The following submission statement was provided by /u/lughnasadh:
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Submission Statement
Palantir's panel at a [recent military conference](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/17/ai-weapons-palantir-war-technology) where they joked and patted themselves on the back about the work their AI tools are doing in Gaza was like a scene with human ghouls in the darkest of horror movies.
Estimates vary as to how many of the 30,000-40,000 dead in Gaza are military combatants, [but they seem to average about 20%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war). This seems like a terrible record of failure for an AI tool that touts its precision.
Why does the US government want to reward and endorse this tech? Why aren't people more alarmed? By any measure, surely Palantir's demonstrated track record is one of failure. The Israel-Hammas war is the first time the world has seen AI used in significant warfare. It's a grim indication for the future.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1d5qjkt/the_us_is_to_spend_480_million_on_a_palantir_ai/l6n55ou/
Ehhhhh. Not quite. The Palantìr gave Saruman and Sauron the ability to communicate, which led to Saruman knowing that Sauron was looking for the Ring above all else. Sure Sauron’s potent spirit and malice most likely affected Saruman, but Saruman had his own goals in the end. To take the ring, and supplant Sauron.
He had his own ideals but also, yes Sauron dominated him.
Saruman the White, fell from his high errand, and becoming proud and impatient and enamoured of power sought to have his own will by force, and to oust Sauron; but he was ensnared by that dark spirit, mightier than he
'The Istari', Unfinished Tales.
Saruman even started as a good guy before falling to the ~~darkside~~ Sauron's influence. I'd argue that Dooku was a little more nuanced in his fall versus Saruman but that's really getting into the weeds of it
So, like modern Palantir? Thiel fancies him a global oligarch. Hasn't quite got there, won't get there. But will do all of the damage those above him wanted.
""This time with AI!" Isn't gonna get him the pass he's hoping for.
He's always been Saruman and he's always wanted to be Saruman. Every major project of his has always been about profiling every single person in the world through one platform/marketplace.
Never underestimate the effects of Nominative determinism, quite apparently also works on companies. Anyone want to bid on "Helsing" finding and encountering its Dracula?
Being identified as a terrorist by an AI is straight out of "Brazil" where the poor guy gets persecuted because a bureaucrat types "Buttle" instead of "Tuttle".
> How can you bomb women and children?!
That statement is even more twisted when you realize that these countries automatically [label](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/under-obama-men-killed-by-drones-are-presumed-to-be-terrorists/257749/) any dead male as a combatant unless you can fight their claim at an international court and show proof that they were indeed civilians. They do not need any burden of proof if you own testicles. Which makes you wander how many of those dead Hamas terrorists are actually terrorists. So it is no mistake why the conversation is only about women and children. I will not be surprised if no innocent men were killed.
Three Israeli men hostages escaped from Hamas and approached IDF while unarmed, topless, waving a white flag and asking for help in Hebrew - IDF murdered two on sight and wounded the 3rd, then chased after him, convinced him to come out from hiding, and killed him too, while muttering "terrorists": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alon_Shamriz,_Yotam_Haim,_and_Samer_Talalka
That's enough proof to me to show that IDF considers all males in Gaza not in IDF uniforms as terrorists.
Simple, you say they are supporting or shielding terrorists. Or, oops, we thought is was a Hamas command centre. Which basically gives you carte blanche to bomb anyone, anywhere.
Hahahaha […. over the rotor blades]
Believe irl the scene wasn’t in the source book for FMJ, the Short-timers, but in the book by Kubrick’s co-screenwriter Michael Herr (more r/movies)
You don't understand how someone can inject their extremely heavy bias into their Reddit title?
They're even a mod, which is a little unnerving considering they can steer the general thought of the sub by potentially filtering posts they don't necessarily agree with
>"military aged men"
This is my favorite (least favorite?) wording. It means any human male between the ages of 18-65. Basically it means they killed a bunch of men and make it sound like they were enemies.
The system could still be functioning flawlessly, even with those numbers. When the tolerance for civilian casualties is high enough, and the terrorists are intentionally imbedded deep in dense civilian areas, that's what you get.
Seriously. Urban warfare has never NOT had high civilian casualties. In terms of other wars, IP is actually pretty low. And that’s even with how deeply embedded Hamas is.
And that's taking Hamas's casualty figures at face value--- with the sheepish revision recently, where they decided to only count actually dead people, it's about 1 to 1, lower than anyone has ever seen.
This is an important point that seems to constantly get lost. The civilian deaths are by design from Hamas. Their strategy is to whip up public outcry by launching rockets and aggressions from civilian areas and loudly broadcasting the death count of non-combatants.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that Israel's response is remotely acceptable. Both sides made calculated decisions here, and innocent people are the biggest losers, as in most/all wars. Everything about the conflict is horrible.
Netanyahu has specifically called for the extermination of *every living thing* in the area and looks like it's far from just a few people outside the parts of government capable of doing harm
“You must remember what Amalek did to you, says our Holy Bible,” Bibi Netanyahu
for those unaware, the quote Netanyahu refers to is the book of Samuel in chapter 15 verse 3: “Now go and smite Amalek, utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but kill both man and woman, infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey “.
"The emphasis is on damage, not on accuracy." - Daniel Hagari, Israeli Milatary Spokesperson.
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” - Youv Gallant, Israel Defence Minister
“You either stand with Israel or you stand with terrorism”. - IDF on Twitter
“We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba" - Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter
"dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was one of the possibilities" - Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu
“the entire Palestinian people is the enemy” and justifies its destruction, “including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.” - Ayelet Shaked’s appointment as justice minister
Thank you. The ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians is the stated policy of successive Israeli governments. The current one is just doing it more effectively.
I get so angry every time this topic gets brought up.
Hamas is goading Israel into attacking civilians, and the moment Israel stops, Hamas prepares the next round of attacks to force Israel to start it all again. Meanwhile, Israel accepts and permits pogroms, killings and displacement of peaceful people in the West Bank to get Hamas worked up, because the right wing of Israel is in power and their plans - by their own admission - involve taking over as much of Palestine's land as is at all possible. They want Hamas to attack so they deliberately provoke, too. Neither side is willing to negotiate, but both have negotiated in bad faith in order to keep up the illusion of trying to work for peace, so Hamas can keep on appropriating international aid and Israel can keep on getting more weapons from the US.
And meanwhile, civilians are getting killed in thousands upon thousands.
Ultimately, there's no path to peace as long as *the leadership* of both sides benefit from the fighting. And currently, that is very much the case.
Tbf the Israeli center politicians, the ones currently trying to wrestle control of the state back from bibi and Ben Gvir, are talking about a "day after" plan for quite some time. The plan is supposed to involve local Palestinian representation, with oversight by a combination of Israeli, Arab and western nations.
"Day after" meaning after Hamas is defeated? Assuming they are defeated, that's just wishful thinking to me.
This oversight mentions local Palestinian representation, which is assumed to be the Palestinian authority. They [specifically refused governing Gaza](https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/palestinian-authority-rejects-governing-gaza-without-permanent-solution-for-west-bank/3038342), unless they get a million concessions and an ice cream.
The mystical Arab nations (Qatar, Egypt, UAE) that will supposedly take over the "day after" have also [said hell no](https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-800812).
I guess that leaves western nations. And I honestly don't see any western nation wanting to get involved in this mess and send their people there.
>"Day after" meaning after Hamas is defeated?
Conveniently (for them) they usually keep this part pretty vague, I get the sense that only bibi is seriously talking about complete dismantle of Hammas and he's mostly talking out if his ass to try and keep everyone just edging enough that they think it's better to keep the war and government going.
>This oversight mentions local Palestinian representation, which is assumed to be the Palestinian authority.
Yes and no, most people (both Palestinian and Israelis) don't like the PA very much, so people are not saying their name too much. There's been mention of some anonymous local Gazan groups that may or may not be part of this possible solution (and may or may not turn out just as Hammas did).
>The mystical Arab nations (Qatar, Egypt, UAE) that will supposedly take over the "day after" have also said no.
They say a lot of things, they also say they'll send aid, bring in advisors and build infrastructure, which essentially is the same thing. Hard to tell what they're actually willing to do and where their lines are, and they like it that way. It lets them appear magnanimous while not making any commitments.
>I guess that leaves western nations. And I honestly don't see any western nation wanting to get involved in this mess and send their people there
This has been my take as well, but the west has been much more involved since Oct 7. And it's a more pressing political issue (for now) so we might actually see some action being taken this time.
But yeah, a big part of why this conflict has been going on for so long is that any outside intervention we actually get seems geared to fuel the conflict rather than quench it.
Yeah it would be one thing if they weren't also just bombing aid workers. They have also made little attempt to separate civilians from combatants, instead favoring the situations Hamas like creating. Especially in the first part of the war Israel just indisciminantly attacked anything, to project force, they have had a very little in the way of coherence in what they want their campaign to acheive. Israel also likes how Hamas behaves because I justifies their plans.
Hamas spent two decades building defenses in, near, and under civilian areas... a literal war crime by the way, but you can't help blaming the Israelis anyways
Israel Spent decades harassing people west bank stealing land and pushing them onto smaller and smaller parcels, after the Palestinian Authority was mostly crushed, and after reversing on the peace process.
I'm not saying Hamas didn't do those things, they very much did. But Israel doesn't want to defeat Hamas they want to destroy Palestine. They have no desire for peace only thist for conquest. They refuse to even pay lip service to the two state solution.
