Artificial intelligence determines targets in Gaza?

2023-12-20 08:30:18, Kosova & Bota CNA

The Israeli army has attacked various targets in the Gaza Strip every day since the beginning of the conflict. The result of these attacks, as always in such cases, is interpreted differently: the terrorist organization Hamas and their Ministry of Health claim that over 60% of residential buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or seriously damaged and that 19 thousand residents have already lost their lives , mostly women and minors. While the Israeli army, on the other hand, claims that it has already discovered and destroyed several terrorist tunnels and strongholds, and according to it, they were almost without exception located in protected civilian institutions - hospitals, educational or religious institutions, and that Hamas is systematically committing crimes war, using civilians as "living walls" for the defense of their military strongholds.

AI generated pictures

But the Israeli army confirms that it has already attacked over 22,000 targets in the Gaza Strip, so US President Biden also accused Israel of "arbitrary bombing", although Israel claims that the attacks are being carried out with "high precision" against selected targets.

But how does Israel choose its targets? In military conflicts, this is usually based on information from intelligence services and reconnaissance of units in the field. But Liran Antebi of the Institute for National Security Research at Tel Aviv University claims that the Israeli military is making extensive use of artificial intelligence programs to detect and identify targets for airstrikes or artillery strikes. His assessment is that these are programs that have relatively high autonomy and analyze the environment of a potential attack target. Thus, they very quickly detect dynamics that may be a threat and classify it as a target of an attack.

Speed ??and care

In 2019, Israel's military established the Target Center, which according to the statement of the former chief of staff of the Israeli army, Aviv Kochavi, employs hundreds of soldiers. In the 2021 escalation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military began using artificial intelligence in target selection. Antebi claims that the military leadership itself accepted this.

The main reason for using such programs is speed. Two years ago, 200 targets of great importance were determined in this way within just 12 days, previously it took the military 360 days to detect such a number of targets.

AI manipulated pictures

Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham confirms that the military is using artificial intelligence, but also testifies that Israeli officials are not convinced of the effectiveness of such a method: "The people I spoke with raised serious questions about the military usefulness of some specific targets. If hundreds or even thousands of targets are set every day, then the possibility of any flesh-and-blood person checking and determining the accuracy of such information is drastically reduced.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that the goal now is the "total destruction" of Hamas - which seems like a futile task to this reporter. Hamas has mobilized about 30,000 to 40,000 fighters, and if the computer program does not select only important targets, i.e. command posts and important officials of the terrorist organization, then there will inevitably be many civilian casualties and "collateral damage". / DW