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AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

theguardian.com

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Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#101

Post by megous »

YZF wrote: post #61
beloch wrote: post #23

"Three clicks convert a data point on the map into a formal detection and move it into a targeting pipeline. These targets then move through columns representing different decision-making processes and rules of engagement. The system recommends how to strike each target – which aircraft, drone or missile to use, which weapon to pair with it – what the military calls a “course of action”. The officer selects from the…

I couldn't find a web site for the school when I searched for one and I also noticed that while schools are generally marked on Google Maps in Iran this school was not. Both are IMO not really relevant or reliable sources of targeting data anyways. I found very little evidence searching online for the school but I did find something that looked like a blog about a school trip. Again though the Internet is not a relia…

Missing the forest for the trees, are you? Wars of aggression are against UN rules, and US is in the wrong regardless of what it hit.

Feels like we're talking here about whether rapist should have known that the rapee was a child or an adult, and they had a good reason to believe it was an adult person (there was mother of the girl standing next to it, so, hard to distinguish...), so yeah, obviously a tragedy they raped a child instead, but it happens sometimes when you rape a lot of people at once. A tragedy, but let's get on with raping more...

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#102

Post by Denzel »

shykes wrote: post #59
ElevenLathe wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its fair to treat things that the Trump administration and the Iranian military agree on as facts. If they were distortions that favored one side, we would see pushback from the other. Maybe there are distortions that somehow benefit both of these parties, but it seems unlikely. At minimum, then, this was a school, the Americans bombed it, and children died as a result.

[flagged]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/us/politics/iran-school-m...

> An ongoing [United States] military investigation has determined that the United States is responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the preliminary findings.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#103

Post by esseph »

amarant wrote: post #52
20after4 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replacing one java tool with another doesn't solve anyone's problems. If they'd only used Rust then lives would have been saved.

Meh, that sounds like a cargo-cult to me ;)

Telling my children that "cargo cults" happened because of Rust :)

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#104

Post by EtienneDeLyon »

Isn't it a more reasonable explanation that the IDF deliberately had this school bombed because those schoolgirls were the children of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers?

The intentional murder of enemy children is a tactic of the IDF. They've done it for decades.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#105

Post by YZF »

bigyabai wrote: post #87
YZF wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out this example: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjw4egp7lwno "As we pass through Khan Shaykhun, we come across a street painted in the colours of the Iranian flag. It leads to a school building that was being used as an Iranian headquarters." "On the wall at the entrance of the toilets, slogans read: "Down with Israel" and "Down with the USA". It was evident that these headquarters were also evacuated at sh…

Help me understand how this justifies the collateral damage.

I am countering the parent's statement that seems to indicate the US and Israel are intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure systematically for no reason. A lot of this infrastructure is targeted for good reason because it is used for military purposes.

This is totally unrelated to the topic where it seems the one school in question was incorrectly targeted based on what we know today (though not intentionally).

The general framework for justifying collateral damage is that enough care has to be taken to minimize it vs. the value of the military objective being achieved. Attacking an IRGC headquarters intentionally based in a school (e.g. if the example in Syria was to be attacked by Israel for example) still needs to pass this test. I.e. Israel would have to take measures to minimize collateral damage which would be proportional to the military value it gains by hitting the IRGC. But the (Syrian) school would have been considered a legitimate military target and the outrage should be towards the IRGC setting up camp there.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#106

Post by gruez »

YZF wrote: post #61
beloch wrote: post #23

"Three clicks convert a data point on the map into a formal detection and move it into a targeting pipeline. These targets then move through columns representing different decision-making processes and rules of engagement. The system recommends how to strike each target – which aircraft, drone or missile to use, which weapon to pair with it – what the military calls a “course of action”. The officer selects from the…

I couldn't find a web site for the school when I searched for one and I also noticed that while schools are generally marked on Google Maps in Iran this school was not. Both are IMO not really relevant or reliable sources of targeting data anyways. I found very little evidence searching online for the school but I did find something that looked like a blog about a school trip. Again though the Internet is not a relia…

>It's hard to imagine that a building that has operated for some length of time as a school would not have patterns that are visible from satellite vs. military facilities with different patterns.

You might be overestimating how much satellite capacity there is to do this level of analysis for every target.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#108

Post by shykes »

Denzel wrote: post #102
shykes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/us/politics/iran-school-m... > An ongoing [United States] military investigation has determined that the United States is responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the preliminary findings.

That article is based on anonymous sources ("according to [people] familiar with the preliminary findings").

It doesn't mean it's wrong, but it's not an official confirmation by the US government, and it only speaks to the responsibility of the strike, not the various claims of "killed children".

Those sources don't say anything about casualties, or the presence of children. The NYT does its best to make it sound like they do ("responsible for a deadly strike"), but so far the only source for how deadly it is, remains the IRGC. And the NYT happily quotes their claim that the death toll was "at least 175 people".

For what it's worth, I personally believe the US is responsible for the strike. I also think the IRGC is lying about casualties, but there's no way to know for sure, and a US investigation probably won't tell us more on that point.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#109

Post by Forgeties79 »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #89
dbt00 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many American schoolchildren have Iran killed in the last 25 years? How many Iranian schoolchildren have America killed? Where's your moral justification for this war of choice if "oops, 137 dead kids is a normal expected outcome"?

[flagged]

> Accidentally killing a bunch of kids would likely be worth it, morally speaking, if it led to the destruction of the Iranian regime.

It most absolutely is not and I struggle to believe you can build a valid argument that links bombing school children as necessary for the fall of Iran’s government.

How you win a war, especially one as lopsided as this invasion is, is as important as winning. I cannot so easily sleep at night knowing we are committing horrific atrocities during an invasion we chose to launch against a country thousands of miles away with zero military capacity to harm us here at home.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#110

Post by kakacik »

gruez wrote: post #98
dbt00 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many American schoolchildren have Iran killed in the last 25 years? How many Iranian schoolchildren have America killed? Where's your moral justification for this war of choice if "oops, 137 dead kids is a normal expected outcome"?

This feels like moving the goalposts. The OP and the preceding comments are pretty clearly talking about the targeting mistake aspect of this incident, not the war itself. You're moving the discussion from the former to the latter to it easier to argue that US is in the wrong, but if the argument is that the war was unjust to begin with, then do you really need a school getting bombed to push you over the edge? After…

No, I am fine with parent's take. We treat children as absolutely innocent (which they are, regardless of the way anybody tries to spin this or ie Gaza), and killing children is extra heinous crime compared to killing adult, same with rape etc. Children rapist get extra special treatment in jails, often from other murderers and society is largely fine with that.

As a parent, even when cutting off most of the emotions related to this horrible war crime, I am unfazed and unconvinced by such, even if well meaning whataboutism.

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