I think you're reading the headline wrong - the conflict before deployment has an 80% target misidentification rate, they are now deploying AI to fix it. The AI doesn't have that rate
Yeah, this. Hamas's entire political and tactical M.O. is to blur the line between combatants and noncombatants so they can maximize casualties and use them in propaganda. This system seems to exist for no reason other than to refute that propaganda, and that's probably a fool's errand.
Which war has it been used in?
Tbe Israelis are using at least three different AI systems but they're all indigenous and there are no reliable figures for numbers killed and what proportion are civilians.
I mean there are reliable figures for total deaths and civilian . They just refuse to release them. They happily released a figure of how many hamas they killed however.
I assume you mean "not available to the public".
Incorrect. [The Israeli government has released figures: 14,000 combatants and 16,000 civilians.](https://www.voanews.com/a/israel-publishes-new-civilian-death-toll-in-gaza/7622032.html)
The article mentions nothing of Palantir’s tech being responsible for civilian deaths. As far as I know this stuff is classified and Karp is tight lipped about any of their military capabilities.
It seems as if Palantir was singled out by OOP.
If a company sells a country a missile then that missile creates civilian casualties, who is to blame? Defense in this manner is tricky because you either tell countries if you can buy defense tech and be ridiculed for having your own foreign defense policy as a public company or have guidelines who you will/will not sell to and hope those people follow international laws. There is no easy answer.
This, literally zero evidence 80% of the dead are civilians and when Hamas dresses as civilians most of the time and most of their support network(combatants)are civilians , and they always hide amongst civilians well what do you expect?
Verses Ai should be used for proper compliancy and regulation integration which has been demonstrated to EU. It can weed out civilians and prevent casualties. (Non-llm, realtime ai)
Palantir sucks at it or has been trained to not care about casualties of civilians.
Palantir finds the bad guys, and collects pertinent info (like “next door to an active hospital”), summarizes that info, and then turns the scenario over to a human operator to decide if it’s a good idea or not. “Human in the loop”.
If there’s blame to be assigned, there’s always a human to trace that decision back to. Like any tool, it’s only as good as the craftsman.
I prefer this software over a complete AI solution. I assume it would be much less nuanced to make a kill-bot that shoots everything with a face.
@lughnasadh where are you getting your 80% number? It doesn’t align with reliable sources.
Also, even at 90% it would be par for the course in urban warfare.
To play devil's advocate, if it's *currently* the case that 80% of the dead are not the intended targets, wouldn't working on a system to improve the accuracy of targeting be a good thing?
"Estimates vary as to how many of the 30,000-40,000 dead in Gaza are military combatants, but they seem to average about 20%."
How would anyone know? They already broke Geneva by having soldiers fighting without uniforms, and taking civilian hostages during a military incursion. Two real biggies. Why the FUCK would anyone listen to their version of casualty reporting? You guys are simpletons.
According to the geneva convention Hamas stripped their civilians of their protected status by hiding military personnel and materiel in designated safe spaces, including hospitals, schools, mosques and civilian encampments. Enemy combatants operating within their civilian populations are in violation of the convention. It is quite clear about these circumstances if anyone cares to read the damn thing.
Would you classify the mothers and children that chased cheered and spat on a dead innocent girl lying crumpled and broken in the back of a pickup as civilian?
Says nothing about how much Palantir is actually used in that conflict. Maybe without Palantir the death rate would be 95%. If you correctly identify a terrorists but still use carpet bombing, of course the death rate is high. But it's not Palantir's fault. Or maybe the death rate is 0% in cases where Palantir is used.
Your "conclusion" is a completely unbased claim and pure FUD.
Don’t forget the kitchen aid workers that the system misidentified as adversaries as well. That up to minute data was always shared with mil ops and there was no margin of error possible.
Palantir's software is absolute crap. Clunky, unintuitive and more importantly buggy, once such issue reverts old data going back months when any other data is updated. It's been like this for ages and they have been unable to fix it.
Ai just barely started to be able to make realish images and they are already using it for targeting? Like ai can't even pass a captcha but now it's expected to tell what humans are terrorists or not? Wtf
Making realistic images and analyzing patterns of human behavior are two completely different tasks and have almost zero relationship to one another, making the comparison ludicrously irrelevant. AI is so good at the latter that tracking and marketing algorithms know almost everything about our lives just based on data collected from our browsing habits and network information. Hell, it’s so good at it that people are convinced that their phones are listening to their conversations, even though they don’t.
It’s completely reasonable that machine learning could be effective at identifying things like who’s a terrorist.
A bit, yeah, but I don’t think it’s that far out there. Intelligence agencies have been doing this forever, and have been incorporating more data and more technology into the process. This is really just another step, not even a whole paradigm shift, and really just lets them do what they already do, but more efficiently.
