naturally there are many different factors but I think Israel has done a much better job over there in terms of minimizing civilian casualties. There have been some notable incidents like IIRC journalists getting hit, but the overall numbers I think are significantly weighed towards military targets.

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

#730

Post by [deleted] »

logro wrote: post #725
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…

So if you're just an 9-5 office based terrorist doing admin stuff, you're off limits?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN