Israel uses the AI system ``Lavender'' to identify and attack 37,000 targets such as Hamas, identification rate is 90%

In the so-called 'Israel-Hamas War' that has been going on since October 2023, it has been discovered that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has introduced an AI-based system ' Lavender' to identify and attack targets. I did. The number of targets is 37,000 people, but it seems that about 10% of them are misidentified by the system.

'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing spree in Gaza

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'The machine did it coldly': Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian

A joint investigation by the news site ``+972 Magazine'' and the Israeli online newspaper ``Local Call'' revealed that the IDF has introduced an AI system called ``Lavender'' to identify targets.

Lavender is designed to identify and target all suspects affiliated with Hamas and the military wing of Islamic Jihad (PIJ). In particular, the IDF relied heavily on Lavender in the early stages of the war, asking Lavender for 20 seconds just before attacking a target it had identified as a target: 'Does the target's characteristics match? For example, does it look like a reported male in his 20s?' It seems that the attack was approved by confirming the attack.

Lavender is also not infallible, with a recognition rate of about 90%, and about 10% of the time it misidentifies people who are not connected to armed organizations as targets, but the IDF does not know why Lavender is targeting that person. He did not show any interest in whether he identified it as such or what data was used as the basis for his identification.

Additionally, attacks were sometimes carried out while at home, rather than while operating as Hamas, in part to make it easier to identify individuals. An intelligence source interviewed said, ``The IDF was not interested in attacking Hamas members only when they were engaged in activities, but targeted Hamas members at home from the beginning.'' It turns out there was an additional system called 'Where's Daddy' to do it effectively.

Additionally, intelligence sources have testified that the IDF preferred unguided munitions over precision-guided munitions in its attacks. Precision-guided missiles are precisely guided right up to the point where they hit the target, but unguided missiles are only fired roughly toward the target, so facilities surrounding the target and people nearby are also involved. Masu.

The IDF has a ``human target'' setting that allows attacks to be launched even if it is known that there will be collateral damage to family members, etc., and in the past, only senior executives such as commanders and battalion commanders were targeted.

However, since an attack by Hamas in October 2023 killed approximately 1,200 Israeli citizens, everyone, including even the lowest level agents of the organization, has been designated as a 'human target,' and collateral damage has been caused everywhere. It is said that such attacks have started to take place.

Lavender had been used as an auxiliary tool for some time, but after the expansion of the ``human target'' target list, the list of targets generated by Lavender began to be approved as is.

Although Lavender is an interpersonal system, a similar mechanism is also used in the facility system ``The Gospel''.

By the way, according to '+972 Magazine' and 'Local Call', in the book 'The Human-Machine Team: How to Create Synergy Between Human and Artificial Intelligence That Will Revolutionize Our World' published in 2021, ' There is mention that a special machine that can process large numbers of targets is being developed. The book's author, who goes by the pseudonym Brigadier General YS, is believed to be the commander of an Israeli intelligence unit.