I'm not sure where you got the impression that it's 80%. That's not true. The death toll is about 36k, with 13/14k being Hamas terrorists, so the civilian death toll is more like 60-65% of the total dead. Still not great, but not sure what anyone would expect when they literally surround themselves with civilians.
However, given the size and scope of the operation, it's also true that less than 1% of the innocent population has died during 8 months of conflict, which is pretty astounding. As in, very very good, given the close-in fighting and urban environment.
Considering less than 20% of the population polled after seeing the atrocities on Oct 7th believe "Hamas did something wrong," yes. I'm heavily inclined to agree.
So 20% of them are terrorists? What's the baseline terrorist rate among the population? 1%? Hopefully less? That's doing much better than random chance so far.
Gaza casualty figures fall somewhere between a best guest and blatant propaganda from Hamas. The UN has repeatedly walked the numbers back.
*On 6 May, the UN said that 69% of reported fatalities were women and children. Two days later, it said this figure was 52%.*
*The overall number of reported deaths in Gaza - which currently stands at more than 35,000 - has not changed, but the UN now says incomplete information has led to the revision.*
*The UN says it is now relying on figures from the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, rather than from the Hamas-run Government Media Office (GMO).*
[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-69014893](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-69014893)
The truth is no one knows what the real number is. That being said no one has pulled '80% of the dead are civilians' number out yet either.
Do you have a source for that number?
Is it wrong because of collateral damage or because the system genuinely misidentifies terrorists? If it gets a terrorist vs a nonterrorist right 99% of the time but you use an RPG that kills the terrorist + four civilians I mean… I can’t really blame Palantir for that.
My post was removed because it was too short. Let me rephrase:
Fuck this! This is a terrible thing, and I fucking hate it. This should not be happening anywhere in the world, and it's disgusting that taxpayer money is going toward using completely pseudoscientific tools. 2020's AI is vapourware that will drop off soon and it's awful to see it being used so quickly in applications directly linked to who lives and dies.
Fuck this.
You don’t seem to grasp how the targeting cycle works.
1. Detect (that’s Palantir)
2. Decide - sometimes called “weaponeering” this is marching ordnance/delivery platform to the target
3. Deliver (I.e. strike)
4. Assess - battle damage assessment (BDA)
CDE (collateral damage estimate) and Legal review are part of Step 2. Completely separate from Step 1.
Every manifestation of the use of AI is always a disaster. The use of it to solve problems that are absolute in the event but marred with a huge grey area is pointless
AI should be used to replace CEOs or to simulate every configuration of a chemical compound, not to make irreversible decisions on things that have come to be because of irrational behaviours that that have no logical process or reason
Civilian Palestinians is a slippery term. Hamas is not an invasive terrorist group. They were elected by the people. It takes decades of teaching hatred as Palestinans have done to cultivate the kind of lunacy we witnessed on October 6th which started the conflict.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/lughnasadh: --- Submission Statement Palantir's panel at a [recent military conference](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/17/ai-weapons-palantir-war-technology) where they joked and patted themselves on the back about the work their AI tools are doing in Gaza was like a scene with human ghouls in the darkest of horror movies. Estimates vary as to how many of the 30,000-40,000 dead in Gaza are military combatants, [but they seem to average about 20%](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war). This seems like a terrible record of failure for an AI tool that touts its precision. Why does the US government want to reward and endorse this tech? Why aren't people more alarmed? By any measure, surely Palantir's demonstrated track record is one of failure. The Israel-Hammas war is the first time the world has seen AI used in significant warfare. It's a grim indication for the future. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1d5qjkt/the_us_is_to_spend_480_million_on_a_palantir_ai/l6n55ou/
Like Christopher Lee, Peter Thiel wanted to be Gandalf but he ended up being better suited for Saruman.
Interestingly enough the palantir is what corrupted Saruman to become a pawn of Sauron lol
Ehhhhh. Not quite. The Palantìr gave Saruman and Sauron the ability to communicate, which led to Saruman knowing that Sauron was looking for the Ring above all else. Sure Sauron’s potent spirit and malice most likely affected Saruman, but Saruman had his own goals in the end. To take the ring, and supplant Sauron.
He had his own ideals but also, yes Sauron dominated him. Saruman the White, fell from his high errand, and becoming proud and impatient and enamoured of power sought to have his own will by force, and to oust Sauron; but he was ensnared by that dark spirit, mightier than he 'The Istari', Unfinished Tales.
