> One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing — just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male.
> According to the sources, the army knew that the minimal human supervision in place would not discover these faults.
I took this to mean that a human did press the "approve" button on the computer's recommendation. Though they make clear they were basically "rubber stamping" the machine recommendation.
But to my point:
> “There was no ‘zero-error’ policy. Mistakes were treated statistically,” said a source who used Lavender.
What is the "zero-error" alternative approach for dropping bombs in a war, or firing rockets for that matter? I don't understand the implicit comparison between this approach to targeting and a hypothetical approach that allows war to be waged without any innocents dying or buildings being destroyed. This system should be compared to whatever the real alternative is when it comes to target selection. Again I know nothing about military strategy, I'm hoping someone with more experience will speak up.
To use an analogy: if we are talking about self-driving cars, the rates of collision or death should be compared the rates of collision or death in cars driven by humans. Comparing against some imaginary scenario where cars have no collisions and cause no deaths doesn't make sense.
Honestly, I'm not sure. Obviously humans make errors of all sorts as well, and even make intentionally unethical decisions.
I think the horror of this situation is that it makes war easier to wage. Accepting that all war has costs measured in blood, we should want less war. However, those in control of military forces always have incentive to wage war, so removing friction from the process is dangerous.
Off-topic of AI, but on-topic of your question:
The actual alternative to unleashing AI assassination is not human-selected targets, but not waging war. It isn't necessary to destroy Hamas with violence, it would have worked better to give Palestinians dignity and self-determination long ago. That can still work, although until it does Hamas will continue to be a problem. But as I said, war is useful for the political leaders of Israel, so they stoked and fed the flames for decades to maintain an excuse for the war machine.
Fortunately, this is not what I'm hoping for! I'd much rather see another Rojava than another Western plutocracy.
> The supporters of the region's administration state that it is an officially secular polity with direct democratic ambitions based on democratic confederalism and libertarian socialism promoting decentralization, gender equality, environmental sustainability, social ecology, and pluralistic tolerance for religious, cultural, and political diversity, and that these values are mirrored in its constitution, society, and politics
So… you want a western liberal outcome?
No, I was referring to western liberalism that’s why I used the term western liberalism not “neoliberal hegemony of wealthy Western nations.”
> that’s why I used the term western liberalism not “neoliberal hegemony of wealthy Western nations.”
the latter often cloaks itself as the former when asserting itself.
For example, in France (one of the "birthplaces" for, and current bastions of, western liberalism) there is a phrase often used as a blanket push back against almost any criticism of Israel's actions: "Israel is the only democratic state in the Middle East!". It's so prevalent that academia has written an entire book around it: https://www.cairn.info/moyen-orient--9791031803364-page-113....
Depending on how often and how recently they have been encountering things like this (given current events) in their daily life, I can understand the other commenter mistaking your position as such.
For my part, I am unsure of exactly what would happen if we lift the oppressors' thumbs (starting with Israel, Hamas, and wealthy "western" neoliberal hegemony, namely, but the list doesn't stop there). I don't think that anyone knows, for that matter, as it's never happened in any historical circumstances that remotely resemble our own. I do think that if you want western liberalism as the concept, and avoid some of its historical failure modes like boom&bust cycles and exacerbated economic inequality paving the way for populist anti-democratic revolts, you need to aim for much higher than its current outcomes in terms of dignity and self-determination for all groups of peoples. To your point, I've read some reports that Rojava has deteriorated, especially post-US-withdrawal, to very much not be either "western liberalism" or a society I would want to live in.
But when a friend's brother was there, it was a communist spot
After 10/7 almost every Israeli knows that the Palestinians are not interested in their own state.
Of the 32,000 Hamas stated deaths, 13,000 are terrorists, thus resulting in a far lower civilian-to-combatant death ratio than in other urban conflicts such as Mosul.
The lesson learned with Japan in Germany in WW II is that total military defeat is necessary. The AI technology enables the targeting of all terrorists, not only senior-level terrorists as before, resulting in a quicker end to the conflict than otherwise and thus resulting in fewer civilian deaths.
