A new investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call reveals that the Israeli army has developed an artificial intelligence-based program known as “Lavender,” unveiled here for the first time. According to six Israeli intelligence officers, who have all served in the army during the current war on the Gaza Strip and had first-hand involvement with the use of AI to generate targets for assassination, Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war. In fact, according to the sources, its influence on the military’s operations was such that they essentially treated the outputs of the AI machine “as if it were a human decision.”
The sources said that the approval to automatically adopt Lavender’s kill lists, which had previously been used only as an auxiliary tool, was granted about two weeks into the war, after intelligence personnel “manually” checked the accuracy of a random sample of several hundred targets selected by the AI system. When that sample found that Lavender’s results had reached 90 percent accuracy in identifying an individual’s affiliation with Hamas, the army authorized the sweeping use of the system. From that moment, sources said that if Lavender decided an individual was a militant in Hamas, they were essentially asked to treat that as an order, with no requirement to independently check why the machine made that choice or to examine the raw intelligence data on which it is based.
“At 5 a.m., [the air force] would come and bomb all the houses that we had marked,” B. said. “We took out thousands of people. We didn’t go through them one by one — we put everything into automated systems, and as soon as one of [the marked individuals] was at home, he immediately became a target. We bombed him and his house.”
@ISIDEWITH1yr1Y
If an AI system like Lavender makes a mistake that leads to the loss of innocent lives, who should be held responsible?
AI is not a look thing for the people in this world
@9LBNZKB1yr1Y
Whoever created the AI should be responsible
@9LBMRLN1yr1Y
No matter what it is it should be taken away from others. Wether it be a factory machine accident or an AI system it should be isolated from society
@9LBT4L21yr1Y
I don't want our lives being overthrown by robots or other AI things.
@ISIDEWITH1yr1Y
Should artificial intelligence have the power to decide the fate of humans in conflict situations?
@9LBXBGP1yr1Y
They might make a mistake or someone might rig the system
@9LBSSGGIndependent1yr1Y
A.I. is infinitely beyond our own comprehension. How can we control something that is so far above our intelligence and understanding?
@9LBPY34Constitution1yr1Y
I don't support Artificial Intelligence.
@9LBR3Z4Republican1yr1Y
AI should have no power to target human life.
@ISIDEWITH1yr1Y
Do you believe relying on AI for such critical and life-altering decisions removes or reduces the moral responsibility from human operators?
@9LCDBN7Republican1yr1Y
My fear is that AI will take over the world
Relying too much on AI, especially for life-altering decisions does reduce the moral responsibility from human operators because they aren't involved in making the decision. They don't have to think about the morals involved, so a lot of responsibility is lifted.
@9LBWT721yr1Y
sort of, doing basic things humans should do like going for a walk, going for work, getting important things for yourself is what humans should do. But i feel AI can help us with certain questions we need and stuff.
AI is over used and not with mistakes and money. It lowers the use of people's cognitive process.
Israel says there were 30k Hamas soldiers at the start of war. This order authorizes them to 450k-600k civilians, assuming all their targeting is accurate (many more if not). If 100 of them are senior Hamas leaders, add 10k.
Could well be the case that for every 20 Palestinian civilians killed at least one new Hamas fighter is created. Doesn’t seem like a winning strategy on the math, let alone the morals.
They consider every dead male between 16 - 50 to be Hamas. And that's a minimum range.
That's how they're counting. Their assessment of Hamas casualties has no actual basis in fact.
In all the ludicrous fantasies of how the IDF intentionally targets civilians, a critical piece is consistently missing: any plausible explanation of what Israel could gain from such actions, considering the inevitable negative publicity that would follow.
@ISIDEWITH1yr1Y
With thresholds set that low, the error bars on their claims of how many Hamas battalions they have wiped out are very large. In this age of AI guided targeting- setting thresholds this low should qualify as an automatic war-crime.
I bet 100% that Israelis are using social media posts inside Gaza to brand people as possible "Hamas militants", Killing 15 - 100 in the process.
That's how they killed Refaat Alareer entire family.
The interesting thing about this possibility is that if they would point their...
systems outside Gaza... it would go crazy, branding everyone throughout the whole world a valid Hamas target.
Remember when we were told children were being killed in Gaza because Hamas was using them as human shields? Now we know the real reason. When Israel wanted to kill someone, they waited till he went home, then dropped a bomb on the building, killing the whole family.
@SuperPACRichieGreen1yr1Y
What will it take for Americans to see the monstrosity of the Israeli regime?
Is this morally better than opening fire in a crowd of military age rave party goers?
You do realize you're comparing the IDF to Hamas don't you? That may be a situation that warrants some reflection don't you think?
I must admit that I don't see why one could not compare two armed groups
@9CJ6CB61yr1Y
No, the IDF has historically been worse than Hamas. There’s no competition, with imprisonement alone, hundreds of children suffer severe psychological and physical damage due to their military court systems and prisons. Most of that is a direct violation of the 4th Geneva Convention, the same convention Israel relies on to allow these TEMPORARY military courts (which have been going on since the 60s) that have a strong tendency to illegally traffick minors as young as twelve into unfair trials. That’s ONE aspect, and it’s not even a necessarily violent one yet, so absolutely, the IDF is worse.
What do people think, that war is Base Tag on a children’s playground? That militants can just “go home” at night and be safe?
Did this rule apply to Nir Oz, Kfar Aza, or Kibbutz Be’eri?
If there are civilians in targeted locations, it is because Hamas is specifically putting them in harm’s way.
We are all potentially one government decision away from having this kind of technology used on us.
Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next month, maybe not next year but sometime in the future we can all be targeted at home.
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