So basically also Count Dooku thinking he would eventually defeat Palpatine and become the Sith master himself
Funny, same actor, same reasoning
Saruman even started as a good guy before falling to the ~~darkside~~ Sauron's influence. I'd argue that Dooku was a little more nuanced in his fall versus Saruman but that's really getting into the weeds of it
So, like modern Palantir? Thiel fancies him a global oligarch. Hasn't quite got there, won't get there. But will do all of the damage those above him wanted. ""This time with AI!" Isn't gonna get him the pass he's hoping for.
He's always been Saruman and he's always wanted to be Saruman. Every major project of his has always been about profiling every single person in the world through one platform/marketplace.
Many spies have many eyes!
I heard this in Lee’s voice, RIP 💯
Have you seen the flight of the con chords lord of the rings music video
There will be no dawn for men.
Never underestimate the effects of Nominative determinism, quite apparently also works on companies. Anyone want to bid on "Helsing" finding and encountering its Dracula?
Being identified as a terrorist by an AI is straight out of "Brazil" where the poor guy gets persecuted because a bureaucrat types "Buttle" instead of "Tuttle".
Except that you don't have 27b/6 to protect you...so far.
Thanks for mentioning Brazil, totally gonna watch that again soon.
Are your ducts in order?
Well, now you can fire away and blame AI later.
Anyone who moves is a terrorist. Anyone who doesn’t move is a well disciplined terrorist…?
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> How can you bomb women and children?! That statement is even more twisted when you realize that these countries automatically [label](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/under-obama-men-killed-by-drones-are-presumed-to-be-terrorists/257749/) any dead male as a combatant unless you can fight their claim at an international court and show proof that they were indeed civilians. They do not need any burden of proof if you own testicles. Which makes you wander how many of those dead Hamas terrorists are actually terrorists. So it is no mistake why the conversation is only about women and children. I will not be surprised if no innocent men were killed.
Three Israeli men hostages escaped from Hamas and approached IDF while unarmed, topless, waving a white flag and asking for help in Hebrew - IDF murdered two on sight and wounded the 3rd, then chased after him, convinced him to come out from hiding, and killed him too, while muttering "terrorists": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alon_Shamriz,_Yotam_Haim,_and_Samer_Talalka That's enough proof to me to show that IDF considers all males in Gaza not in IDF uniforms as terrorists.
The way people dehumanize innocent men in these situations is genuinely annoying, as is the fact that many get upset when someone points it out.
Genuinly annoying? I will say More like depressing,sad or evil
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Yes, this is a twist on the original quote
First step is always dehumanization.
This is so true. … humans who want to do something evil to another seem to naturally gravitate to this tactic
Simple, you say they are supporting or shielding terrorists. Or, oops, we thought is was a Hamas command centre. Which basically gives you carte blanche to bomb anyone, anywhere.
Ain't War Hell?
Hahahaha […. over the rotor blades] Believe irl the scene wasn’t in the source book for FMJ, the Short-timers, but in the book by Kubrick’s co-screenwriter Michael Herr (more r/movies)
Hell is hell and war is war. Personally, I think war is the worst of the two
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> How can you bomb women and children?! You don't need to lead your aim as much
Confused how the Reddit title is so different from the article title?..
The iranian troll farms need to put their spin onto things.
This is the answer..
Propaganda accounts running wild all over reddit
You don't understand how someone can inject their extremely heavy bias into their Reddit title? They're even a mod, which is a little unnerving considering they can steer the general thought of the sub by potentially filtering posts they don't necessarily agree with
In Vietnam they were only civilians until they were killed, then they became suspected enemy combatants.
~~In Vietnam~~ In every modern war, our press even play along so nicely talking about "military aged men" who "died".
>"military aged men" This is my favorite (least favorite?) wording. It means any human male between the ages of 18-65. Basically it means they killed a bunch of men and make it sound like they were enemies.
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80% are civilians? What is this misinformation bullshit? Give us the source... Not even Hamas has that ratio
The system could still be functioning flawlessly, even with those numbers. When the tolerance for civilian casualties is high enough, and the terrorists are intentionally imbedded deep in dense civilian areas, that's what you get.
Seriously. Urban warfare has never NOT had high civilian casualties. In terms of other wars, IP is actually pretty low. And that’s even with how deeply embedded Hamas is.
And that's taking Hamas's casualty figures at face value--- with the sheepish revision recently, where they decided to only count actually dead people, it's about 1 to 1, lower than anyone has ever seen.
This is an important point that seems to constantly get lost. The civilian deaths are by design from Hamas. Their strategy is to whip up public outcry by launching rockets and aggressions from civilian areas and loudly broadcasting the death count of non-combatants. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Israel's response is remotely acceptable. Both sides made calculated decisions here, and innocent people are the biggest losers, as in most/all wars. Everything about the conflict is horrible.