As we know these terrorists hide among civilians including in and under hospitals, making these legitimate targets. The high number of civilian deaths occur from the terrorists hiding among civilians.
13k out of 32k is around 40%. The estimates for the number of murdered children and women have been about 70% [1] for months, so the "40% are terrorist" claim already does not match that unless women and children are counted as terrorists. Anyway, even going with only 60% of those murdered being women and children, that still implies that every single killed male person is a terrorist. Now, I am sure that IDF already presents this as true in order to justify the murders, but that will not pass basic logical scrutiny of any critically-thinking person.
[1] 2024, March 14, https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/death-toll-children...
To be crystal clear, the below isn't attempting to justify targeting children but it's important that those who are blindingly critical of Israel understand the complex realities.
Hamas does employ combatants under 18yo (which is what counts as children in those counts): "There have been reports of children below 15 years of age in Hamas, with the lowest recorded age being 12, but the process of selection for the Izz al-Deen Al-Qassem Brigades is reportedly long and rigorous and has not to date included children." - https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/cscoal/2001/...
"Amnesty International is gravely concerned about reports that earlier today a 16-year-old Palestinian child was found to be carrying explosives when attempting to pass through the Israeli army checkpoint at Huwara, at the entrance of the West Bank town of Nablus" ... "a 17-year-old Palestinian detonated an explosive belt he was wearing as he was being tracked down by Israeli soldiers," - https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/mde150...
"However, children receive military training and are used as messengers and couriers, and in some cases as fighters and suicide bombers in attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.21 All the main political groups involve children in this way, including Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.22
At least nine children carried out suicide attacks in Israel and the Occupied Territories between October 2000 and March 2004" - https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/cscoal/2004/...
Overall it still points to "what is the right response to guerilla warfare?" Or, "if even children want to kill you for what you're doing, what makes you so sure you're in the right?"
It's important to note that Hamas' suicide bombers were in general manipulated. I.e. this is not some grass roots child that decided they want to "kill you". This is cold blooded recruiting, conditioning, sending people to blow themselves up. I recommend you read up on that a little bit, there's a fair bit of material.
This (the start of the wave of suicide bombings) was also during somewhat euphoric time in Israeli-Palestinian relationships with the peace process happening, it wasn't a time of extreme repression.
You should also look a little at the textbooks and curriculum taught to those children.
You do realise that statistically that argument is insane by several orders of magnitude?
There is no rationale, or sane, argument for killing this number of children indescriminately. Never mind the tens of thousands that have been disabled and maimed.
The reason is simple: it’s the combination of forced military and being the descendants of a generation that migrated and ethnically cleansed Palestine are overwhelmingly potent sources of indoctrination. Most people tend to assimilate and therefore they will blend into the Israeli military (and you see what kind of ethics they have) and most people find it difficult to condemn their parents and grandparents as genocidal monsters so instead they will favor whatever narrative absolves their lineage.
You just don't get it.
The hatred Israelis feel towards Gazans right now is not driven by racism. In general Israel's feelings towards Palestinians is related to the violence Palestinians have inflicted on Israelis and the violent conflict in general. Israelis think Gazans want to murder all of them and that feeling has support reality.
I agree there's some amount of indoctrination but that's also a simplistic world view.
I really wonder, if you think this is what Israelis think, what do you think Palestinians think? You know, the ones that have been murdered by the tens of thousands. The ones that have been made refugees in their own country.
There's things like making children lie in graves so they get accustomed to being martyrs, this is the longer story: https://aish.com/the-jihadist-who-converted-to-judaism/
I think it's important to understand this to know who Israel is dealing with.
On Israel's side of this I think it's clear Israel has been using fairly indiscriminate force at times. However even if Israel used has the most discriminate use of force a lot of children would get killed.
What do you propose Israel can do against Hamas? What would you do when 30,000 combatants are sitting on your border, embedded with civilians, in civilian clothing, want you to kill as many civilians as possible, use them as shield while launching attacks at you? Half of the population is younger than 18yo. What do you do when thousands of rockets are launched at you from densely populated places? Let's reset to Oct 8th, how do you wage this war?
