4 ms·

Better to have smart bombs than dumb ones. Or rather, better to have 1 smart bomb than 1000 dumb ones spread across an entire city in order to pick off the part

Better to have smart bombs than dumb ones. Or rather, better to have 1 smart bomb than 1000 dumb ones spread across an entire city in order to pick off the particular building, vehicle, or person you want.

anigbrowl 6mo ago
You can rationalize anything by only considering the upside relative to alternatives' downsides.
Qem 6mo ago
Specially AI Hallucination bombs, that hit a park named "Police Park", because it thinks it's killing policemen[1], or a children school with Shahed in the name[2], because it thinks It has something to do with drones. [1] https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2029575052535173364 https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2029575052535173364 [2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/6/elementary-school-in-tehran-hit-irans-foreign-ministry-says https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/6/elementary-school-in...
- eqvinox 6mo ago
  There's also a chasm of (non-)accountability. You or your subordinates target an elementary school: that's a war crime. Your "battlefield AI" targets an elementary school: software bug, it happens, can't be helped.
  - thayne 6mo ago
    This isn't even that new. Part of the motivation for building autonomous nuclear response programs during the cold war was specifically to remove accountability, and guilt, from human operators. But AI does bring it to a new level.
    - palmotea 6mo ago
      > Part of the motivation for building autonomous nuclear response programs during the cold war was specifically to remove accountability, and guilt, from human operators. Details please. Because I can see the reality being most likely an attempt to avoid conflict by solidifying MAD, by trying to prevent a human from vetoing a second-strike.
      - number6 6mo ago
        At least it is the plot of a lot of movies of this era: Dr. stragelove, wargames, colossus.
  - Uhhrrr 6mo ago
    The software is never accountable, so the human running it is always accountable.
    - john_strinlai 6mo ago
      that is how it should be, not how it is.
  - mmh0000 6mo ago
    "War Crimes" only apply to the loser of the war and are prosecuted by the victor. Meaning whatever horrors are done on either side, only the horrors committed by the loser will be "crimes". The inclusion of AI doesn't change that.
    - bpavuk 6mo ago
      sadly that's also true within Ukraine. like, I know that Russians are handling Ukrainian prisoners of war very brutally (no sources, why: [0]) but, if not for [0] AND if I wouldn't be killed by my co-citizens for that, I would point out a good chunk of misconduct on Ukrainian side as well. I also recall the history lessons. I can't remember anyone who committed a war crime against Nazi Germany that also was internationally prosecuted. yep, the West did prosecute domestically, and there were some loud cases with German POWs, but I can't recall any, any Soviet soldier being charged for e.g. rape. [0]: there is nothing public to link to that remained up, and I'm long out from private Telegram channels where such videos are posted; plus, even if I could, you and mods wouldn't want to see the video of someone getting beheaded
- breppp 6mo ago
  Your links talk about the places that were bombed, but I don't see anything apart for conjecture that this was the product of AI targeting. Also this is a vast underestimate of the ability of organizations that were able to locate most of Iranian leadership throughout the war in their hiding places, but suddenly their Farsi is so bad they need a twitter account to tell them this is a Park
  - nomel 6mo ago
    It's a popular conspiracy theory, without evidence, and without any perspective on any information that intelligence had. Using civilians as shields is well documented/known for Iranian military and groups they sponsor. For example, hospitals [1]. Shitty, but possibly a valid military target. [1] https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8666/yemen-human-shields https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8666/yemen-human-shields
    - text0404 6mo ago
      > Gatestone Institute is an American far-right think tank known for publishing anti-Muslim articles. > The organization has attracted attention for publishing false or inaccurate articles, some of which were shared widely. > The Gatestone Institute has been frequently described as anti-Muslim, regularly publishes false reports to stoke anti-Muslim fears, and has published false stories pertaining to Muslims and Islam. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatestone_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatestone_Institute The US and Israel have repeatedly claimed that schools and hospitals are legitimate military targets with no evidence. A highly partisan think tank which is known for putting out misinformation is not a valid source. If you're going to destroy hospitals and target civilian infrastructure and kill children, you should be accountable on a world stage and provide evidence. Unless you would you accept Iran bombing elementary schools in the US because they claim to have intel that there are terrorists hiding under them?
