By Natasha Karner
The Israeli army used a new artificial intelligence (AI) system to generate lists of tens of thousands of human targets for potential airstrikes in Gaza, according to a report published last week. The report comes from the nonprofit outlet +972 Magazine, which is run by Israeli and Palestinian journalists.
The report cites interviews with six unnamed sources in Israeli intelligence. The sources claim the system, known as Lavender, was used with other AI systems to target and assassinate suspected militants – many in their own homes – causing large numbers of civilian casualties.
According to another report in the Guardian, based on the same sources as the +972 report, one intelligence officer said the system “made it easier” to carry out large numbers of strikes, because “the machine did it coldly”.
As militaries around the world race to use AI, these reports show us what it may look like: machine-speed warfare with limited accuracy and little human oversight, with a high cost for civilians.
Military AI in Gaza is not new
The Israeli Defence Force denies many of the claims in these reports. In a statement to the Guardian, it said it “does not use an artificial intelligence system that identifies terrorist operatives”. It said Lavender is not an AI system but “simply a database whose purpose is to cross-reference intelligence sources”.
But in 2021, the Jerusalem Post reported an intelligence official saying Israel had just won its first “AI war” – an earlier conflict with Hamas – using a number of machine learning systems to sift through data and produce targets. In the same year a book called The Human–Machine Team, which outlined a vision of AI-powered warfare, was published under a pseudonym by an author recently revealed to be the head of a key Israeli clandestine intelligence unit.
Last year, another +972 report said Israel also uses an AI system called Habsora to identify potential militant buildings and facilities to bomb. According the report, Habsora generates targets “almost automatically”, and one former intelligence officer described it as “a mass assassination factory”.
The recent +972 report also claims a third system, called Where’s Daddy?, monitors targets identified by Lavender and alerts the military when they return home, often to their family.
Death by algorithm
Several countries are turning to algorithms in search of a military edge. The US military’s Project Maven supplies AI targeting that has been used in the Middle East and Ukraine. China too is rushing to develop AI systems to analyse data, select targets, and aid in decision-making.
Proponents of military AI argue it will enable faster decision-making, greater accuracy and reduced casualties in warfare.
Yet last year, Middle East Eye reported an Israeli intelligence office said having a human review every AI-generated target in Gaza was “not feasible at all”. Another source told +972 they personally “would invest 20 seconds for each target” being merely a “rubber stamp” of approval.
The Israeli Defence Force response to the most recent report says “analysts must conduct independent examinations, in which they verify that the identified targets meet the relevant definitions in accordance with international law”.
As for accuracy, the latest +972 report claims Lavender automates the process of identification and cross-checking to ensure a potential target is a senior Hamas military figure. According to the report, Lavender loosened the targeting criteria to include lower-ranking personnel and weaker standards of evidence, and made errors in “approximately 10% of cases”.
The report also claims one Israeli intelligence officer said that due to the Where’s Daddy? system, targets would be bombed in their homes “without hesitation, as a first option”, leading to civilian casualties. The Israeli army says it “outright rejects the claim regarding any policy to kill tens of thousands of people in their homes”.
Rules for military AI?
As military use of AI becomes more common, ethical, moral and legal concerns have largely been an afterthought. There are so far no clear, universally accepted or legally binding rules about military AI.
The United Nations has been discussing “lethal autonomous weapons systems” for more than ten years. These are devices that can make targeting and firing decisions without human input, sometimes known as “killer robots”. Last year saw some progress.
The UN General Assembly voted in favour of a new draft resolution to ensure algorithms “must not be in full control of decisions involving killing”. Last October, the US also released a declaration on the responsible military use of AI and autonomy, which has since been endorsed by 50 other states. The first summit on the responsible use of military AI was held last year, too, co-hosted by the Netherlands and the Republic of Korea.
Overall, international rules over the use of military AI are struggling to keep pace with the fervour of states and arms companies for high-tech, AI-enabled warfare.
Facing the ‘unknown’
Some Israeli startups that make AI-enabled products are reportedly making a selling point of their use in Gaza. Yet reporting on the use of AI systems in Gaza suggests how far short AI falls of the dream of precision warfare, instead creating serious humanitarian harms.
The industrial scale at which AI systems like Lavender can generate targets also effectively “displaces humans by default” in decision-making.
The willingness to accept AI suggestions with barely any human scrutiny also widens the scope of potential targets, inflicting greater harm.