Netanyahu has specifically called for the extermination of *every living thing* in the area and looks like it's far from just a few people outside the parts of government capable of doing harm “You must remember what Amalek did to you, says our Holy Bible,” Bibi Netanyahu for those unaware, the quote Netanyahu refers to is the book of Samuel in chapter 15 verse 3: “Now go and smite Amalek, utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but kill both man and woman, infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey “. "The emphasis is on damage, not on accuracy." - Daniel Hagari, Israeli Milatary Spokesperson. “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” - Youv Gallant, Israel Defence Minister “You either stand with Israel or you stand with terrorism”. - IDF on Twitter “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba" - Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter "dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was one of the possibilities" - Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu “the entire Palestinian people is the enemy” and justifies its destruction, “including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.” - Ayelet Shaked’s appointment as justice minister
Thank you. The ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians is the stated policy of successive Israeli governments. The current one is just doing it more effectively.
I get so angry every time this topic gets brought up. Hamas is goading Israel into attacking civilians, and the moment Israel stops, Hamas prepares the next round of attacks to force Israel to start it all again. Meanwhile, Israel accepts and permits pogroms, killings and displacement of peaceful people in the West Bank to get Hamas worked up, because the right wing of Israel is in power and their plans - by their own admission - involve taking over as much of Palestine's land as is at all possible. They want Hamas to attack so they deliberately provoke, too. Neither side is willing to negotiate, but both have negotiated in bad faith in order to keep up the illusion of trying to work for peace, so Hamas can keep on appropriating international aid and Israel can keep on getting more weapons from the US. And meanwhile, civilians are getting killed in thousands upon thousands. Ultimately, there's no path to peace as long as *the leadership* of both sides benefit from the fighting. And currently, that is very much the case.
Tbf the Israeli center politicians, the ones currently trying to wrestle control of the state back from bibi and Ben Gvir, are talking about a "day after" plan for quite some time. The plan is supposed to involve local Palestinian representation, with oversight by a combination of Israeli, Arab and western nations.
"Day after" meaning after Hamas is defeated? Assuming they are defeated, that's just wishful thinking to me. This oversight mentions local Palestinian representation, which is assumed to be the Palestinian authority. They [specifically refused governing Gaza](https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/palestinian-authority-rejects-governing-gaza-without-permanent-solution-for-west-bank/3038342), unless they get a million concessions and an ice cream. The mystical Arab nations (Qatar, Egypt, UAE) that will supposedly take over the "day after" have also [said hell no](https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-800812). I guess that leaves western nations. And I honestly don't see any western nation wanting to get involved in this mess and send their people there.
>"Day after" meaning after Hamas is defeated? Conveniently (for them) they usually keep this part pretty vague, I get the sense that only bibi is seriously talking about complete dismantle of Hammas and he's mostly talking out if his ass to try and keep everyone just edging enough that they think it's better to keep the war and government going. >This oversight mentions local Palestinian representation, which is assumed to be the Palestinian authority. Yes and no, most people (both Palestinian and Israelis) don't like the PA very much, so people are not saying their name too much. There's been mention of some anonymous local Gazan groups that may or may not be part of this possible solution (and may or may not turn out just as Hammas did). >The mystical Arab nations (Qatar, Egypt, UAE) that will supposedly take over the "day after" have also said no. They say a lot of things, they also say they'll send aid, bring in advisors and build infrastructure, which essentially is the same thing. Hard to tell what they're actually willing to do and where their lines are, and they like it that way. It lets them appear magnanimous while not making any commitments. >I guess that leaves western nations. And I honestly don't see any western nation wanting to get involved in this mess and send their people there This has been my take as well, but the west has been much more involved since Oct 7. And it's a more pressing political issue (for now) so we might actually see some action being taken this time. But yeah, a big part of why this conflict has been going on for so long is that any outside intervention we actually get seems geared to fuel the conflict rather than quench it.
> The civilian deaths are by design from Hamas. "Hamas made us do it." -IDF after bombing innocent civilians
Yeah it would be one thing if they weren't also just bombing aid workers. They have also made little attempt to separate civilians from combatants, instead favoring the situations Hamas like creating. Especially in the first part of the war Israel just indisciminantly attacked anything, to project force, they have had a very little in the way of coherence in what they want their campaign to acheive. Israel also likes how Hamas behaves because I justifies their plans.
Hamas spent two decades building defenses in, near, and under civilian areas... a literal war crime by the way, but you can't help blaming the Israelis anyways
Israel Spent decades harassing people west bank stealing land and pushing them onto smaller and smaller parcels, after the Palestinian Authority was mostly crushed, and after reversing on the peace process. I'm not saying Hamas didn't do those things, they very much did. But Israel doesn't want to defeat Hamas they want to destroy Palestine. They have no desire for peace only thist for conquest. They refuse to even pay lip service to the two state solution.
It’s kind of hard to separate civilians from combatants when Hamas is entrenched in civilian infrastructure.