      - breppp 6mo ago
        It's more complex than that, you have direct evidence of Iran recruiting 12 year old child soldiers in this war (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wqgjn7x89o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wqgjn7x89o). Using stadiums as security forces hiding places (https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-iran-leadership-528c6114 https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-iran-leadership...) Misusing hospitals for military purposes (https://www.iranintl.com/en/202602215486 https://www.iranintl.com/en/202602215486) and schools (https://x.com/IranIntl_En/status/2032846253189411146 https://x.com/IranIntl_En/status/2032846253189411146 https://www.instagram.com/p/DV8NUQPFJJv https://www.instagram.com/p/DV8NUQPFJJv), while the last ones are weak visual evidence and backed up by rumors, Iran is currently under internet blackout for over a month as the regime is interested in controlling information flowing out of the country.
- Legend2440 6mo ago
  This has nothing to do with AI, the school got hit because it was directly next door to a military base.
  - Qem 6mo ago
    You're mistaking it for Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School[1], double tapped with tomahawks in the opening salvo of the war. That was another school, hit later. There was multiple schools attacked. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack
- nailer 6mo ago
  There are no mainstream sources about the police park story when I looked. I’m pretty sure it’s a hoax.
- floralhangnail 6mo ago
  What's the running rumor right now of which AI was involved? I heard Claude awhile back, but this makes me wonder how much Redhat could have been involved?
- jnwatson 6mo ago
  It is completely unfounded speculation that AI was involved.
- TiredOfLife 6mo ago
  That is target selection and has nothing to do with dumb vs smart bombs.
HeavyStorm 6mo ago
You might be right, but that's terrible
jancsika 6mo ago
Channeling my inner Socrates: You want consensus from non-experts for a plan to use 20 smart bombs. Your opponent wants consensus for a plan to live-stream a demo of 1 smart bomb, and then use 19 dumb ones. Your team has more expertise. Your opponent's plan saves enough money to buy a better PR team than yours, and is still more cost effective than your plan. Who wins?
whoahwio 6mo ago
That “smart” vs “dumb” distinction doesn’t apply here though. What is discussed has nothing to do with the ability to physically land a bomb in a precise location, that problem seems to be solved reasonably well already. “Smart” in this case has more to do with using ML/LLM to select a target.
DonHopkins 6mo ago
Smart bombs are no good if they are directed by a dumb AI targeting system, a dumb alcoholic accelerationist religious fanatic Secretary of War, or a dumb narcissistic genocidal pedophile President.
- lostlogin 6mo ago
  There is one more layer - America voted for this.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - shwaj 6mo ago
    In fact, it didn’t. Trump continued to make “no new wars” a plank of his platform. Some of his base will follow wherever he goes, but he would not have been elected without those who supported him on the basis of this (broken) promise.
    - lostlogin 6mo ago
      Trump said this wasn’t a war. Americans voted for this confrontational, disrespectful, and chaotic way of governing.
      - whattheheckheck 6mo ago
        And the 36% that sat out for reasons also contributed. Use vote.gov to find out if youre registered Use 5calls.org to find out about top issues to call your reps about. Use govtrack.us to find out about what's going on. If there was a github.com view of the govt agenda it'd be easy for more people to comment on things. At all scales of governance
- Gibbon1 6mo ago
  I had a thought about that. Using weapons that don't give the opponent an opportunity to surrender feels like a war crime.
xg15 6mo ago
The reality looks more like the worst of both worlds to me. If you genuinely needed only a handful of "surgical strikes", thete would be no need to "compress the kill cycle". What we see in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran looks more like "smart carpet bombing": Some AI system generates a continuous stream of "targets" from sensor and intelligence data, according to whatever criteria political leadership defines and according to a given level of allowed "collateral damage", then those targets are immediately fed to drones or warplanes to destroy - essentially a continuous "pipeline" that probably "ideally" (in the dreams of those people) should become fully automated. For THAT kind of vision, "efficiency" in destroying any particular target and checking all legally required boxes as quickly as possible is probably paramount. (And in addition to that, there are probably still enough "dumb bombs" if no one is looking)
- whattheheckheck 6mo ago
  Its the plot of Captain American 2 with those 3 aircraft carriers at the end

anigbrowl 6mo ago

You can rationalize anything by only considering the upside relative to alternatives' downsides.

