As civilian casualties continue to mount in the wartorn Gaza Strip, reports of Israel’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its targeting of Hamas militants are facing increasing scrutiny. A report by the Israeli outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call earlier this month said that Israeli forces had relied heavily on two AI tools so far in the conflict — “Lavender” and “Where’s Daddy.”

While “Lavender” identifies suspected Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants and their homes, “Where’s Daddy” tracks these targets and informs Israeli forces when they return home, per the report, which cites six Israeli intelligence officers who had used AI systems for operations in Gaza, including “Where’s Daddy?”

“We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” one of the officers 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,” they added.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    Who the fuck names a program like that “Where’s Daddy?” that’s fucking sociopathic.

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      The type of person who is intentionally targeting children to murder. I know, what a first for Israel…

    • Silverseren@kbin.socialOP
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      9 months ago

      Really makes me wonder what the meaning behind Lavender is in this context. There could quite easily be some horrific intention behind using that specific word in correlation to this murder system.

    • snooggums@midwest.social
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      9 months ago

      If they designed the peogrm to be used to target people in their reaidentiak homes with their families, sociopaths is probably a good guess.

    • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      In this Information Age, more and more power is given to nerds. These people are known for many traits but for empathy or ethics, they are not.

      • Zacryon@feddit.de
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        9 months ago

        And another day of “let’s shove all people of group X into one drawer and judge them”.
        We have all this information available through the internet. Can research even the most difficult topics by some mere hits on a keyboard and a click. And yet, there are still so many idiots. This is really mind-boggling.

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    9 months ago

    Every sane country on earth: “We use modern tools to reduce civilian casualties (because civilian casualties are bad PR).”

    Old-school countries: “We use modern tools without regard for civilian casualties (because what are they going to do about it? fight back? lmao)”

    Israel and Russia: “We use modern tools to INCREASE civilian casualties!”

    • bamboo@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      The civilian casualty count in Gaza is already higher than Ukraine. As bad as Russia is, they’re nothing in comparison to Israel.

  • Anas@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    They can’t fight Hamas on the field, they have to assassinate them in other countries (funny how the best intelligence in the world knows exactly who the “Qatar billionaires” are but hasn’t done anything about it), murder them alongside their families while they sleep, or disguise as civilians to murder them in hospitals. Or the usual, take their frustration out on civilians.

  • alternative_factor@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    Really appreciating Israels SkyNet 100% speedrun here, some really impressive moves. However, I’m starting to wonder if this run passes the suspect test, I feel like you can’t get past regulators so well in most cases without an exploit.

  • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    “AI” in this context only serves to obfuscate responsibility. “You’ve just striked a bunch of children”, “Well, sure, but this AI-generated model predicted that there was a 80% chance that they were all little Hamaslings”. Of course, the data that AI was trained with was bollocks to ensure everyone is Hamas, including NGO kitchen foreign workers.

    • misspacific@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 months ago

      but when the IDF does it it’s a feature?

      it’s a genocide; that’s the point.

      Nobody comes out of this clean.

      it’s a genocide; it’s not rational.

        • Silverseren@kbin.socialOP
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          9 months ago

          Couldn’t you use that same claim to say that multiple known genocides weren’t because the populations are higher now? Heck, I see morons use the same argument to claim China isn’t committing genocide because the Uighur population is higher now.

          The fallacious “but the population is higher” argument is an idiotic attempt to whitewash genocide.

          • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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            9 months ago

            I mean China isn’t committing genocide, anyone can go to Xinjiang, and delegations of most Muslim countries have verified as much. We know what genocide looks like, it doesn’t look like anti-poverty programs and education + doctors per capita approaching the national average, and a life expectancy of 75.

            But one of the more telling parts about the genocide in Gaza is that while population was increasing, average age decreases; people have more kids because they’ve got a <50% chance to make it to 18.

            Population was increasing in Xinjiang faster than the national average because recognized minorities were exempt from the 1 child policy, before it was removed.

            • BarbecueCowboy@kbin.social
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              9 months ago

              It can be hard to find evidence beyond pictures that look pretty damning on those ‘education camps’ and first hand accounts of people who claim to have experienced things that we would usually refer to as part of a genocidal campaign. China is trying real hard to get to that point, It’s maybe the nicest way to wipe out an ethnic group, but primary focus past few years seems to be on forced implanted contraception and sterilization.

              It definitely seems to be working out.
              https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22311356/china-uyghur-birthrate-sterilization-genocide

              • AMDIsOurLord@lemmy.ml
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                9 months ago

                Adrain Zenz, the man behind the Uyghur bullshit, is a Christian Fascist whom according to himself was ordained from the fucking god to spread this bullshit

                Also, the last time this “evidence” was making rounds, it was debunked. Not only they had pictures of fucking actors who weren’t Uyghur, their evidence contained AI generated images.

                Give me ONE, fucking ONE, piece of hard evidence that can prove what Adrian Zenz and RFA say. Mainstream Media is literally parroting the words of actually insane people just because China Le Bad.

                Also, on purely philosophical grounds, the country that’s funding a Muslim genocide and conducts systematic racism against them, also known as the United States of America, and their lapdog Israel, are the last two countries on this earth that can say anything remotely advocating relating to Muslims rights.

        • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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          9 months ago

          Removed for genocide denial.

          Article 2 of the UN’s Genocide Convention defines it like this:

          https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

          "Article II

          In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

          a) Killing members of the group;

          b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

          c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

          d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

          e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

          Note: “Any of the following acts”. Israel is now 5 for 5.

          • SomeTeaMonster@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            They’re going after Hamas and there’s been collateral damage, such happens in every war. If they wanted to commit genocide, why wouldn’t they just carpet bomb the place instead of sending in leaflets to warn people to leave and even risk the lives of their own troops? By your definition, Hamas is also committing genocide against the Israelis.

            • Mirshe@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Sorry, “collateral damage” wasn’t a good enough excuse for the US military and it’s definitely not a good enough excuse for the Israeli military either. The US struck a hospital in Kunduz fully aware of what it was and it caused enough of an incident that several coalition nations pulled out of Afghanistan rather than be involved. The US very nearly lost a LOT of its allies over that, and that was AFTER extensive investigation and compensation. Why should we hold Israel, a first-world military by any metric, to a lower standard than how we hold our own army?

              If you see a hospital is being used as a military staging area, you don’t just level the goddamn place. You don’t say “well they COULD HAVE been there” (by the way, that’s the exact same justification for the Kunduz airstrike). You don’t look at it and say “well collateral damage and all”. You rework your plan. You find a way to minimize casualties, whether that’s a strike team or simply bypassing that target entirely because it’s way too risky to civilians. It’s a HOSPITAL, you can’t say “you need to evac because we’re bombing this place” - there are people who are too sick to move, equipment that CAN’T, and it’d be a huge operation to move everyone in a hospital on 24 hours’ notice.

              As to “why aren’t they just carpet bombing the place”, it’s because half of the reason for this genocide is lebensraum - you’ll notice that there’s been a decent number of Israeli real estate firms that have caught flak for selling land in newly-emptied Gaza areas.

          • anon987@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            So by that definition palestine committed genocide against Israelis on Oct 7th?

            • aStonedSanta@lemm.ee
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              9 months ago

              I guess in a way, yes. But there is more context about the oppressed and the oppressors needed imo.

              • anon987@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                Well when do you start? When the Romans oppressed the Jewish people and conquered Jerusalem in 70A.D?

                To add insult to injury, they gave Judea the name of Israel’s ancient enemy, the Philistines. The Arabic form of the name is Palestine.

                Both sides have been the oppressors at one point or another, fighting over their perceived holy land.

    • DancingBear@midwest.social
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      9 months ago

      No, IDF and Israeli government are trash terrorists that have occupied apartheid Gaza and West Bank for more than half a century.

      Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister funded Hamas.

      If you support Netanyahu IDF or Israeli government at this point you are a maniac.

      The world knows this.

      • SomeTeaMonster@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        So it’s THEIR fault that Hamas came in and murdered, tortured, mutilated, and raped innocents families on October 7th? Seriously? You realize how insane that sounds?

          • SomeTeaMonster@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Resorting to insults never makes your position a good one, friend. Give me some evidence please that the Israeli government would finance a terrorist group bent on killing Jews. They literally have this in their founding documents.

            • Keeponstalin@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Here’s some evidence that Israel has supported and funded Hamas as a Divide and Conquer tactic for decades.

              This really turned and came to a head in 2007, when Hamas, after winning democratic elections in 2006, rose to power, and the Israeli authorities, along with the U.S., attempted to initiate a regime change operation, which facilitated a civil war between Hamas and Fatah and allowed Hamas to take over the Gaza Strip. Since then, Israeli authorities have actively embraced the idea that Hamas would be accepted as a governing authority in the Gaza Strip. Now, part of the calculus in that is because of Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians. This is a demographic issue. Israel wanted to sever the Gaza Strip from the rest of historic Palestine in order to reinforce its claim that it’s a Jewish-majority state. By getting rid of 2 million Palestinians, two-thirds of whom are refugees demanding return, Israel can claim to be both a Jewish state and a democracy and restructure what is its apartheid regime.

              “Divide and Rule”: How Israel Helped Start Hamas to Weaken Palestinian Hopes for Statehood

              As far back as December 2012, Mr. Netanyahu told the prominent Israeli journalist Dan Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Mr. Margalit, in an interview, said that Mr. Netanyahu told him that having two strong rivals, including Hamas, would lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.

              History of Hamas supported by Netanyahu since 2012

              Hamas began twenty years into the occupation during the first Intifada, with the goal of ending the occupation. Collective punishment has been a deliberate Israeli tactic for decades with the Dahiya doctrine. Violence such as suicide bombings and rockets escalated in response to Israeli enforcement of the occupation and apartheid.

              Hamas 1988 Charter and Revised 2017 Charter

              The 1988 Charter, which is certainly unreasonable in its fundamentalism with Sharia Law and is antisemitic, does not call for the extermination of all Jewish People. The 2017 Revised charter accepts a Two-State Solution of the 1967 Borders. Check Article 7 and 13 of the 1988 Charter to see yourself, compare it to Article 20 and 24-26 in the revised charter

              The slogan From the River to the Sea is about Palestinian liberation that started in the 60s by the PLO for a democratic secular state, not Genocide. The Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad in 1966 maybe, but he’s not Palestinian.