Live data from Hacker News

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

972mag.com

981–990 of 1001 posts

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

#981

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.

Apologies for my earlier reply, it's been pointed out to me it was rude. It was and I'd like to apologise.

On your point I'm not sure where you get the assertion any human could kill any other in pre-technological society. That appears evidently false to me. How did you come to that assertion?

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

#982

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying "defibrillators don't save people, people save people".

Both can (and are) true.

Just spotted you are replying to the parent response, not mine.

Fully agree and very succinctly put.

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

#983
Fascinating article.

> Second, we reveal the “Where’s Daddy?” system, which tracked these targets and signaled to the army when they entered their family homes.

This sounds immoral at first, but if proportionality is taken into consideration, the long term effects of this might be positive, ie fewer deaths long term due to the elimination of Hamas staff. The devil is in the details however, as there is clearly a point beyond which this becomes unacceptable. Sadly collective punishment is unavoidable in war, and one could argue that between future Israeli victims and current Palestinian ones, the IDF has a moral obligation to choose the latter.

> Fourth, we explain how the army loosened the permitted number of civilians who could be killed during the bombing of a target.

This article below states the civilian to militant death ratio in Gaza is 1:1, and for comparison the usual figure in modern war is 9:1, such as during the Battle of Mosul against ISIS. They may still be within the realm of moral action here, but the fog of war makes it very difficult to assess.

https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urb...

I’m unsure why the UN + Arab Nations don’t take control of the situation, get rid of Hamas, provide peacekeeping, integrate Palestine into Israel, and enforce property rights. All this bloodshed is revolting.

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

#984

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…

If they can target "terrorist", unavoidably the system will be upgraded to target "politician" also.

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

#985

Fascinating article. > Second, we reveal the “Where’s Daddy?” system, which tracked these targets and signaled to the army when they entered their family homes. This sounds immoral at first, but if proportionality is taken into consideration, the long term effects of this might be positive, ie fewer deaths long term due to the elimination of Hamas staff. The devil is in the details however, as there is clearly a poin…

> one could argue that between future Israeli victims and current Palestinian ones, the IDF has a moral obligation to choose the latter.

Killing 30 000 * 15 = half a million civilians?

That's choosing to do war crimes or a genocide, plus increasing the risk for more terror attacks in the future

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

#986

Fascinating article. > Second, we reveal the “Where’s Daddy?” system, which tracked these targets and signaled to the army when they entered their family homes. This sounds immoral at first, but if proportionality is taken into consideration, the long term effects of this might be positive, ie fewer deaths long term due to the elimination of Hamas staff. The devil is in the details however, as there is clearly a poin…

> I’m unsure why the UN + Arab Nations don’t take control of the situation, get rid of Hamas

Why? They don't care. They are mostly dictatorships, and it seems to me that it's good for the dictators if the conflict continues, so they can use Israel as something external to try to keep the people angry at (lower risk for revolution).

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

#987

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the former, but from what I read in the article, a shady version of that is my take. The computer basically appeared to randomise a high number of people to kill based on a very shallow dataset, weak data linking and a high desire to kill people who are Palestinian. It's hard to read the details from the Guardian article and think of it as anything other than a randomised Israeli state murder machine. I can't en…

When you ban something like this, you are only barring the good actors

0). I see no good actors here.

1). You also set up a legal framework for punishing people for doing this.

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

#989

Never thought I'd even consider this, but is this a case where those involved, producing and developing, this software should be tried for murder/crimes against humanity? My understanding is that AI in it's current form is not an applicable technology to be anywhere near this type of use. Again my understanding: Inference models by their very nature are largely non-deterministic, in terms of being able to evaluate ac…

It is not a naive take. Not by a long shot. Knowingly working on the development or upkeep of such a system, full well knowing it's limitations, and knowing of it's aftermath obliterates any level of clean hands in my eyes.

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

#990

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying "defibrillators don't save people, people save people".

Both can (and are) true.

The point is, without a defibrillator (gun) you will have a very hard time to save life (kill) even if you wanted to.
Post reply on HN