Qem 6mo ago

Specially AI Hallucination bombs, that hit a park named "Police Park", because it thinks it's killing policemen[1], or a children school with Shahed in the name[2], because it thinks It has something to do with drones. [1] https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2029575052535173364 https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2029575052535173364 [2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/6/elementary-school-in-tehran-hit-irans-foreign-ministry-says https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/6/elementary-school-in...

eqvinox 6mo ago
There's also a chasm of (non-)accountability. You or your subordinates target an elementary school: that's a war crime. Your "battlefield AI" targets an elementary school: software bug, it happens, can't be helped.
- thayne 6mo ago
  This isn't even that new. Part of the motivation for building autonomous nuclear response programs during the cold war was specifically to remove accountability, and guilt, from human operators. But AI does bring it to a new level.
  - palmotea 6mo ago
    > Part of the motivation for building autonomous nuclear response programs during the cold war was specifically to remove accountability, and guilt, from human operators. Details please. Because I can see the reality being most likely an attempt to avoid conflict by solidifying MAD, by trying to prevent a human from vetoing a second-strike.
    - number6 6mo ago
      At least it is the plot of a lot of movies of this era: Dr. stragelove, wargames, colossus.
- Uhhrrr 6mo ago
  The software is never accountable, so the human running it is always accountable.
  - john_strinlai 6mo ago
    that is how it should be, not how it is.
- mmh0000 6mo ago
  "War Crimes" only apply to the loser of the war and are prosecuted by the victor. Meaning whatever horrors are done on either side, only the horrors committed by the loser will be "crimes". The inclusion of AI doesn't change that.
  - bpavuk 6mo ago
    sadly that's also true within Ukraine. like, I know that Russians are handling Ukrainian prisoners of war very brutally (no sources, why: [0]) but, if not for [0] AND if I wouldn't be killed by my co-citizens for that, I would point out a good chunk of misconduct on Ukrainian side as well. I also recall the history lessons. I can't remember anyone who committed a war crime against Nazi Germany that also was internationally prosecuted. yep, the West did prosecute domestically, and there were some loud cases with German POWs, but I can't recall any, any Soviet soldier being charged for e.g. rape. [0]: there is nothing public to link to that remained up, and I'm long out from private Telegram channels where such videos are posted; plus, even if I could, you and mods wouldn't want to see the video of someone getting beheaded
breppp 6mo ago
Your links talk about the places that were bombed, but I don't see anything apart for conjecture that this was the product of AI targeting. Also this is a vast underestimate of the ability of organizations that were able to locate most of Iranian leadership throughout the war in their hiding places, but suddenly their Farsi is so bad they need a twitter account to tell them this is a Park
- nomel 6mo ago
  It's a popular conspiracy theory, without evidence, and without any perspective on any information that intelligence had. Using civilians as shields is well documented/known for Iranian military and groups they sponsor. For example, hospitals [1]. Shitty, but possibly a valid military target. [1] https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8666/yemen-human-shields https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8666/yemen-human-shields
  - text0404 6mo ago
    > Gatestone Institute is an American far-right think tank known for publishing anti-Muslim articles. > The organization has attracted attention for publishing false or inaccurate articles, some of which were shared widely. > The Gatestone Institute has been frequently described as anti-Muslim, regularly publishes false reports to stoke anti-Muslim fears, and has published false stories pertaining to Muslims and Islam. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatestone_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatestone_Institute The US and Israel have repeatedly claimed that schools and hospitals are legitimate military targets with no evidence. A highly partisan think tank which is known for putting out misinformation is not a valid source. If you're going to destroy hospitals and target civilian infrastructure and kill children, you should be accountable on a world stage and provide evidence. Unless you would you accept Iran bombing elementary schools in the US because they claim to have intel that there are terrorists hiding under them?
    - breppp 6mo ago
      It's more complex than that, you have direct evidence of Iran recruiting 12 year old child soldiers in this war (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wqgjn7x89o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wqgjn7x89o). Using stadiums as security forces hiding places (https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-iran-leadership-528c6114 https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-iran-leadership...) Misusing hospitals for military purposes (https://www.iranintl.com/en/202602215486 https://www.iranintl.com/en/202602215486) and schools (https://x.com/IranIntl_En/status/2032846253189411146 https://x.com/IranIntl_En/status/2032846253189411146 https://www.instagram.com/p/DV8NUQPFJJv https://www.instagram.com/p/DV8NUQPFJJv), while the last ones are weak visual evidence and backed up by rumors, Iran is currently under internet blackout for over a month as the regime is interested in controlling information flowing out of the country.
Legend2440 6mo ago
This has nothing to do with AI, the school got hit because it was directly next door to a military base.
- Qem 6mo ago
  You're mistaking it for Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School[1], double tapped with tomahawks in the opening salvo of the war. That was another school, hit later. There was multiple schools attacked. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack
nailer 6mo ago
There are no mainstream sources about the police park story when I looked. I’m pretty sure it’s a hoax.
floralhangnail 6mo ago
What's the running rumor right now of which AI was involved? I heard Claude awhile back, but this makes me wonder how much Redhat could have been involved?
jnwatson 6mo ago
It is completely unfounded speculation that AI was involved.
TiredOfLife 6mo ago
That is target selection and has nothing to do with dumb vs smart bombs.