Setting a precedent
The reports on Lavender and Habsora show us what current military AI is already capable of doing. Future risks of military AI may increase even further.
Chinese military analyst Chen Hanghui has envisioned a future “battlefield singularity”, for example, in which machines make decisions and take actions at a pace too fast for a human to follow. In this scenario, we are left as little more than spectators or casualties.
A study published earlier this year sounded another warning note. US researchers carried out an experiment in which large language models such as GPT-4 played the role of nations in a wargaming exercise. The models almost inevitably became trapped in arms races and escalated conflict in unpredictable ways, including using nuclear weapons.
The way the world reacts to current uses of military AI – like we are seeing in Gaza – is likely to set a precedent for the future development and use of the technology.
Natasha Karner is a doctoral candidate in international studies at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.
The Conversation arose out of deep-seated concerns for the fading quality of our public discourse and recognition of the vital role that academic experts could play in the public arena. Information has always been essential to democracy. It’s a societal good, like clean water. But many now find it difficult to put their trust in the media and experts who have spent years researching a topic. Instead, they listen to those who have the loudest voices. Those uninformed views are amplified by social media networks that reward those who spark outrage instead of insight or thoughtful discussion. The Conversation seeks to be part of the solution to this problem, to raise up the voices of true experts and to make their knowledge available to everyone. The Conversation publishes nightly at 9 p.m. on FlaglerLive.
Bill C says
Rather than “intelligent” the AI war system is brute and dumb.
JW says
Absolutely, and the majority of The People are too ignorant to even know what “intelligent” means. But politicians will play the voters for their vote in November with the “AI brand”. This is true fraud!
DaleL says
There is nothing surprising about what Israel is doing. General Gadi Eizenkot, commander of the IDF’s northern front, announced Israel’s doctrine of disproportionate destruction (Dahiya doctrine) in October 2008: “What happened in the Dahieh quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which shots will be fired in the direction of Israel. We will wield disproportionate power and cause immense damage and destruction.”
William Tecumseh Sherman is reported have said: “War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over.”
It is ludicrous to expect Israel to be an impartial peacekeeper. It does not matter whether the weapons are unguided or directed by people or AI. What matters is this war must end. The combatants need to be separated. If the surrounding Muslim nations, with the assistance of the western world, will not step up, then October 7, 2023 and the ongoing tragedy in Gaza will happen again, and again. In particular, the genocidal leadership of Hamas, who are living a life of comfort in Qatar, need to be held accountable for their involvement in the deaths of so many innocents.
Bill C says
Nice try Ray W to present yourself as merely an unbiased, impartial observer, ignoring the photos and statistics, comfortable with a 30 to 1 kill ratio and 70% destruction of infrastructure, and use of starvation as a weapon. Blame it all on Hamas. Consider the usurpation of Palestinian land from the 1947 UN Partition Plan which created the state of Israel until today.
https://www.palestineportal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Maps_1897-Present.jpg
DaleL says
The combatants need to be separated and the war needs to end.
Consider that in May 14, 1948, Israel declared independence in accordance with the 1947 UN Partition Plan. The very next morning, the military forces of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and Iraq entered Palestine and took control of the Arab areas. They attacked Israel and Jewish settlements. As a result of the 10 month war, some 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from Israel. A similar number of Jews moved to Israel, including about 260,000 from the surrounding Arab states.
Also, who is “Ray W”?
Bill C says
The 1947 plan proposed 56% of the land to be allocated to the Jewish state although the Palestinian Arab population numbered twice the Jewish population. Zionist leaders, in particular David Ben-Gurion, viewed the acceptance of the plan as a tactical step and a stepping stone to future territorial expansion over all of Palestine. The unfairness of the plan forced upon them by outsiders was why the Arabs attacked.
DaleL says
It was the military forces of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and Iraq which attacked Israel in 1948. In the years following 1948, how many displaced Palestinians have these countries allowed to settle within their territory? In contrast, in 2021, 18% of the population of Israel were Muslim, 1.7 million. Almost all of them Palestinians. Israel now has 10 times the population as in 1947. It has 4 times the number of Muslim Palestinians as in the partition agreement. The fact is that Israel has more Muslim Palestinian citizens than Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq combined.
