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

972mag.com

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

#851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Norway it is rather the other way: We all know (if we stop and think) that a person can be both a teacher and a terrorist. But according to media here almost every victim except top Hamas brass seems to be referred to by their whatever else they were besides terrorists and the terrorists (or even just soldier) part get hushed down.

Can you site an example of this please? It's contradictory to my understanding of what is happening. By that, I mean, when the few remaining police left in Northern Gaza, who had reported to be critical to providing security for aid deliveries (and involved in coordination with Israel) where assassinated recently by Israel, and claimed as high ranking Hamas targets it pretty much cemented my opinion that nothing is t…

> How are you defining terrorist here as well? As other than the horrific events of October 7th, and the hostages from that day, the only visible acts of violence and terror associated with Palestine appear to be towards anyone Palestinian, journalists, aid workers and medical staff.

You can start with the large scale, multi year campaign of using MLRS ramps to shoot barrages of unguided rockets from Gaza and Lebanon into Israel.

That is indiscriminate - or even targeting civilians directly.

But because Israel has gone to extreme lengths to counter it there are few causalities these days and combined with medias extreme one-sidedness that means we don't even hear when they hit a hospital in Israel last year.

Cynically speaking, Iron Dome has been an expensive PR disaster for Israel, but that is what one get for caring about ones own citizens and not being allowed to just do counter battery fire until the enemy stops.

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

#852
One day, totally of my own accord, I added something like 1,200 new targets to the [tracking] system, because the number of attacks [we were conducting] decreased,” the source said.

So they were having daily quotas for killings. Literally a killing machine with a input capacity of 1200 targets per day that has to be fed. Just like the Nazis during WW2

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

#853

There are two dimensions of horror here: One is that we as a tech community are building systems that are able to automatically kill human beings. It’s not only this system. I‘ve seen images of drones with sniper guns shooting everyone moving: Kids, women, innocent men. Drones flying constantly humming above the heads of Palestinians, always observing them. The feeling that death can come anytime. What a f-ing nightm…

To answer your question - however you feel about Israel, if you live in the west, it is absolutely not in your best interest to have Russia or China be buddies with Israel, which either would very gladly be.

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

#854
So much technological power, and still no approach to prevent violence and imprison aggressors and murderers instead of killing them

In the past there was all this talk of nonlethal weaponry, but nowadays it seems to be used at best "in the small", by police and not the military

Killing will only ever get easier and faster and remote from human action, oversight and consequence for the perpetrator. Too fast for humans to understand, to remote too feel

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

#855
What was the code name for the AI that slaughtered 1200 Israelis and took hundreds hostage? What kind of decision making went into Hamas raping dozens of women? What kind of AI chose targets in Israel to rocket? One thing's for certain, humans no matter how "enlightened" can only take so much before they go absolutely postal. "Humanity" and "rules of war" go right out the window when humans are pushed too far. It was going on before this war and will go on afterwards. What, now that we have "precise" weapons, an all-out war of one country vs another will adhear to some kind of code of ethics? Give me a break. Dresdin bombings, Hiroshima, Nanking, etc etc civilians will ALWAYS get slaughtered 1000 to one in an all-out war.

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

#856
post #699

I wonder if the name Israelis gave the system betray their intent. I noticed in Portuguese, our word for Lavender, "lavanda", sounds similar to the verb meaning to wash, "lavar". According to wikipedia[1] it goes back to old latin roots: "The English word lavender came into use in the 13th century, and is generally thought to derive from Old French lavandre, ultimately from Latin lavare from lavo (to wash), referring…

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

#857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry. Guns do kill people. That's their whole point. I know roughly ~1000 people. Maybe 10 of them have the physical capability of killing someone, in case you don't know, it's not actually that easy to do it yourself. Of those not all could mentally do it under anything but the most extreme of circumstances. 2, maybe 3 might be actually capable of ending a life under extreme circumstances. With a gun probably, at a…

You dramatically underestimate the physical capability of the people you know. Humans are strong and humans are fragile. Every single one of them could kill another human in a pre-technological society.

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

#858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guns/AI don't kill people. People do. If someone should be held responsible, it's the people that order the strikes.

The line gets blurred a little here though. I give you a gun and say "shoot whoever you choose with this gun, the choice is yours". I give you an AI powered gun and say "use this however you choose, I have programmed it to automatically shoot in certain circumstances". In the latter case, I have some responsibility, because I shared in the decision making by programming the gun. Through my code I have put my proverbi…

Why don't you have responsibilities in both scenario

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

#859

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".

Just a day or two ago there was another IDF raid on Shifa hospital. Months ago the IDF claims that Hamas is operating out of tunnels under the hospital, they raid the hospital. A few weeks later, they raid the hospital again, and again, and again, up until this recent raid some days ago. You claim Hamas is diminished, but how diminished can they really be if they keep popping up in the same predictable place over and…

By Israel's logic I think 'militants in hospitals' could simply mean injured militants receiving treatment.

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

#860

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…

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Even though you may not be necessarily wrong on how little regard those armies in those previous wars (and indeed all warring parties in those wars to some extent) had for the civilian population, the situation is Gaza is made so much more drastic because there’s already nowhere for the (already displaced for decades) population to go amid all this assault and bombing (not to mention the widespread starving and all those other factors, which combined led to the “genocide” claim levied by some). That’s also a reason why all western countries are trying to dissuade Israel from the Rafat assault.

Also, we have the idea that human beings are supposed to learn from those previous tragedies and do better, and that we’re in a much more civilized, peaceful and prosperous place than before, so it’s likely a disillusion and horror for a lot of people to see such a nightmarish scenario unfolding again in 2023. Some intrinsic parts about human nature and human societies will never change unfortunately.

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