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0 pointsmike_hearn2y ago0 comments

Note that the IDF explicitly denied that story:

https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/hamas-israel-war-24/all-art...

Probably this is due to confusion over what the term "AI" means. If you do some queries on a database, and call yourself a "data scientist", and other people who call themselves data scientists do some AI, does that mean you're doing AI? For left wing journalists who want to undermine the Israelis (the story originally appeared in the Guardian) it'd be easy to hear what you want to hear from your sources and conflate using data with using AI. This is the kind of blurring that happens all the time with apparently technical terms once they leave the tech world and especially once they enter journalism.

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ethbr12y ago

The "independent examinations" is doing a heavy lift there.

At most charitable, that means a person is reviewing all data points before approval.

At least charitable, that means a person is clicking approved after glancing at the values generated by the system.

The press release doesn't help clarify that one way or the other.

If you want to read thoughts by the guy who was in charge of building and operating the automated intelligence system, he wrote a book: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Machine-Team-Artificial-Intelli...

antihero2y ago

The IDF explicitly deny a lot of things, which turn out to be true.

mike_hearnOP2y ago

Yeah, but the Guardian explicitly state a lot of things which turn out to be not true also.

Given that the underlying premise of the story is bizarre (is the IDF really so short of manpower that they can't select their own targets), and given that the sort of people who work at the Guardian openly loathe Israel, it makes more sense that the story is being misreported.

racional2y ago

The underlying premise of the story is bizarre (is the IDF really so short of manpower that they can't select their own targets)

The premise that the IDF would use some form of automated information processing to help select potential targets, in the year 2023?

There's nothing at all unrealistic about this premise, of course. If anything it's rather bizarre to suggest that it might be.

The sort of people who work at the Guardian openly loathe Israel

This sounds you just don't have much to say about the substantive claims of these reports (which began with research by two Israeli publications, +972 and the Local Call -- and then taken further by The Guardian). Or would you say that former two "openly loathe Israel" also? Along with the Israeli sources that they're quoting?

runarberg2y ago

More likely, the IDF is committing a genocide and are finding innovative ways to create a large list of targets which grants them plausible deniability.

adamtaylor_132y ago

Just like… (checks notes)… oh yeah every government on the planet.

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ignoramous2y ago

> Probably this is due to confusion over what the term "AI" means.

AI is how it is marketed to the buyers. Either way, the system isn't a database or simple statistics. https://www.accessnow.org/publication/artificial-genocidal-i...

Ex, autonomous weapons like "smart shooter" employed in Hebron and Bethlehem: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/06/palestinian-forum-highli...

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ethbr12y ago

The "independent examinations" is doing a heavy lift there.

At most charitable, that means a person is reviewing all data points before approval.

At least charitable, that means a person is clicking approved after glancing at the values generated by the system.

The press release doesn't help clarify that one way or the other.

If you want to read thoughts by the guy who was in charge of building and operating the automated intelligence system, he wrote a book: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Machine-Team-Artificial-Intelli...

antihero2y ago

The IDF explicitly deny a lot of things, which turn out to be true.

mike_hearnOP2y ago

Yeah, but the Guardian explicitly state a lot of things which turn out to be not true also.

racional2y ago

The underlying premise of the story is bizarre (is the IDF really so short of manpower that they can't select their own targets)

The premise that the IDF would use some form of automated information processing to help select potential targets, in the year 2023?

There's nothing at all unrealistic about this premise, of course. If anything it's rather bizarre to suggest that it might be.

The sort of people who work at the Guardian openly loathe Israel

runarberg2y ago

More likely, the IDF is committing a genocide and are finding innovative ways to create a large list of targets which grants them plausible deniability.

adamtaylor_132y ago

Just like… (checks notes)… oh yeah every government on the planet.

1 more reply

ignoramous2y ago

> Probably this is due to confusion over what the term "AI" means.

AI is how it is marketed to the buyers. Either way, the system isn't a database or simple statistics. https://www.accessnow.org/publication/artificial-genocidal-i...

Ex, autonomous weapons like "smart shooter" employed in Hebron and Bethlehem: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/06/06/palestinian-forum-highli...

1 more reply

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