I.e., according to the only available source, and one that has proven itself reliable in past conflicts.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/what-is-gazas-ministry-of...
>Throughout four wars and numerous bloody skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, U.N. agencies have cited the Health Ministry’s death tolls in regular reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red Crescent also use the numbers.
>In the aftermath of war, the U.N. humanitarian office has published final death tolls based on its own research into medical records.
>In all cases the U.N.’s counts have largely been consistent with the Gaza Health Ministry’s, with small discrepancies.
>2008 war: The ministry reported 1,440 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 1,385.
>2014 war: The ministry reported 2,310 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 2,251.
>2021 war: The ministry reported 260 Palestinians killed; the U.N. reported 256.
It's perfectly reasonable to question data from an organization known for propaganda and terrorism. But please also try to find answers to your doubts.
For more context: Camp David (peace with Egypt) was in 1978 and Oslo started in 1993. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords
The right wing in Israel now refers to Oslo as the "Oslo Disaster" due to the large number of Israelis killed in what they claim is a result of giving the Palestinians control over some of the land, arming their police force, and letting Palestinian leaders from abroad (Tunisia) return to the region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_at...
The left (whatever is left of it) says Oslo never had (EDIT: never was given) a chance to succeed and wasn't implemented properly.
Just a total mess like it always is in this region.
---
I do agree Israel has just cause to "remove" Hamas from Gaza post 10/7 (for some definition of remove). I also think Israel has been waging this war very poorly. I agree Palestinians don't want peace. They want Israel erased (which they sometimes put in different words but with the same end result). They say so out loud (see street interviews with Palestinians e.g. on YT, even before this war, and surveys etc.). I also know this from talking to a small sample of Palestinians myself. But, as we say in Hebrew, wise people don't get themselves into a situation that a smart people knows how to get out of, and unfortunately post Oct 7th even smart people have a hard time getting anywhere. That said, the blame lies on the Palestinians. They are responsible for the public in Israel moving right. Which in turn created this pathetic excuse of a government and general erosion of Israeli society. Which in turn is resulting in Israel's heavy handedness in Gaza (though even the less heavy handed version would be not that different in scope). They are doing that because they think that's how they'll get what they want. Hamas (supported by the majority of Palestinians) thinks that right now they're actually getting what they want. I think it's unlikely they'll get what they want. Israel is bound to take ever more aggressive approaches and nobody is going to help the Palestinians. Stopping the violent struggle, accepting Israel is a fact, and talking to Israel, is the only way Palestinians will get anything, but they're not willing to do that for various reasons (and when I say they I mean the vast majority + a way of imposing its will on the minority, i.e. if Palestinians can't get Hamas to stop killing Israelis then it doesn't even matter).
Can you point to policies of removing west bank settlements to show that before the horrific attack, accepting Israel was going well in the west bank? If anything, the not-being-kicked-out-of-your-home was going better in the violent Gaza strip, and they overstepped their hand
You're also wrong about Israelis at the time not worried about the west bank. The Israeli left was extremely worried about the occupation of the west bank. I would say resolving the status of that territory was an important thing since 1967 (though I was born in 1968 so I don't have the entire experience in my head) but for some of that time the state of war with the surrounding Arab countries was a show stopper to that. The peace with Egypt was one of the factors that enabled the start of the peace process with the Palestinians.
Today you'll maybe find 5% of Israelis are agreeable to that two state solution, at best.
I'm not quite following your second question here. Settlements in the west bank have occasionally been removed but before the Oct 7th attack we're in a process of the right wing getting more embedded in the west bank and the extremists more emboldened which is sort of the process I'm alluding to here. I'm not sure if you're referring to violence forcing Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 here as some sort of benchmark for the west bank? Supposedly Arik Sharon's plan was to follow the withdrawal from Gaza with a unilateral withdrawal from most of the west bank.
