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So based off of the article, they bombed a building based off of a selfie accompanied by some text... am I the only one that sees this as a horrendously awful i

So based off of the article, they bombed a building based off of a selfie accompanied by some text... am I the only one that sees this as a horrendously awful idea?

CPLX 11y ago
Yes, what could possibly go wrong with a policy of bombing every building that an ISIS member posts a selfie in front of? Of course in real life this is probably some sort of misinformation campaign to try to misdirect from the fact that they have some sort of informant or other means of figuring things out that they want to cover for.
philip1209 11y ago
I imagine that the building was remote and likely marked as a suspected terrorist site. The person who posted the photo was likely flagged as a terrorist based on previous data and was identified by facial recognition in the photo. Having a known terrorist at a suspected terrorist facility was likely enough justification to label the site as malicious and bomb it. The implications of something like this are interesting - it's just a graph theory problem, and hypothetically the computer could be programmed to automate a drone strike when a location reaches a certain score threshold.
- ackalker 11y ago
  Have you watched the movie "Eagle Eye"? How about "WarGames: The Dead Code"? If not, please do. Both, in their own way, have some interesting points regarding the risks involved in using A.I. in warfare, as well as the reduction of complex social interactions to mere graph theory and statistics.
kaybe 11y ago
Even if more went into it, it looks awefully gameable, a more extreme version of swatting.
- cryoshon 11y ago
  This is my thought as well. This incident has created the need for ISIS to have disinformation campaigns disseminated on social media by people who would be targeted by the strikes-- they can easily implement a policy in which they allow themselves to have a digital footprint in certain irrelevant areas in order to bait an attack, creating civilian casualties and bringing in new recruits.
- pjc50 11y ago
  This was a serious problem in the early stages of the Afghanistan campaign, when people realised that they could settle longstanding neighbourhood disputes by denouncing their enemies to the Americans. That was partly why the US bombed a number of wedding convoys.
fixermark 11y ago
It would be horrendously awful if it was the only signal they had. And yes, to be clear, the military has hit the wrong target in the past. In this specific circumstance, it appears they got the right target.
deleted 11y ago
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mason240 11y ago
The photo was likely just the lead that tipped them off to building. After that they were likely able to confirm it through other means. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack - the hard part is finding the needle, what's easy is verifying that what you have in your hand is a needle.
jpmoral 11y ago
Maybe it's parallel construction?

So based off of the article, they bombed a building based off of a selfie accompanied by some text... am I the only one that sees this as a horrendously awful idea?

CPLX 11y ago

Yes, what could possibly go wrong with a policy of bombing every building that an ISIS member posts a selfie in front of? Of course in real life this is probably some sort of misinformation campaign to try to misdirect from the fact that they have some sort of informant or other means of figuring things out that they want to cover for.

philip1209 11y ago

I imagine that the building was remote and likely marked as a suspected terrorist site. The person who posted the photo was likely flagged as a terrorist based on previous data and was identified by facial recognition in the photo. Having a known terrorist at a suspected terrorist facility was likely enough justification to label the site as malicious and bomb it. The implications of something like this are interesting - it's just a graph theory problem, and hypothetically the computer could be programmed to automate a drone strike when a location reaches a certain score threshold.

ackalker 11y ago
Have you watched the movie "Eagle Eye"? How about "WarGames: The Dead Code"? If not, please do. Both, in their own way, have some interesting points regarding the risks involved in using A.I. in warfare, as well as the reduction of complex social interactions to mere graph theory and statistics.

kaybe 11y ago

Even if more went into it, it looks awefully gameable, a more extreme version of swatting.

cryoshon 11y ago
This is my thought as well. This incident has created the need for ISIS to have disinformation campaigns disseminated on social media by people who would be targeted by the strikes-- they can easily implement a policy in which they allow themselves to have a digital footprint in certain irrelevant areas in order to bait an attack, creating civilian casualties and bringing in new recruits.
pjc50 11y ago
This was a serious problem in the early stages of the Afghanistan campaign, when people realised that they could settle longstanding neighbourhood disputes by denouncing their enemies to the Americans. That was partly why the US bombed a number of wedding convoys.

fixermark 11y ago

It would be horrendously awful if it was the only signal they had. And yes, to be clear, the military has hit the wrong target in the past. In this specific circumstance, it appears they got the right target.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mason240 11y ago

The photo was likely just the lead that tipped them off to building. After that they were likely able to confirm it through other means. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack - the hard part is finding the needle, what's easy is verifying that what you have in your hand is a needle.

jpmoral 11y ago

Maybe it's parallel construction?