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The Guardian reported more on the IDF’s use of AI a couple days back, and it’s grim: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hama

The Guardian reported more on the IDF’s use of AI a couple days back, and it’s grim: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai... Although in that article, most of the horrors are coming from the human operators - there’s what comes off as a pretty strong disinterest in finding reasons to distrust the machine.

082349872349872 3y ago
There must be a line somewhere between "pretty strong disinterest in finding reasons to distrust the machine" and "using the machine as plausible deniability for doing what you hoped to do anyway"; is there a relatively simple description of this line, or is it a fractal boundary?
- roughly 3y ago
  Yeah, I phrased that as generously as possible because I didn’t really want to kick that particular hornets’ nest, but the article does a fine job making that point.
  - aebtebeten 3y ago
    Very charitable of you! (do we need an emoticon for charity, like we have for sarcasm? symmetry would suggest yes.) Upon further reflection, it occurs to me that these situations are exactly why the Geneva Conventions[0] require combatants to have (a) uniforms, and (b) a command structure: (a) prevents someone low from disingenuously stopping the buck by claiming "tweren't no orders; I'm acting on my own" (b) prevents someone high from arguing as Uber does: "you see, we're not a traditional army that gives orders to our fighters — we just provide a service that matches attackers and targets online, and really, anything bad that allegedly happened was only between those two parties"[1] [0] if we're not doing these anymore, just go ahead and tell me "the future is now, old man", and I'll take my mutterings to the pétanque piste. [1] > "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun —TAL
    - shermantanktop 3y ago
      Tinder for combat: swipe to kill.
jakeinspace 3y ago
Morality-washing was always going to be one of the first uses of AI, in hiring and in policing and in war (or ethnic cleansing).
- Qem 3y ago
  > Morality-washing was always going to be one of the first uses of AI They even made a cruel joke by naming the automated killing system "Lavender". Lavender flowers were used in clothes washing since ancient times. The name of the flower cames from the Latin word for washing. Portuguese inherited it, for example, with the word for lavender, "lavanda", sounding similar to the verb to wash, "lavar".
michelsedgh 3y ago
Using one of the most biased and anti-israel as a source what could go wrong? Edit: A different and less biased title would be: the use of technology and AI to minimize civilian casualties in guerrilla warfare. No? How much civilians did US kill during Vietnam war? There was no AI then and the Vietnamese didnt murder and rape civilian Americans did they?Edit 2: downvote me until it gets removed and you enjoy your echo chamber of beliefs.
- gambiting 3y ago
  >>Using one of the most biased and anti-israel as a source what could go wrong? Which one exactly? The guardian article quotes literally hundreds of sources - which ones are you bothered by? >>the use of technology and AI to minimize civilian casualties in guerrilla warfare. It achieves literally no such thing, it's dishonest to suggest otherwise. >>How much civilians did US kill during Vietnam war? Peak whataboutism. As if everyone on the internet is American or believes that we should be comparing everyone else to America.
- catlover76 3y ago
  [dead]
- roughly 3y ago
  > the use of technology and AI to minimize civilian casualties in guerrilla warfare The article makes it quite clear this is not what’s happening and not why the systems are in use. They’re being used to generate a target list faster than could be done by traditional methods, and are being used despite agreeing with traditional methods only 90% of the time. They’re being used to accelerate the war, not make it more accurate.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  > use of technology and AI to minimize civilian casualties In the year 2022 Russia invaded ukraine, flattened two (?) cities, showed no concern for civilian life, committed war crimes. And yet Israel has killed more children in 6 months than Russia did in 3 years. Russia killed 4 western aid workers in 2022, Israel already more than that in 1 week, we are suppose to believe these are accidents?
ethbr1 3y ago
The original(?) +972 article was also on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39918245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39918245 It was an excellent and detailed piece on the various systems, and their use by Israel in the Gaza conflict. >> In an unprecedented move, according to two of the sources, the army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians; in the past, the military did not authorize any “collateral damage” during assassinations of low-ranking militants. Needs no comment and basically sums up the war.
- alchemist1e9 3y ago
  The names of the systems are “The Gospel” and “Lavender”! How is it that a Jewish army is using Christian references for their AI killing systems? I don’t think that is unintentional.
  - permo-w 3y ago
    is "Lavender" a Christian reference?
    - readyplayernull 3y ago
      Lavender's history has biblical roots. It is referred to as Spikenard in the Bible. Mary used it on the infant Jesus and anointed Jesus after the crucifixion when she was preparing him for burial. So it has a "life and death" connotation which makes a lot of sense when you think of the system as a roulette for those chosen to die.
      - alchemist1e9 3y ago
        Exactly. There is no way that whomever named these systems didn’t do it intentionally. The question is why? what was the motivation?
        readyplayernull 3y ago
hammock 3y ago
Fully autonomous drones, from other countries, have been killing people since at least 2020. It's not just the IDF using AI. This was the earliest official report sourced by the UN, pegging Turkey: https://www.fox5ny.com/news/fully-autonomous-drone-was-used-to-hunt-down-soldiers-un-says https://www.fox5ny.com/news/fully-autonomous-drone-was-used-...
- readthenotes1 3y ago
  The US has killed plenty of non comabatants using human guided drones for decades...
  - hammock 3y ago
    In question are fully autonomous, artificial intelligence-based, unmanned drones
    - 082349872349872 3y ago
      Can't make them too artificially intelligent or they might draw conclusions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38362711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38362711
      - tialaramex 3y ago
        The link is, indirectly to Peter Watts' story "Malak", which, yeah, is exactly what I think of whenever people talk about this.
klabb3 3y ago
”Machines never make the decision, they’re merely collecting data to assist human operatives” They’ll keep saying this forever, and there’s a shroud of plausible deniability to it! Not to mention it can soothe the conscience of the operatives who have to live with their decisions - they don’t even have to look through the family photos - the AI has already filtered out the suspicious parts. In reality, it’s a good ole recommendation engine, just like Netflix or TikTok. And when you’re tired, have too much work stacked up, you’ll be more likely to let autoplay take over – or approve the strike of someone’s home. To those that think this is harsh: please read the article. It’s that bad.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  It's not a matter of being tired and having to catch up. The operators are explicitly instructed to treat the AI results as orders without questioning the results. In other words, operators are threatened with punishment if they take the time to inspect the results more closely before following orders. It's not even an option! > In order to speed up target elimination, *soldiers have been ordered to treat Lavender-generated targets as an order, rather than something to be independently checked*, the investigation found. Soldiers in charge of manually checking targets spent only seconds on each person, sources said, merely to make sure the target was a man. Children are also considered legitimate targets by Lavender.
  - klabb3 3y ago
    Right! The extreme point of laziness/stress is just pressing approve. At which point the machine is making the de-facto decision. In either case, the role of the recommendation engine is immensely impactful, as we already know from consumer products. But here the software engineers are directly involved in life-and-death decisions at scale. I really hope they know that.
    - wahnfrieden 3y ago
      They know that because it was designed to increase civilian casualties by unprecedented civilian:"combatant" ratios and confidence levels. These were design requirements, not faults. The notable element of this news is not that the decision-making was automated. It's that they set the civilian collateral death ratio to ~100 (and other details such as considering children to be valid combatant targets), regardless of whether the process that arrives at that was automated or not.