Keep in mind that most of Gaza was handed to the PA before the 2005 withdrawal as part of the peace process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Jericho_Agreement I don't remember all the details any more, I'd have to look them up.
My point is the Palestinians could have gotten all the West Bank and Gaza through peaceful negotiations within the Oslo framework. It is true that what pushed Israel to even talk was the first intifadah though I'm convinced there was no need for violence even then.
A complete treatment of this topic would require a lot more time and effort. But anyways, the move right is again extremely significant for Palestinians, in a bad way. (EDIT: It's pretty bad for Isrealis a way in many ways)
It's not hiding when you are on your own territory. It's not a shield if your enemy kills non-combatants with impunity. It's also very hard to discern "terrorists" from resistance fighters when you're an occupier operating in occupied territory, which Israel doesn't even try to do.
Do you think that's a genetic inclination? My guess is you don't.
So if it's a cultural inclination, do you think it can be changed? Seemingly no, so why not? Why wouldn't goodwill and nation-building be able to change Palestinian minds?
Taking lessons from the final acts of WWII is extraordinarily myopic and foolish. It seems to assume that whatever did happen must have happened - why would we believe that? It's contradicted by the simple and undeniable fact that humans make errors in judgment. People chose to cause suffering. People chose to respond to suffering with war. People chose to pursue war to "total military defeat" (I would say that is actually a fiction but we can go along with it as it's close enough to the truth for our purposes here).
During the Oslo peace process, when Israel was trying to address this in the way you propose, Hamas launched a suicide bombing campaign against Israeli civilians:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_at...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords
You can be critical of everything Israel does, in this war or ever - fine. But the Palestinians have no other accepted settlement other than shipping ~8 million Jews to Europe or killing them.
The people who suddenly developed this simplistic understanding of occupation/resistance/occupier have no idea what they're talking about. Often quite literally in the sense they don't even understand the meaning of what they're saying, not to mention the history of Israel or the middle east. EDIT: I realize this last statement can feel offensive but this is still my take based on two decades of interactions with a fairly random sample of people trying to explain wth is going on in this tiny piece of the middle east. The complexity of the situation doesn't yield itself to simplistic narratives (from neither side really, though my statement refers to one of those narratives the Israeli side simplistic narrative is also insufficient/inaccurate).
However, if you actually want peaceful coexistence in the long term, the only possible solution is to stop oppressing these people, and instead to build a better world for them. The Israelis won: they built their country, they got international recognition, they defended it from their neighbors. However justified this may have been given the horrors of the Holocaust, it is also undeniable that this was to a large extent to the detriment of many people who previously lived there. They now need to ensure those people can be content with the life that is left for them.
But the reality is that Israeli leaders (and a significant minority of the population) do not want that. They don't view the Palestinians as full human beings (as many in the Knesset have compared them time and time again to cockroaches and other pests), and they believe Israel has a right to even those small territories left to the Palestinians. They are continually illegally annexing more land in the West Bank, and some are preparing to do so in Gaza as well.
Netanyahu has been very open about funding, or at least supporting, Hamas as a means to ensure that moderate Palestinians don't get a voice and a two-state solution is never allowed to happen. He has said these things openly. Of course, a one state solution is also unacceptable, as it would threaten the Jewish character of Israel to have such a signficant (and growing) Muslim Arab population. Making them officially second-class citizens is also unacceptable as it would deny Israel's claims of being a democracy. Killing them all would be a bad look internationally.
So, what was happening before October 7th was in fact the ideal state according to Netanyahu and his ilk: the Palestinians are de facto second class Israeli citizens with almost no rights, they act as a convenient boogie man to scare the populace, and they are weak enough to be no more than a nuisance. October 7th was an embarrassment to the authorities on many levels (and of course a horrific crime), so they have to punish the cockroaches of Gaza to ensure they don't have the courage to try another October 7th anytime soon, and to prove their strength to their own population, then return to the status quo. Of course, if Hamas is destroyed, they will also have to find a new militant anti-Israeli organization to lead Gaza, lest they end up with credible peace attempts that could make their position difficult.
