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The major challenge in fighting terrorists is distinguishing them from the general population. Killing innocent people is against international law and harms th

The major challenge in fighting terrorists is distinguishing them from the general population. Killing innocent people is against international law and harms the country doing it. While killing terrorists is acceptable and even desirable to many people. If a targeting system is more intelligent, it should be better at reducing the loss of innocent life while still delivering the same kill rate of actual terrorists. Israel’s system, based on reporting, does the opposite. So we can see that their use of an AI system to do this targeting reflects an insight not into the operational benefits of AI, but the cultural benefits. By spending tons of money and time and calling it “artificial intelligence,” the targeting team has developed a far more flexible pretext for violence. “This incredibly advanced AI system said he’s a target” is now enough to go drop a bomb… even if the incredible AI system is simply set to have its filters wide open. This is what YS means by “A team consisting of machines and investigators can blast the bottleneck wide open.” The humans build the machines to be extremely credulous, and then tell everyone else that the machine ID’d each target as a legitimate target.

zer8k 3y ago
> Killing innocent people is against international law and harms the country doing it. While killing terrorists is acceptable and even desirable to many people. Enemy combatant has a very specific meaning and that _can_ include people aiding and abetting the enemy. Thus, "actual terrorist" is a fairly nebulous term along with "innocent people". War is hell for a reason. Except for in obvious cases like Mai Lai it is never clear whether to call a person "innocent" for allowing an enemy combatant to seek shelter in their home - for example. But you have to make a snap decision: is the woman carrying what looks like an oddly shaped baby actually carrying bomb? Groceries? Why is she walking so close to the convoy? Did we issue a warning? Did she heed it? A bad decision will cost you many more lives than taking one. War is hell. > the targeting team has developed a far more flexible pretext for violence Doubt. The kill order chain is most likely AI flags target -> fed to human operator -> operator confirms -> kill order. Of course, your counter argument is that the human is given pretext ("this is a target") and thus assesses it with the assumption but in theory it's actually a better situation. 80% accuracy is still better than previous generations warfare. You dont want to end up on the thermals of an apache carrying a tube you need to replace your broken sewage system. The news is polluted with pro-Palestinian nonsense. It's very clear absolutely no one on social media has any idea what hamas does, or what the people of palestine have done to aid and abet the terrorists. This is not to justify just dropping bombs on people without cause but I would be pretty satisfied with a best-effort approach to the loss of civilian life given how deeply embedded hamas is.
- frob 3y ago
  And then the Israelis put that target they only have partial confidence about into a system called "Where's Daddy?" which will track their target until he goes home to his family at which point a kill order is sent out to drones and warplanes to massacre his entire family. [0, 1] Is that the "pro-Palestinian nonsense" you were referring to? [0] 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... [1] https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
  - zer8k 3y ago
    See the part where I said aiding and abetting a known target makes you a target. "What about the children" is a very poor argument. Would you rather a fireteam kick down the door and have to shoot the entire family when they all scurry to a room and grab arms because daddy told them to? Because that's what happens - all the time. There's no "put down your weapons" like you see in movies. You have about 50ms to make a decision to neutralize a target. I know people who are very screwed up after having to shoot children carrying weapons because their parents told them to. I know people who've had to make the kill/no-kill decision on a woman and her child approaching a convoy. It's a fucked up situation. That's why we try to avoid war. You can't just deploy operators when a guy goes home to his family. It's expensive, dangerous, and difficult. If you leave him alone he could be ordering people from his home to kill your people. Unconventional war is by definition unconventional. If they fought like a regular military their families would most likely not be targeted. I have no data but I can tell you absolutely no one wants to kill women and children. Except for hamas, that is.
    - frob 3y ago
      At this point, "aiding and abetting" seems to be "existing while inside Gaza." See the deliberate execution of the world central kitchen workers in a three-phase strike to ensure maximum casualties as an example.
      - 3y ago
refurb 3y ago
> Killing innocent people is against international law It’s not. Specific instances of killing innocent people where a number of factors are met is against international law. Innocent people inevitably die in war. That’s why the world so desperately wants to avoid it. But international law acknowledges that even if a actor does everything right, innocent people will die.
- snowwrestler 3y ago
  Yes, there is “fog of war” and “collateral damage.” International law requires that combatants take steps to minimize that. And not intentionally target innocent life.
- pvaldes 3y ago
  It is. By definition (Because they are innocent) Even if you fail to avoid shooting innocent people and can find a scapegoat to save yourself from the consequences, homicide is definitely, unequivocally, illegal. And assassination (killing somebody that is helpless, like bombing its house or a sniper shooting a child) is even more illegal. And any army that does not try at least to study a basic understanding of international war laws are a bunch of unprofessional criminals.
  - nobodyandproud 3y ago
    Where does this misunderstanding come from? https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v2/rule14 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v2/rule14 “an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, *which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated*” Note that proportionality is ill-defined, leaving a lot of room for interpretation.
    - pvaldes 3y ago
      > Where does this misunderstanding come from? Greed. War is very profitable. There will be always people trying to twist the words, and justify the unjustifiable.
majikaja 3y ago
Israel gets to define anyone killed as a terrorist so the AI can never be wrong Alternatively they can just label anyone resisting extermination as such so the entire population can be cleansed
- 93po 3y ago
  > Israel gets to define anyone killed as a terrorist so the AI can never be wrong I will point out that the US does the exact same thing. Both are wrong of course.
consumer451 3y ago
I was once the first full-time employee at a small company. I had to answer the phone for sales calls sometimes when the owner wasn't around. I started there as a consultant who designed and coded the sales CRM application. I had full control of everything. When I answered the phone for sales, and someone would ask for a discount, I would always say "I'm sorry, the computer just won't let me do that." The blame was passed to the computer, and I got out of that uncomfortable situation. The customer always understood. After all, "it's up to the computer," what can you do? What we are reading about in this article is the kill list version of that. A couple years ago, I wrote on this website that I am much less worried about AGI killbots, than I am about humans using dumb AI to kill people. Now, here we are.

zer8k 3y ago

> Killing innocent people is against international law and harms the country doing it. While killing terrorists is acceptable and even desirable to many people. Enemy combatant has a very specific meaning and that _can_ include people aiding and abetting the enemy. Thus, "actual terrorist" is a fairly nebulous term along with "innocent people". War is hell for a reason. Except for in obvious cases like Mai Lai it is never clear whether to call a person "innocent" for allowing an enemy combatant to seek shelter in their home - for example. But you have to make a snap decision: is the woman carrying what looks like an oddly shaped baby actually carrying bomb? Groceries? Why is she walking so close to the convoy? Did we issue a warning? Did she heed it? A bad decision will cost you many more lives than taking one. War is hell. > the targeting team has developed a far more flexible pretext for violence Doubt. The kill order chain is most likely AI flags target -> fed to human operator -> operator confirms -> kill order. Of course, your counter argument is that the human is given pretext ("this is a target") and thus assesses it with the assumption but in theory it's actually a better situation. 80% accuracy is still better than previous generations warfare. You dont want to end up on the thermals of an apache carrying a tube you need to replace your broken sewage system. The news is polluted with pro-Palestinian nonsense. It's very clear absolutely no one on social media has any idea what hamas does, or what the people of palestine have done to aid and abet the terrorists. This is not to justify just dropping bombs on people without cause but I would be pretty satisfied with a best-effort approach to the loss of civilian life given how deeply embedded hamas is.

frob 3y ago
And then the Israelis put that target they only have partial confidence about into a system called "Where's Daddy?" which will track their target until he goes home to his family at which point a kill order is sent out to drones and warplanes to massacre his entire family. [0, 1] Is that the "pro-Palestinian nonsense" you were referring to? [0] 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... [1] https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
- zer8k 3y ago
  See the part where I said aiding and abetting a known target makes you a target. "What about the children" is a very poor argument. Would you rather a fireteam kick down the door and have to shoot the entire family when they all scurry to a room and grab arms because daddy told them to? Because that's what happens - all the time. There's no "put down your weapons" like you see in movies. You have about 50ms to make a decision to neutralize a target. I know people who are very screwed up after having to shoot children carrying weapons because their parents told them to. I know people who've had to make the kill/no-kill decision on a woman and her child approaching a convoy. It's a fucked up situation. That's why we try to avoid war. You can't just deploy operators when a guy goes home to his family. It's expensive, dangerous, and difficult. If you leave him alone he could be ordering people from his home to kill your people. Unconventional war is by definition unconventional. If they fought like a regular military their families would most likely not be targeted. I have no data but I can tell you absolutely no one wants to kill women and children. Except for hamas, that is.
  - frob 3y ago
    At this point, "aiding and abetting" seems to be "existing while inside Gaza." See the deliberate execution of the world central kitchen workers in a three-phase strike to ensure maximum casualties as an example.
    - 3y ago

refurb 3y ago

> Killing innocent people is against international law It’s not. Specific instances of killing innocent people where a number of factors are met is against international law. Innocent people inevitably die in war. That’s why the world so desperately wants to avoid it. But international law acknowledges that even if a actor does everything right, innocent people will die.

snowwrestler 3y ago
Yes, there is “fog of war” and “collateral damage.” International law requires that combatants take steps to minimize that. And not intentionally target innocent life.
pvaldes 3y ago
It is. By definition (Because they are innocent) Even if you fail to avoid shooting innocent people and can find a scapegoat to save yourself from the consequences, homicide is definitely, unequivocally, illegal. And assassination (killing somebody that is helpless, like bombing its house or a sniper shooting a child) is even more illegal. And any army that does not try at least to study a basic understanding of international war laws are a bunch of unprofessional criminals.
- nobodyandproud 3y ago
  Where does this misunderstanding come from? https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v2/rule14 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v2/rule14 “an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, *which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated*” Note that proportionality is ill-defined, leaving a lot of room for interpretation.
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    > Where does this misunderstanding come from? Greed. War is very profitable. There will be always people trying to twist the words, and justify the unjustifiable.

majikaja 3y ago

Israel gets to define anyone killed as a terrorist so the AI can never be wrong Alternatively they can just label anyone resisting extermination as such so the entire population can be cleansed

93po 3y ago
> Israel gets to define anyone killed as a terrorist so the AI can never be wrong I will point out that the US does the exact same thing. Both are wrong of course.

consumer451 3y ago

I was once the first full-time employee at a small company. I had to answer the phone for sales calls sometimes when the owner wasn't around. I started there as a consultant who designed and coded the sales CRM application. I had full control of everything. When I answered the phone for sales, and someone would ask for a discount, I would always say "I'm sorry, the computer just won't let me do that." The blame was passed to the computer, and I got out of that uncomfortable situation. The customer always understood. After all, "it's up to the computer," what can you do? What we are reading about in this article is the kill list version of that. A couple years ago, I wrote on this website that I am much less worried about AGI killbots, than I am about humans using dumb AI to kill people. Now, here we are.