082349872349872 3y ago

There must be a line somewhere between "pretty strong disinterest in finding reasons to distrust the machine" and "using the machine as plausible deniability for doing what you hoped to do anyway"; is there a relatively simple description of this line, or is it a fractal boundary?

roughly 3y ago
Yeah, I phrased that as generously as possible because I didn’t really want to kick that particular hornets’ nest, but the article does a fine job making that point.
- aebtebeten 3y ago
  Very charitable of you! (do we need an emoticon for charity, like we have for sarcasm? symmetry would suggest yes.) Upon further reflection, it occurs to me that these situations are exactly why the Geneva Conventions[0] require combatants to have (a) uniforms, and (b) a command structure: (a) prevents someone low from disingenuously stopping the buck by claiming "tweren't no orders; I'm acting on my own" (b) prevents someone high from arguing as Uber does: "you see, we're not a traditional army that gives orders to our fighters — we just provide a service that matches attackers and targets online, and really, anything bad that allegedly happened was only between those two parties"[1] [0] if we're not doing these anymore, just go ahead and tell me "the future is now, old man", and I'll take my mutterings to the pétanque piste. [1] > "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun —TAL
  - shermantanktop 3y ago
    Tinder for combat: swipe to kill.

jakeinspace 3y ago

Morality-washing was always going to be one of the first uses of AI, in hiring and in policing and in war (or ethnic cleansing).

Qem 3y ago
> Morality-washing was always going to be one of the first uses of AI They even made a cruel joke by naming the automated killing system "Lavender". Lavender flowers were used in clothes washing since ancient times. The name of the flower cames from the Latin word for washing. Portuguese inherited it, for example, with the word for lavender, "lavanda", sounding similar to the verb to wash, "lavar".

michelsedgh 3y ago

Using one of the most biased and anti-israel as a source what could go wrong? Edit: A different and less biased title would be: the use of technology and AI to minimize civilian casualties in guerrilla warfare. No? How much civilians did US kill during Vietnam war? There was no AI then and the Vietnamese didnt murder and rape civilian Americans did they?Edit 2: downvote me until it gets removed and you enjoy your echo chamber of beliefs.

gambiting 3y ago
>>Using one of the most biased and anti-israel as a source what could go wrong? Which one exactly? The guardian article quotes literally hundreds of sources - which ones are you bothered by? >>the use of technology and AI to minimize civilian casualties in guerrilla warfare. It achieves literally no such thing, it's dishonest to suggest otherwise. >>How much civilians did US kill during Vietnam war? Peak whataboutism. As if everyone on the internet is American or believes that we should be comparing everyone else to America.
catlover76 3y ago
[dead]
roughly 3y ago
> the use of technology and AI to minimize civilian casualties in guerrilla warfare The article makes it quite clear this is not what’s happening and not why the systems are in use. They’re being used to generate a target list faster than could be done by traditional methods, and are being used despite agreeing with traditional methods only 90% of the time. They’re being used to accelerate the war, not make it more accurate.
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> use of technology and AI to minimize civilian casualties In the year 2022 Russia invaded ukraine, flattened two (?) cities, showed no concern for civilian life, committed war crimes. And yet Israel has killed more children in 6 months than Russia did in 3 years. Russia killed 4 western aid workers in 2022, Israel already more than that in 1 week, we are suppose to believe these are accidents?

ethbr1 3y ago

The original(?) +972 article was also on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39918245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39918245 It was an excellent and detailed piece on the various systems, and their use by Israel in the Gaza conflict. >> In an unprecedented move, according to two of the sources, the army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians; in the past, the military did not authorize any “collateral damage” during assassinations of low-ranking militants. Needs no comment and basically sums up the war.

alchemist1e9 3y ago
The names of the systems are “The Gospel” and “Lavender”! How is it that a Jewish army is using Christian references for their AI killing systems? I don’t think that is unintentional.
- permo-w 3y ago
  is "Lavender" a Christian reference?
  - readyplayernull 3y ago
    Lavender's history has biblical roots. It is referred to as Spikenard in the Bible. Mary used it on the infant Jesus and anointed Jesus after the crucifixion when she was preparing him for burial. So it has a "life and death" connotation which makes a lot of sense when you think of the system as a roulette for those chosen to die.
    - alchemist1e9 3y ago
      Exactly. There is no way that whomever named these systems didn’t do it intentionally. The question is why? what was the motivation?
      - readyplayernull 3y ago

hammock 3y ago

Fully autonomous drones, from other countries, have been killing people since at least 2020. It's not just the IDF using AI. This was the earliest official report sourced by the UN, pegging Turkey: https://www.fox5ny.com/news/fully-autonomous-drone-was-used-to-hunt-down-soldiers-un-says https://www.fox5ny.com/news/fully-autonomous-drone-was-used-...

readthenotes1 3y ago
The US has killed plenty of non comabatants using human guided drones for decades...
- hammock 3y ago
  In question are fully autonomous, artificial intelligence-based, unmanned drones
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    Can't make them too artificially intelligent or they might draw conclusions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38362711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38362711
    - tialaramex 3y ago
      The link is, indirectly to Peter Watts' story "Malak", which, yeah, is exactly what I think of whenever people talk about this.

klabb3 3y ago

”Machines never make the decision, they’re merely collecting data to assist human operatives” They’ll keep saying this forever, and there’s a shroud of plausible deniability to it! Not to mention it can soothe the conscience of the operatives who have to live with their decisions - they don’t even have to look through the family photos - the AI has already filtered out the suspicious parts. In reality, it’s a good ole recommendation engine, just like Netflix or TikTok. And when you’re tired, have too much work stacked up, you’ll be more likely to let autoplay take over – or approve the strike of someone’s home. To those that think this is harsh: please read the article. It’s that bad.

wahnfrieden 3y ago
It's not a matter of being tired and having to catch up. The operators are explicitly instructed to treat the AI results as orders without questioning the results. In other words, operators are threatened with punishment if they take the time to inspect the results more closely before following orders. It's not even an option! > In order to speed up target elimination, *soldiers have been ordered to treat Lavender-generated targets as an order, rather than something to be independently checked*, the investigation found. Soldiers in charge of manually checking targets spent only seconds on each person, sources said, merely to make sure the target was a man. Children are also considered legitimate targets by Lavender.
- klabb3 3y ago
  Right! The extreme point of laziness/stress is just pressing approve. At which point the machine is making the de-facto decision. In either case, the role of the recommendation engine is immensely impactful, as we already know from consumer products. But here the software engineers are directly involved in life-and-death decisions at scale. I really hope they know that.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    They know that because it was designed to increase civilian casualties by unprecedented civilian:"combatant" ratios and confidence levels. These were design requirements, not faults. The notable element of this news is not that the decision-making was automated. It's that they set the civilian collateral death ratio to ~100 (and other details such as considering children to be valid combatant targets), regardless of whether the process that arrives at that was automated or not.