The population of British Palestine was 31% Jewish, 9% Christian and 60% arab in 1946 UN Survey. Jews got more land after partitioning but a huge chunk of that was the Negev desert. Arabs rejected partitioning and the Arab nations started a war to destroy Israel. You can confirm this from any source you like.
dang: can you kill this article? The article has biased language (Israel is fighting Hamas not “bombing Palestinians” as if the war is on the civilian population) and the conversation here is political advocacy.
Of course, the war started because surrounding Arab nations didn't accept the UN plan of splitting up that territory - with both good and bad intentions to be sure. But even if you think the intentions of those nations were entirely mosntruous, my point is that the Arab population of Mandatory Palestine were victims of this whole war, and they (and their descendants) are the people who today live in ghettos of Gaza and the West Bank. And it is understandable that they would bear malice on those who caused them or their parents or grandparents to lose their homes, especially when they now live in squalor. And it is also to be expected, though sad, that some of them will turn to terrorism and hurt other innocents in their own turn.
But the existence of terrorists among a population does not give one carte blanche to attack that population.
That the narrative of Israel stealing land is false.
Israel encouraged arabs within their partition that were not resisting the new nation to stay. You can find many references to this, and it was Hertzl’s origin intention is his writing. This is why the 2M Israeli arabs - that have more freedom that in any arab nation - exist. Pity the arabs that left.
> is understandable that they would bear malice on those who caused them or their parents or grandparents to lose their homes
They don’t though. They have no malice towards their leaders that constantly started wars trying to destroy Israel and resulted in their losing their homes. They just hate Jews.
> But the existence of terrorists among a population does not give one carte blanche to attack that population.
Yes agreed. This is why the war is on Hamas rather than Gazans (even though Gazans overwhelmingly support the slaughter of their Israeli neighbours) at the cause of a great many Israeli lives.
> They don’t though. They have no malice towards their leaders that constantly started wars trying to destroy Israel and resulted in their losing their homes.
Of course, they are living under propaganda and they are being actively oppressed by Israel, not by other Arab nations.
> They just hate Jews.
This is just false and racist.
> Yes agreed. This is why the war is on Hamas rather than Gazans (even though Gazans overwhelmingly support the slaughter of their Israeli neighbours) at the cause of a great many Israeli lives.
If this were true, than the population of Gaza would not be starved, with aid being trickled in such low quantities that even the USA under Biden is trying to go around Israel's official quotas and provide aid separately. And if this were true than the IDF would not be deliberately targetting aid workers, hospitals, nurseries and so on.
And for every Palestinian happy to see an Israeli killed, there is at least one Israeli happy to see Palestinians killed. Both sides have their disgusting extremists. The difference is that one has access to every weapon on Earth and is currently rampaging and killing tens of thousands of civilians, while the other side has killed a few hundred civilians in the worse attack they have ever mounted. And flaunting every international law they can find, such as recently bombing an embassy in a different country.
Yes. That doesn’t prove that the arabs were driven away by Jews though.
> they are being actively oppressed by Israel
No. As we’ve discussed Arabs tried to destroy Israel 3 times and lost. If you have a response to this historical fact then post it, otherwise it’s fairly clear who is causing misery to the arab Palestinians.
>> They just hate Jews. >This is just false and racist.
No. Firstly Gazans and west bank Palestinians are not a race, Arabs are. Secondly accusing others of being racist is not racist. Finally you can easily look up opinion polls in support of the massacre in Gaza to confirm that Gazans hate Jews.
> if this were true, than the population of Gaza would not be starved
Yes exactly! The starvation is another myth. You can look up obesity statistics in Gaza to confirm this yourself. Or watch videos posted by Gazans enjoying their open markets posted every day, or other Gazans throwing away their rations because they don’t like M&Ms. Like the nakba or the MrFAFO videos a huge amount of what you see is simply fake.
> The difference is that one has access to every weapon on Earth and is currently rampaging and killing tens of thousands of civilians
No. Rampaging would be running around torturing people in front of their families. You don’t know how many civilians are killed in the fighting between Israel and Hamas. Your only source is Hamas and they don’t distinguish between fighters and civilians, they also increased the number by the same amount every day for a month before they realised it looks bad.