You are correct that Israel was to have 56% of the land. However, the partition expected Israel to have a population that was 55% Jewish and 45% other religions, mostly Muslim. Israel was expected to have 55% of the total population. Thus, the UN partition was pretty equal as to population. There was also the expectation of further immigration into Israel by Jews who had survived the Holocaust in Europe. The partition would have insured that the Muslim portion of the partition would not have had to absorb those Jewish immigrants.
From the book “From the Wings: Amman Memoirs” British diplomat Alec Kirkbride wrote: that the Arab League’s Secretary-General Azzam Pasha, a week before the armies marched in 1948, said: “…when I asked him for his estimate of the size of the Jewish forces, waved his hands and said: ‘It does not matter how many there are. We will sweep them into the sea.””
You seem to have some very strong views. What solution would you suggest?
Bill C says
Get over it! Stop ignoring the evidence of genocide by Israel- the photos, the starvation, the dispossession, the treatment of Palestinians as sub-humans. Israel may win the battle but lose the war.
Hippy says
This is how you make it all stop. At the root of the problem. This is how you save innocent Palestinian lives. Every protest out there calling for a stop to the destruction in Gaza should be supporting what Israel just did to the Mullahs and what the world should be doing to Iran to stop funding Hamas and others which only leads to Israel reacting and defending themselves and innocent Palestinians dying and a Photo Op that the Media posts trying to show how bad Israel is.
Until the world stops Iran from funding Hamas and others, and people start protesting about the Problem and not the results of the problem this never fucking stops.
Pierre Tristam says
He says this with a straight face as Congress just passed a $16 billion aid package to re-arm Israel so it can continue its genocidal war, while the US votes against Palestinian statehood even as Biden preaches a two-state solution. No wonder it never fucking stops.
Robjr says
Anyone who speaks against these atrocities is immediately labeled as anti sematic.
And Israel counters with there were over 1,000 people killed in the initial invasion by Hamas and several hundred children killed or taken hostage.
Seems like the score has been more than evened.
The US is providing arms and money to Israel to bomb Gazans, then the US turns around and provides aid to Gazans who been bombed in accord with the US’ support.
Ray W. says
I encourage all FlaglerLive readers to watch an Israeli-produced and filmed documentary on the Yom Kippur War: The Valley of Tears. HBO owns the rights to the series.
I understand and accept that the 10-part series has some fictionalized scenes and that some of the characters are a blend of several actual people. To me, the documentary offers great insights into the many fractious components of Israeli society. Apparently, its release in Israel several years ago prompted much discussion and criticism; it opened many old wounds that had never fully healed. Again, I can always learn more about Israel’s many-faceted and divisive political culture, but apparently there are many different competing and oppositional factions within Israel that foster hate or distrust for each other. That subject seems to be the focus of the documentary. The fact that some of the characters are Palestinian Arabs who fight and die to save Israel is eye-opening.
Obviously, our own ASF presents as a commenter who is incapable of helping others understand what is really going on in Palestine, but that might be due to her belonging to a minority faction that advocates for violence against defenseless Palestinians. Her view is that Hamas is solely responsible for all violence in Palestine and civilians deserve to die because of that. I agree with ASF that Hamas should always be condemned for its murderous violent actions, but her advocating for the murder or starvation of innocents will never justify ASF’s points. She will always lose her arguments. Thankfully, I am not anti-Israel; I simply oppose people like ASF. When she starts denouncing in her comments the many murderous religious Jewish extremist settlers, or the violent IDF units that indiscriminately kill civilians, ASF will start presenting winning comments. I can only wait for her to come to reason.
I will continue to oppose Hamas, and any other Islamic religious extremist movements, in all its hatreds. I will continue to oppose murderous Jewish religious extremist settlers in all their hatreds. Honor demands vengeance. Respect commands justice. Palestine remains a region filled with honor killings, honor hatreds, honor politics. Revenge begets more revenge, millennia after millennia.
ASF says
I will let your comments stand on their own as they think they indicate more about your own porejudices than they do about anyone or anything else.
Ray W. says
I am prejudiced against people like you. I opposed people who advocate for the malicious destruction of others long before I became aware of your malicious views. I will oppose you until you come to your senses. Unless and until you begin decrying the murderous elements within the many Jewish communities that comprise today’s Israel, the most you can hope for is to become a less bad person. No one can win any argument about the vengeful slaughter that is Palestine. You keep trying.
Pogo says
Ray W.
“…they fight with their hatch closed…” Binged one weekend, a couple of months (or was it hundreds of years) ago.
Shalom
Sherry says
Excellent comment Ray W! Thank You!