HeavyStorm 6mo ago

You might be right, but that's terrible

jancsika 6mo ago

Channeling my inner Socrates: You want consensus from non-experts for a plan to use 20 smart bombs. Your opponent wants consensus for a plan to live-stream a demo of 1 smart bomb, and then use 19 dumb ones. Your team has more expertise. Your opponent's plan saves enough money to buy a better PR team than yours, and is still more cost effective than your plan. Who wins?

whoahwio 6mo ago

That “smart” vs “dumb” distinction doesn’t apply here though. What is discussed has nothing to do with the ability to physically land a bomb in a precise location, that problem seems to be solved reasonably well already. “Smart” in this case has more to do with using ML/LLM to select a target.

DonHopkins 6mo ago

Smart bombs are no good if they are directed by a dumb AI targeting system, a dumb alcoholic accelerationist religious fanatic Secretary of War, or a dumb narcissistic genocidal pedophile President.

lostlogin 6mo ago
There is one more layer - America voted for this.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- shwaj 6mo ago
  In fact, it didn’t. Trump continued to make “no new wars” a plank of his platform. Some of his base will follow wherever he goes, but he would not have been elected without those who supported him on the basis of this (broken) promise.
  - lostlogin 6mo ago
    Trump said this wasn’t a war. Americans voted for this confrontational, disrespectful, and chaotic way of governing.
    - whattheheckheck 6mo ago
      And the 36% that sat out for reasons also contributed. Use vote.gov to find out if youre registered Use 5calls.org to find out about top issues to call your reps about. Use govtrack.us to find out about what's going on. If there was a github.com view of the govt agenda it'd be easy for more people to comment on things. At all scales of governance
Gibbon1 6mo ago
I had a thought about that. Using weapons that don't give the opponent an opportunity to surrender feels like a war crime.

xg15 6mo ago

The reality looks more like the worst of both worlds to me. If you genuinely needed only a handful of "surgical strikes", thete would be no need to "compress the kill cycle". What we see in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran looks more like "smart carpet bombing": Some AI system generates a continuous stream of "targets" from sensor and intelligence data, according to whatever criteria political leadership defines and according to a given level of allowed "collateral damage", then those targets are immediately fed to drones or warplanes to destroy - essentially a continuous "pipeline" that probably "ideally" (in the dreams of those people) should become fully automated. For THAT kind of vision, "efficiency" in destroying any particular target and checking all legally required boxes as quickly as possible is probably paramount. (And in addition to that, there are probably still enough "dumb bombs" if no one is looking)

whattheheckheck 6mo ago
Its the plot of Captain American 2 with those 3 aircraft carriers at the end