Given that the region was majority Arab, and that Israel was never going to be a majority Arab nation, the only logical possibility is that Israeli authorities always intended to drive out a large number of Palestinian Arabs from their land. That the Arabs realized this and opposed the formation of a state that would drive them out is not that surprising.
> As we’ve discussed Arabs tried to destroy Israel 3 times and lost. If you have a response to this historical fact then post it, otherwise it’s fairly clear who is causing misery to the arab Palestinians.
Even if the ultimate fault for their current state lied entirely with Arab leaders (which it doesn't) that doesn't change one iota the fact that it is Israel forcing Palestinians in Gaza to live in an open-air prison (as UN rapporteurs call it) for the past 60 years, and currently committing genocide against them. And you forget that it's even Israeli officials supporting Hamas as the rulers of Gaza, as Netanyahu has bragged.
> The starvation is another myth. You can look up obesity statistics in Gaza to confirm this yourself. Or watch videos posted by Gazans enjoying their open markets posted every day, or other Gazans throwing away their rations because they don’t like M&Ms. Like the nakba or the MrFAFO videos a huge amount of what you see is simply fake.
I don't need to look at propaganda videos or cherry picked social media. Serious news organizations and the UN have been investigating this, and unanimously discuss the fact that Gaza is very close to starvation and that rations are nowhere near enough. Even Israeli officials actually acknowledge that there is not enough aid going into Gaza (though of course they don't admit their role in making sure of this).
Or that, as history tells us, that Arabs refused to accept partitioning and tried to destroy Israel 3 times and lost. I’m not sure why you would ignore well documented events in favour of deciding something else is the only logical explanation.
> I don't need to look at propaganda videos or cherry picked social media
Gazan obesity stats aren’t produced by Israel, nor are the social media accounts of Gazans.
> is Israel forcing Palestinians in Gaza to live in an open-air prison
The only open air prison with open fields and malls and luxury cars. Forced by Israel and Egypt which I gather you think is also secretly controlled by Israel.
What does one have to do with the other? The moment that the partition plan was announced, some Arabs were going to be expelled from the territory of Israel regardless of anything else that would have happened. They chose to fight this, and obtained support from those around them. They lost, and now Israel exists, is larger than the original plan, and they are forced to live in squalor. These people are angry that history turned out this way, and they are turning all that anger on their current oppressors, and will continue to do so as long as they are oppressed, all the more so when they are slaughtered by the thousands and starved as they are now.
> Gazan obesity stats aren’t produced by Israel, nor are the social media accounts of Gazans.
Are you seriously claiming that, despite the overwhelming evidence that they are being starved since this war started, Gazans are actually getting fatter? This is beyond ridiculous.
> The only open air prison with open fields and malls and luxury cars.
The existence of a handful of rich people doesn't mean anything. All objective thrid parties assessors have come to the same conclusion, that the people of Gaza are living under oppression.
> Forced by Israel and Egypt which I gather you think is also secretly controlled by Israel.
Egypt is complicit, but they only control a tiny part of the border, and have explicit agreements with Israel about what to allow to pass through there.
You keep claiming Gazans are poor because they are oppressed by Israel. I keep referring to history and the choices of arab leaders as the basis for their poverty.
> Are you seriously claiming that Gazans are actually getting fatter?
I am not claiming Gazans are getting fatter. The data says they were obese before they started the war, giving the lie to the open air prison fallacy. If you want to refute that, or claim that the videos produced by your fellow pro Hamas accounts showing markets open and food being thrown away are false, you are welcome to do so.
> The existence of a handful of rich people doesn't mean anything.
Not just rich people, the malls are for everyone as are the wide open spaces. It proves your claims about an open air prison are false. No reasonable person would describe that as a prison.
> Egypt is complicit
You didn’t write that Egypt is oppressing gaza.