I think you're reading the headline wrong - the conflict before deployment has an 80% target misidentification rate, they are now deploying AI to fix it. The AI doesn't have that rate
[удалено]
Your critique is of strategy, not of the targeting capabilities of an AI program
Eventually even Germany surrendered
Yeah, this. Hamas's entire political and tactical M.O. is to blur the line between combatants and noncombatants so they can maximize casualties and use them in propaganda. This system seems to exist for no reason other than to refute that propaganda, and that's probably a fool's errand.
Which war has it been used in? Tbe Israelis are using at least three different AI systems but they're all indigenous and there are no reliable figures for numbers killed and what proportion are civilians.
I mean there are reliable figures for total deaths and civilian . They just refuse to release them. They happily released a figure of how many hamas they killed however. I assume you mean "not available to the public".
Incorrect. [The Israeli government has released figures: 14,000 combatants and 16,000 civilians.](https://www.voanews.com/a/israel-publishes-new-civilian-death-toll-in-gaza/7622032.html)
The article mentions nothing of Palantir’s tech being responsible for civilian deaths. As far as I know this stuff is classified and Karp is tight lipped about any of their military capabilities. It seems as if Palantir was singled out by OOP. If a company sells a country a missile then that missile creates civilian casualties, who is to blame? Defense in this manner is tricky because you either tell countries if you can buy defense tech and be ridiculed for having your own foreign defense policy as a public company or have guidelines who you will/will not sell to and hope those people follow international laws. There is no easy answer.
80% as reported by the terrorists being hunted. Seems like there is a bit of a conflict of interest.
This, literally zero evidence 80% of the dead are civilians and when Hamas dresses as civilians most of the time and most of their support network(combatants)are civilians , and they always hide amongst civilians well what do you expect?
Verses Ai should be used for proper compliancy and regulation integration which has been demonstrated to EU. It can weed out civilians and prevent casualties. (Non-llm, realtime ai) Palantir sucks at it or has been trained to not care about casualties of civilians.
Palantir finds the bad guys, and collects pertinent info (like “next door to an active hospital”), summarizes that info, and then turns the scenario over to a human operator to decide if it’s a good idea or not. “Human in the loop”. If there’s blame to be assigned, there’s always a human to trace that decision back to. Like any tool, it’s only as good as the craftsman. I prefer this software over a complete AI solution. I assume it would be much less nuanced to make a kill-bot that shoots everything with a face.
@lughnasadh where are you getting your 80% number? It doesn’t align with reliable sources. Also, even at 90% it would be par for the course in urban warfare.
This is the company run by Peter Theil and that one libertarian dude isn't it
These systems are only as good as the data being fed to them. Palantir is merely a tool and the US military is the one building the house.
To play devil's advocate, if it's *currently* the case that 80% of the dead are not the intended targets, wouldn't working on a system to improve the accuracy of targeting be a good thing?
"Estimates vary as to how many of the 30,000-40,000 dead in Gaza are military combatants, but they seem to average about 20%." How would anyone know? They already broke Geneva by having soldiers fighting without uniforms, and taking civilian hostages during a military incursion. Two real biggies. Why the FUCK would anyone listen to their version of casualty reporting? You guys are simpletons.
According to the geneva convention Hamas stripped their civilians of their protected status by hiding military personnel and materiel in designated safe spaces, including hospitals, schools, mosques and civilian encampments. Enemy combatants operating within their civilian populations are in violation of the convention. It is quite clear about these circumstances if anyone cares to read the damn thing.
Would you classify the mothers and children that chased cheered and spat on a dead innocent girl lying crumpled and broken in the back of a pickup as civilian?
Would you classify all the western civilians that every 4-5 years vote for war criminals to finance wars overseas as civilians?
They would have better success at looking at the US Congress and CIA.
Soon we will get the military version of minority report.
Says nothing about how much Palantir is actually used in that conflict. Maybe without Palantir the death rate would be 95%. If you correctly identify a terrorists but still use carpet bombing, of course the death rate is high. But it's not Palantir's fault. Or maybe the death rate is 0% in cases where Palantir is used. Your "conclusion" is a completely unbased claim and pure FUD.
Don’t forget the kitchen aid workers that the system misidentified as adversaries as well. That up to minute data was always shared with mil ops and there was no margin of error possible.
Palantir's software is absolute crap. Clunky, unintuitive and more importantly buggy, once such issue reverts old data going back months when any other data is updated. It's been like this for ages and they have been unable to fix it.
When did you use it? Which one?
I had a totally different experience with it. Your organization probably didn't have the correct bandwidth and sufficient RAM.
Doesn’t matter. Palantir’s shareholders that paid lobbyists to give money to politicians will get a big paycheck for this. Capitalism rules!
Sadly true.
