Indeed, they gave each hit 20 seconds - if that - to manually verify. That said, airstrikes, drones etc already add a layer of indirection and detachment. The thing that this "AI" tool allowed was to mark targets faster, or if you will, with less scrutiny, increasing the efficiency and speed of the killing machine.
We've been creating indirection ever since the first homo ancestor carved/fashioned a spear tip or arrow, or the first metallurgist poured a bronze sword. But.
There's matters of degrees. And this is just one or two steps away from full autonomous murder.
Reminds me of this section Frank Herbert's God Emperor of Dune:
... She would carry with her forever afterward the clear sights and sounds and smells. The seeking machines would be there, the smell of blood and entrails, the cowering humans in their burrows, aware only that they could not escape . . . while all the time the mechanical movement approached, nearer and nearer and nearer ...louder...louder!
...like the terrible machines of that apocalyptic vision, the predator could follow any creature who left tracks.*
when a war goes wrong, they never blame themselves
Arguably the German nation/culture has done this. At least in large part. Not sure any cultural repentance would ever be enough though.
I also feel like there is in Canada at least a growing understanding of the horrors of colonization and attempted genocide and assimilation against First Nations here. Whether that ultimately leads to reconciliation and a better path forward is hard to say.
Well, there’s war, and then there are wars which are driven by popular cultural and social ideologies. Desert Storm and WW1 are pretty different than WW2 that way.
No it doesn't. If you use any tool to kill people (ie a gun, bomb, computer) the person (or people) who used the tool are accountable.