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Don't forget that Lavender AI, the "cool system" that automatically targets all Hamas fighters (with probably 1000% civilian casualties because it destroyed all
by cookiengineer 1y ago
Don't forget that Lavender AI, the "cool system" that automatically targets all Hamas fighters (with probably 1000% civilian casualties because it destroyed all hospitals, churches, mosques and schools along the way) was developed by Palantir.
The irony is that this really bad SIGINT graph flags also relatives, e.g. cousins of cousins of fighters, just because they had e.g. family events where they attended together, even though all other intelligence data would point to the contrary. The documentary that got banned from BBC highlights this with a lot of stories where e.g. hospital workers were specifically targeted because a distant relative was associated with hamas.
Palantir had a video on YouTube where they were even bragging about this graph, though not under its now-leaked codename.
- PicassoCTs 1y agoDon't forget hamas, hiding behind hospitals, churches, mosques and schools makes those valid targets. And it could quit islamo-facism any day of the week!
- Yeul 1y agoThe same can be said for Israel. Just stop believing in god, put some fucking lines on the map and most importantly jail/shoot dead religious crazies who break the peace. You know become a normal country.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- stephen_g 1y agoExactly what I remember reading all the time about the Afghanistan war - the OP calls the Palantir tool 'incredible technology' but the one thing I remember seeing reported time and time and time again during that war was reports of strikes against civilians accidentally being targeted because their mobile phones had been nearby to insurgents (like maybe having visited the same mosque or the same family gathering)...
- dogman144 1y agoThere’s some nuance to understand about targeting flows and precision strikes, and why “incredible” is suitable term to use. Not that what you list out didn’t occur, certainly
- defrost 1y ago"Tenuous" is the ever present flip side of the "incredible" assertion, of course.
- reactordev 1y agoExactly. In military terms - Incredible means highly capable
- close04 1y ago> There’s some nuance to understand about targeting flows and precision strikes There's a lot of "nuance". From understanding that these systems will always "need" to target and strike, and they'll always find an enemy to strike at because it's their sole reason to exist, to the arbitrary definition of "precision" or "success". The entire system and philosophy become redundant without guaranteed targets and weak without guaranteed success. What it means today is that a random US citizen in the street can be a target, and arresting him up can mean success. Being infallible by definition is indeed incredible.
- StopDisinfo910 1y agoThe only thing incredible about "targeting flow" and "precision strikes" is the genius of the pentagone propagandists who coined these expressions and managed to have people use them and somehow believe there is any kind of subtleties in the way this war was fought.
- michael1999 1y agoThe number of times the US bombed a wedding because the comms traffic looks the same as a big op was evil.
- andrepd 1y ago
- nelox 1y agoThe comment throws around impossible numbers and unverified claims as if they were facts. “1000% civilian casualties” is nonsense mathematically, and nothing backs it up. There is no public evidence the BBC “banned” the documentary, so that looks like hearsay. Lavender AI is one lead-generation tool among several, with human analysts and other intelligence sources involved. It does not “automatically destroy” hospitals, churches or schools, that is an unfounded exaggeration. Many such sites remain standing, and damage in a war zone is not proof of an AI-driven targeting policy. Social network mapping is used by counterterrorism agencies everywhere. Being on a graph does not mean you are on a kill list. Without solid data on actual misidentifications, repeating anecdotes does not prove the system works the way you claim.
- throwaway173738 1y agoBeing on a graph doesn’t mean you’re on a kill list as of now. Who knows what the future may bring?
- nelox 1y agoThat shifts the argument from evidence to speculation. The original claim was about current operations, not hypothetical futures. If there is no proof that everyone on such a graph is now targeted, then the central accusation falls apart. Counterterrorism systems generate far more leads than they act on, and those leads are filtered by human review and corroborating intelligence. Suggesting “who knows what the future may bring” is not an argument about present facts. Policy and oversight should be debated on actual documented use, not on imagined scenarios.
- tmnvix 1y ago> Counterterrorism systems generate far more leads than they act on, and those leads are filtered by human review and corroborating intelligence. From Wikipedia on Lavender: > The Guardian quoted one source: "I would invest 20 seconds for each target at this stage, and do dozens of them every day. I had zero added-value as a human, apart from being a stamp of approval. It saved a lot of time."
- ralop 1y agoPalantir is extremely bad, but this not making the point you want to make. Hamas infamously wears civilian clothes during combat and operates out of civilian structures in civilian zones. We ought to oppose the destruction of democracy and the arrival of dystopia without defending terrorism.
- rileymat2 1y agoI am curious with all the import restrictions how easy it is to get non-civilian clothes. Proper uniforms would not be high on my list.
- petre 1y ago> We ought to oppose the destruction of democracy and the arrival of dystopia without defending terrorism. One might argue that tech like this was built thanks to terrorism.
- cookiengineer 1y agoMy point is about military efficiency, which is measured by avoiding civilian casualties. Palantir's tech is the opposite of that.
- Terr_ 1y agoBut they aren't civilians, the computer said so! /s
- wizzwizz4 1y agoThe Nuremberg defence meets "a computer must never make a management decision."
- Terr_ 1y agoRelevant book: Unaccountability Machines - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo252799883.html https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo252799... Amusingly, I started reading it without knowing it was from the same author as another book I'd read before about the economics of scams, Lying For Money.
- tomlockwood 1y agoIt's funny (horrifying) coming from an advertising background - this sounds exactly like the tech that allows advertisers to take credit for conversions that are wildly unrelated to ads, in reality.
- klooney 1y ago> destroyed all hospitals, churches, mosques and schools along the way Hamas doesn't have an air force, and they're facing an enemy with a good air force and good intelligence. They can't have nice things like "zoning", if they stored rockets away from civilians they would all get destroyed. So, in order to have rockets, they must be stored under targets that would cause political trouble if they were to be hit: hospitals, churches, mosques and schools.
- cookiengineer 1y ago[flagged]
- starik36 1y ago> Without Hamas, there can be no Natanyahu That is some grand A nonsense. Netanyahu was first elected in 1996. Hamas was a minor force. Back then it was all about Yasser Arafat.
- pydry 1y agoHamas took over Gaza in 2007 and shortly after is when Netanyahu delivered those famous briefcases full of cash. His goal in helping them take over was to foment a political split between the Palestinians in order to try to head off any possibility of a two state solution. They provided what he thought of as the ideal justification for a hitler style ethnic cleansing on Oct 7.
- phatskat 1y agoIt always blows me away how, historically, actual two-state progress has been intentionally hindered. There was a point way back when at least some meaningful work towards peace was at hand, but when Kissinger got wind of it and he wasn’t the one who could get the credit, he sabotaged the whole thing. Fast forward to Benji saying that the best way to ensure funding for Israel is by having a strong Hamas, and things never change.
- lisbbb 1y ago[flagged]
- favouritemartin 1y ago[dead]
- Bombthecat 1y agoThis reminds of the phrase: you kill a terrorist, the terrorist died, you kill a terrorist and a family member, now you have 6 terrorists.
- red-iron-pine 1y agopresumably this is why they're bombing the whole apartment bloc, then if you know there will be 6 more, get them too this is evil, but if you believe the logic of kill one, get 6 more, then it's the logical outcome
- literalAardvark 1y agoBad phrase, since the terrorist IS a family member. You kill a terrorist. You now have 6