Kennan says
Well, the conversations can become contentious at times, but we’re talking. Unfortunately unfortunately the discourse will have little or no effect on the outcome. What we must remember is that we have to have a good toe hold on the truth, and we have to be honest about what the truth is. We must be nuanced.
THE TRUTH……….
Gaza had three separate airstrikes implemented on it two weeks before the October 7 massacre, on October 4 protesters in Gaza were shot in the legs by IDF. I guess Israel forgot about the so-called “CEASEFIRE .”
As brutal as October 7 was when 1200 Israelis were killed, they were no beheaded babies, there were no babies cut out of mothers, womb, and the massive Hamas rapes were all debunked. Yes, an 11 month old Jewish child was killed, and that’s one child too many, but the narrative being thrown forward was one that was hoped to work in the service of what the IDF and Benjamin Netanyahu were planning.
The massive tunnel system and military bunker system built under Al Shifa hospital….. complete bullshit! The Associated Press reported a couple of cots in offices that were determined to be of non-military use.
Let us all remember that terrorism is a tactic.Hamas He’s not an army without a government. They perpetrated a terrorist act that could’ve been met with the technology of the most advanced military in the world with the help of the United States, to get those responsible that is not what Benjamin Netanyahu wanted. He turned the water off and the power off at the very beginning, your first very clear clue that something very sinister was coming.
As I have said many times, Netanyahu was itching to call this a war to make it easier to green light the genocide to come. Netanyahu never wanted a two state solution. He said as much on numerous occasions, as well, as having a map, drawn out to show what Gaza would look like after his military campaign was complete. In the same breath, the Biden administration talks about a two state solution, knowing Netanyahu does not want it, giving 16 billion additional dollars to continue the carpet, bombing of children and women and civilians!
CONFUSED YET! Well, don’t be. You can’t condemn Netanyahu for being too heavy, handed, and then give them more money for this ongoing genocide. Impossible, you can’t have it both ways you can’t hide your ass and show your ass at the same time and have any validity or respectability on the world scene. The state department has devolved so much, that they are now finding it impossible to answer questions from the press, because they know they are contradicting themselves with every breath.
The Zionists that call anyone speaking against this genocide an anti Semite forget that what they are doing is the most anti-somatic thing anyone could do. They are not aThe Zionists that call anyone speaking against this genocide an anti Semite forget that what they are doing is the most anti-somatic thing anyone could do. They are not a reflection of many Jewish people. People like.: Norman Finkelstein, Gideon, Levi, a writer for Herretz in Israel, Elan Peppe, and Max Blumenthal, all Jewish intellectuals that are speaking vehemently against this genocide.
50,000 dead. Many journalists, UN workers, hospital employees desperately trying to save people with no electricity or water. People running like rats to get food from food drops and being gun down. Many of whom being buried in mass graves by the IDF to cover it up. Unfortunately, gnus and video travels at nearly the speed of light, seemingly, so covering it up is very, very difficult.
I have gone over and over and over this in my head so many times wondering why? Why? Why? I am not naïve. I know the history, but in a modern world, with the world watching how can anyone pallet this? How can a government knowing what they’ve been through in the wake of the holocaust, turn around subjugate people for decades, and now, at the pinnacle of it, all administer an ongoing atrocity that will surely be the worst of the 21st-century, and will no doubt be known as an Arab Holocaust.
No matter who you are, or what your opinion on this may be. I suspect we all know exactly what this is.
DaleL says
How should the IDF have responded on October 4, 2023 to a Hamas inspired mob at the border that were throwing Molotov cocktails? The violent demonstrations had been occurring for over a week. A Hamas spokesperson said: “Further unrest is possible if our conditions are not met.” According to reporting in the Guardian: “Many people in Gaza, however, said that they believed Hamas was ultimately responsible for stoking the violence along the periphery. The latest round of protests do not seem to have significant public support.”
So on October 7, Hamas upped the ante so to speak. Along with the horrible attack, Hamas launched an estimated 8,500 rockets from October 7 to 31. Hamas, in effect, declared war on Israel. Hamas, the organization which promotes violence and yet “bravely” hides amongst civilians.
Isn’t it time to get both Hamas and the IDF out of Gaza? Perhaps an Arab nation led peace force with western backing to police Gaza and secure its border with Israel. Perhaps a rebuilding effort that includes putting electrical power plants and water plants in Gaza.