Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
[flagged] 'The Gospel': Israel uses AI to select bombing targets in Gaza (theguardian.com)
44 points by YeGoblynQueenne 6 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 21 comments



> We work without compromise in defining who and what the enemy is. The operatives of Hamas are not immune – no matter where they hide.

Unless they're underground. Alongside the entire Hamas military apparatus, hostages, munitions, and the things Israel blows up refuge camps looking to destroy.

This is the importance of having an appeals court. This is a nation that has a completely separate form of autonomy for its territories with no access to the federation's courts, while insisting that these territories are not countries. If not country, give access to courts where someone can appeal being targeted for state and military assassination, else apartheid state. Its one or the other.

Funding should be withdrawn and sanctions levied until a semblance of due process is implemented. Sanctions would prevent our defense contractors from being involved, and be an incentivize to harmonize laws or as Israel says to rationalize its willful collateral damage “cause society to exert civil pressure”.

Sanctioning Israeli persons and entities would be far less awkward for the US people than funding and giving stern words, we’re stuck debating with people that have some pretty juvenile thought processes and medieval rules of engagement, masquerading it as restraint and morally superior just because they didn’t carpet bomb but could. Hamas entities are already sanctioned.


We also need to do away with anti-BDS laws and the new push to legally conflate anti-Israel speech with antisemitism.


Confirms the original story by Israeli 978 magazine:

https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...

Unfortunately I think the subject is too controversial for hn.


I posted this article when it came out and it was quickly flagged.


Yep. While Anduril's AI drone weapon sits on the front page for half a day with plenty of commenters celebrating it.


The aspect of military usage of AI seems definitely in scope for HN


I agree that it's in scope but HN is not mature enough to discuss tech that intersects a sensitive topic.


AI is being thrown too liberally by the media.

> In recent years, the target division has helped the IDF build a database of what sources said was between 30,000 and 40,000 suspected militants. Systems such as the Gospel, they said, had played a critical role in building lists of individuals authorised to be assassinated.

This seems to be an image matching program. Though, given the IDF recent performance, one has to wonder how accurate and effective that would be.

This is much different (if that's the full scope) than the US signature strike drones; which uses movement patterns to determine if the target is a terrorist.


Not sure why you'd say that, from the article it seems that it's used to infer who is likely to be an hamas (low-rank) member and where he lives.

And probably also to come up with targets considered appropriate for other reasons.

We can just hope that it wasn't trained to recognize "buildings more likely to host an hamas member" out of the buildings' appearances...


Yikes.

Talk about absolving accountability.

Are there any experts of international law, that may be able to add what are the repercussions of using such systems?


There will be no repercussions, the West has given Israel a free-pass.


I'm pretty sure there are no government bodies that deal with using ML for picking targets...


I’ve already used my vouch to unflag this, it worked temporarily


Everything questioning Israel is getting flagged:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38475473


the Kissinger article in rolling stones got flagged as well, so anything that is critical of neocons apparently. The censorship everywhere is so fucking disgusting

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38475482


[flagged]


"surgical"

https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...

> The third is “power targets,” which includes high-rises and residential towers in the heart of cities, and public buildings such as universities, banks, and government offices. The idea behind hitting such targets, say three intelligence sources who were involved in planning or conducting strikes on power targets in the past, is that a deliberate attack on Palestinian society will exert “civil pressure” on Hamas.

[..]

> “We are asked to look for high-rise buildings with half a floor that can be attributed to Hamas,” said one source who took part in previous Israeli offensives in Gaza. “Sometimes it is a militant group’s spokesperson’s office, or a point where operatives meet. I understood that the floor is an excuse that allows the army to cause a lot of destruction in Gaza. That is what they told us.

> “If they would tell the whole world that the [Islamic Jihad] offices on the 10th floor are not important as a target, but that its existence is a justification to bring down the entire high-rise with the aim of pressuring civilian families who live in it in order to put pressure on terrorist organizations, this would itself be seen as terrorism. So they do not say it,” the source added.

That fairy tale about the most moral army in the world doing "surgical strikes" (when it's not called "mowing the lawn" I guess) contributes as much to peace, and has as much to do with reality, as some hypothetical Hamas fanatic saying "after Allah guided our hand to punish exactly those people who were evil or would have done something evil later in life". It is the other side of the exact same coin. Two groups of murderous, chauvinistic fanatics hiding behind the other.


That link is kind of a random news organization. Doesn't seem very reliable.


+972 mag a "random news organization?" Heh. And you are?

From the Guardian which is the OP:

> This article also draws on testimonies published by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call

Also, what is "very reliable"? Can you show me something that contradicts any of it that you find "very reliable"?


I really hope Israel stops oppressing human beings!

Hamas was formed out of necessity, when you oppress people constantly, take their homes and land, they become more violent. Add also killing their family members and you get violent resistance group.

Hamas didn't appear in isolation.


If they wiped out hamas but killed my whole family to do it my first move would be to make hamas 2. There's no way this achieves their stated intentions.


Indeed the argument of having to destroy hamas stopped making sense three days into the attack.

I can't understand how that's not obvious for so many people.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: