They were going to kill these people whether an AI was involved or not, but it certainly makes it a lot easier to make a decision when you're just signing off on a decision someone else made. The level of abstraction made certain choices easier. After all, if the system is known to be occasionally wrong and everyone seems to know it yet you're still using it, is that not some kind of implicit acceptance?

One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing — just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male. This was despite knowing that the system makes what are regarded as “errors” in approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all.

It also doesn't surprise me that when you've demonized the opposition, it becomes a lot easier to just be okay with "casualties" which have nothing to do with your war. How many problematic fathers out there are practically disowned by their children for their shitty beliefs? Even if there were none, it still doesn't justify killing someone at home because it's 'easier'

Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present — rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses. Additional automated systems, including one called “Where’s Daddy?” also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.

All in all this is great investigative reporting, and it's absolutely tragic that this kind of shit is happening in the world. This piece isn't needed to recognize that a genocide is happening and it shouldn't detract from the genocide in any way.

As an aside, I also help it might get people to wake up and realize we need to regulate AI more. Not that regulation will probably ever stop the military from using AI, but this kind of use should really highlight the potential dangers.

the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander.

Yes, we know this already. We know it because they leveled an entire block of apartment buildings, and then as justification for their actions claimed that they were targeting one Hamas commander:

At least 50 people were killed after six Israeli air raids hit a residential area of the [Jabalia] camp on Tuesday (October 2023). A Hamas statement said there were 400 dead and injured in the attack. Casualty figures for Wednesday’s attacks are still not known.

An Israeli military statement said that the attacks on Jabalia had killed Hamas commander Ibrahim Biari. The military believes Biari played a pivotal role in the planning and execution of the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7.

“There was a very senior Hamas commander in that area,” Israeli army spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht told CNN.

Looks like the article is not accessible on Tor. Here's as much of the article I can paste before reaching the max char limit of Lemmy

‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza

The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal.

By Yuval Abraham | April 3, 2024

In 2021, a book titled "The Human-Machine Team: How to Create Synergy Between Human and Artificial Intelligence That Will Revolutionize Our World" was released in English under the pen name "Brigadier General Y.S." In it, the author

a man who we confirmed to be the current commander of the elite Israeli intelligence unit 8200

makes the case for designing a special machine that could rapidly process massive amounts of data to generate thousands of potential "targets" for military strikes in the heat of a war. Such technology, he writes, would resolve what he described as a "human bottleneck for both locating the new targets and decision-making to approve the targets."

Such a machine, it turns out, actually exists. 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."

Formally, the Lavender system is designed to mark all suspected operatives in the military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), including low-ranking ones, as potential bombing targets. The sources told +972 and Local Call that, during the first weeks of the war, the army almost completely relied on Lavender, which clocked as many as 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants

and their homes

for possible air strikes.

During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender's kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based. One source stated that human personnel often served only as a "rubber stamp" for the machine's decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about "20 seconds" to each target before authorizing a bombing

just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male. This was despite knowing that the system makes what are regarded as "errors" in approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all.

Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes

usually at night while their whole families were present

rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses. Additional automated systems, including one called "Where's Daddy?" also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family's residences.

Palestinians transport the wounded and try to put out a fire after an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Shaboura refugee camp in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, November 17, 2023. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

The result, as the sources testified, is that thousands of Palestinians

most of them women and children or people who were not involved in the fighting

were wiped out by Israeli airstrikes, especially during the first weeks of the war, because of the AI program's decisions.

"We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity," A., an intelligence officer, told +972 and Local Call. "On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It's much easier to bomb a family's home. The system is built to look for them in these situations."

The Lavender machine joins another AI system, "The Gospel," about which information was revealed in a previous investigation by +972 and Local Call in November 2023, as well as in the Israeli military's own publications. A fundamental difference between the two systems is in the definition of the target: whereas The Gospel marks buildings and structures that the army claims militants operate from, Lavender marks people

and puts them on a kill list.

In addition, according to the sources, when it came to targeting alleged junior militants marked by Lavender, the army preferred to only use unguided missiles, commonly known as "dumb" bombs (in contrast to "smart" precision bombs), which can destroy entire buildings on top of their occupants and cause significant casualties. "You don't want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people

it's very expensive for the country and there's a shortage [of those bombs]," said C., one of the intelligence officers. Another source said that they had personally authorized the bombing of "hundreds" of private homes of alleged junior operatives marked by Lavender, with many of these attacks killing civilians and entire families as "collateral damage."

In an unprecedented move, according to two of the sources, the army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians; in the past, the military did not authorize any "collateral damage" during assassinations of low-ranking militants. The sources added that, in the event that the target was a senior Hamas official with the rank of battalion or brigade commander, the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander.

Palestinians wait to receive the bodies of their relatives who were killed in an Israeli airstrike, at Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, October 24, 2023. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

The following investigation is organized according to the six chronological stages of the Israeli army's highly automated target production in the early weeks of the Gaza war. First, we explain the Lavender machine itself, which marked tens of thousands of Palestinians using AI. Second, we reveal the "Where's Daddy?" system, which tracked these targets and signaled to the army when they entered their family homes. Third, we describe how "dumb" bombs were chosen to strike these homes.

Fourth, we explain how the army loosened the permitted number of civilians who could be killed during the bombing of a target. Fifth, we note how automated software inaccurately calculated the amount of non-combatants in each household. And sixth, we show how on several occasions, when a home was struck, usually at night, the individual target was sometimes not inside at all, because military officers did not verify the information in real time.

STEP 1: GENERATING TARGETS

'Once you go automatic, target generation goes crazy'

In the Israeli army, the term "human target" referred in the past to a senior military operative who, according to the rules of the military's International Law Department, can be killed in their private home even if there are civilians around. Intelligence sources told +972 and Local Call that during Israel's previous wars, since this was an "especially brutal" way to kill someone

often by killing an entire family alongside the target

such human targets were marked very carefully and only senior military commanders were bombed in their homes, to maintain the principle of proportionality under international law.

(max char reached). Read the entire article here (mirror)

Lavender has been fed with information that targeted people often hide in healthcare facilities. The threashold for labeling anything as a target that is related to medical or humanitarian support is passed easily obviously. A food truck that we are informed about and gave clearance for? Anyways, threashold is passed, Lavender says, so ... approval stamp for drone attack!

Israel is using an AI called Lavender to decide who is or isn't a militant, and another one called Where's Daddy to track them until they were home to kill the whole family. You might wonder who was providing the servers and computer infrastructure for that...

Time magazine may have a part of the answer: Google

https://time.com/6966102/google-contract-israel-defense-ministry-gaza-war/

Is it a war crime to assassinate?

Like I'd someone was to assassinate Biden, would that be legitimate or a war crime?