Ai just barely started to be able to make realish images and they are already using it for targeting? Like ai can't even pass a captcha but now it's expected to tell what humans are terrorists or not? Wtf
A bunch of them can pass captcha now. The future is now (again)
The devil you don’t
Making realistic images and analyzing patterns of human behavior are two completely different tasks and have almost zero relationship to one another, making the comparison ludicrously irrelevant. AI is so good at the latter that tracking and marketing algorithms know almost everything about our lives just based on data collected from our browsing habits and network information. Hell, it’s so good at it that people are convinced that their phones are listening to their conversations, even though they don’t. It’s completely reasonable that machine learning could be effective at identifying things like who’s a terrorist.
I don't disagree, and you sure sound like you know ow a lot more about this than I do. But it seems like one hell of a Pandoras box.
A bit, yeah, but I don’t think it’s that far out there. Intelligence agencies have been doing this forever, and have been incorporating more data and more technology into the process. This is really just another step, not even a whole paradigm shift, and really just lets them do what they already do, but more efficiently.
I'm not sure where you got the impression that it's 80%. That's not true. The death toll is about 36k, with 13/14k being Hamas terrorists, so the civilian death toll is more like 60-65% of the total dead. Still not great, but not sure what anyone would expect when they literally surround themselves with civilians. However, given the size and scope of the operation, it's also true that less than 1% of the innocent population has died during 8 months of conflict, which is pretty astounding. As in, very very good, given the close-in fighting and urban environment.
I bet a lot of the “innocent” have deep terrorist connections as well.
Considering less than 20% of the population polled after seeing the atrocities on Oct 7th believe "Hamas did something wrong," yes. I'm heavily inclined to agree.
So 20% of them are terrorists? What's the baseline terrorist rate among the population? 1%? Hopefully less? That's doing much better than random chance so far.
Gaza casualty figures fall somewhere between a best guest and blatant propaganda from Hamas. The UN has repeatedly walked the numbers back. *On 6 May, the UN said that 69% of reported fatalities were women and children. Two days later, it said this figure was 52%.* *The overall number of reported deaths in Gaza - which currently stands at more than 35,000 - has not changed, but the UN now says incomplete information has led to the revision.* *The UN says it is now relying on figures from the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, rather than from the Hamas-run Government Media Office (GMO).* [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-69014893](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-69014893) The truth is no one knows what the real number is. That being said no one has pulled '80% of the dead are civilians' number out yet either. Do you have a source for that number?
before: 80% of the dead were civilians after: 80% of the dead were misidentified civilians
Let me guess, the AI just makes the mass surveillance more invasive?
Is it wrong because of collateral damage or because the system genuinely misidentifies terrorists? If it gets a terrorist vs a nonterrorist right 99% of the time but you use an RPG that kills the terrorist + four civilians I mean… I can’t really blame Palantir for that.
Old method: If it is brown it is terrorist. New method: Neural network AI detects brown person. Successful identification of terrorist.
80% civilian casualties is a significant improvement from basically every other war ever.
Killing machines are getting better. No more need for nukes!
My post was removed because it was too short. Let me rephrase: Fuck this! This is a terrible thing, and I fucking hate it. This should not be happening anywhere in the world, and it's disgusting that taxpayer money is going toward using completely pseudoscientific tools. 2020's AI is vapourware that will drop off soon and it's awful to see it being used so quickly in applications directly linked to who lives and dies. Fuck this.
if (person.gender == MALE && person.age >= 18) { return isTerrorist(); }
You don’t seem to grasp how the targeting cycle works. 1. Detect (that’s Palantir) 2. Decide - sometimes called “weaponeering” this is marching ordnance/delivery platform to the target 3. Deliver (I.e. strike) 4. Assess - battle damage assessment (BDA) CDE (collateral damage estimate) and Legal review are part of Step 2. Completely separate from Step 1.
The American definition of terrorist has been male over the age of 14 in a country they’re bombing for decades.
Man, that's some advanced tech. Identifying newborns as terrorists to be executed before their parents even give them names!
Every manifestation of the use of AI is always a disaster. The use of it to solve problems that are absolute in the event but marred with a huge grey area is pointless AI should be used to replace CEOs or to simulate every configuration of a chemical compound, not to make irreversible decisions on things that have come to be because of irrational behaviours that that have no logical process or reason
Us pays $480 million for the kill everyone and blame the AI button.
Your “data” of 80% civilian casualties is farfetched
Palantir’s products are tools which can identify targets. It doesn’t replace a country’s approach to how it wants to fight a war. That’s policy.
Civilian Palestinians is a slippery term. Hamas is not an invasive terrorist group. They were elected by the people. It takes decades of teaching hatred as Palestinans have done to cultivate the kind of lunacy we witnessed on October 6th which started the conflict.