You also didn’t take back your spurious claim that it was racist (?) to point out that Gazans hate Jews as evidenced by their overwhelming support for the massacre.
> The data says they were obese before they started the war, giving the lie to the open air prison fallacy.
You brought that up in the context of the starvation to which Israel is currently subjecting them. Neither I, nor others, claimed Gaza was starving before the current genocide. The fact that it's an open air prison is related to the way Israel, and to some extent Egypt, are controlling access into and out of Gaza, not to obesity.
> It proves your claims about an open air prison are false. No reasonable person would describe that as a prison.
And yet every UN rapporteur that has investigated has reached the same conclusion. Almost as if they know some reality that you don't.
> You didn’t write that Egypt is oppressing gaza.
Yes, Egypt is also oppressing Gaza. That's what complicit means.
> You also didn’t take back your spurious claim that it was racist (?) to point out that Gazans hate Jews as evidenced by their overwhelming support for the massacre.
You are the one who claimed two million+ people are each and every one antisemitic. And also the one who seems not to know what it's called when you smear a whole ethnic/cultural group like this.
No, according to polls only 70% support the brutal murder of Israelis, as previously discussed.
Israel has been sabotaging peace talks and applying divide et impera politics in the region since it was created.
Sheikh Yassin, the paraplegic spiritual leader of the Hamas movement was quite clear that their beef wasn't with the jews, but with the occupation and apartheid. He was assassinated by Israel in 2004. In hindsight Hamas was correct in not trusting the israelis in the Oslo talks.
It's more like 700000 jews that would definitely need to move, i.e. the illegal settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Yes it does, it’s in the previous sentence.
There are no illegal settlements, Israel won wars the Arab nations started in 48 and 67 and 73.
Do you demand that France and Poland return the land they won from Germany in World War II?
I suspect you don’t and I suspect we both know the answer why.
The original Hamas charter (that was never revoked) calls for the murder of Jews. If Jews moved out of the west bank, the muslims that want to to murder Jews at the end of time per their hadiths would still wish to do so. They don’t want a second Arab State, they want there to be no Jewish state.
If the israelis are allowed to breach the Geneva conventions, as understood by the UN according to numerous resolutions, so are the palestinians and syrians. 'They won' probably isn't the argument you think it is.
What do you mean, "revoked"? How would that be done? Would it be enough if Ahmed Yassin said on record that jews aren't the issue, the occupation and apartheid is? And how should the 2017 charter be understood, unless it replaces any previous charters?
No, this is not how logic works. I have pointed out the between the river and the sea is Israel. You do not get to refute the point with zero supporting arguments.
The UN is stacked with countries that have fought to destroy Israel and lost. UN resolutions have become meaningless. One UN organisation literally exist to aid Hamas. We know what the UN supports, denouncement from it means nothing.
By revoked, I mean, the 2017 charter made to appease Western Hamas supporters like yourself does not officially replace the existing charter that calls for the destruction of Jews worldwide.
Now, will you answer the question about why you don’t call on Poland and France to return Germany’s land? Why is it specifically you do not believe Jews are allowed to win a war whereas French and Polish people are?
Will you also address the point that giving arabs more land will not make them stop wanting to destroy Jews?
I'd address that point by noting that one of Hamas's likely goals in the Oct 7 attack was to prevent the upcoming Saudi diplomatic recognition of Israel. https://www.politico.eu/article/saudi-arabia-israel-deal-tat... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67922238
You're doing a lot of conflating Jews with Israel/Zionism/Netanyahu, and Arabs/Muslims/Palestinians with Hamas. There's a reason no one reputable is calling this the "Arab-Jewish War".
OK, so you also disagree with the Fourth Geneva Convention, then? You'd be fine with Syria joining forces with Hezbollah and iraqi militias to take Golan and north of Israel by force and expelling or subduing through apartheid whatever population they come across? I have a feeling that e.g. the small groups of circassians that still exist and live in northern Israel might disagree with you and prefer another international legal order.
I don't think it's made to appease "Western Hamas supporters". They've clarified that the enemy is zionists, which is a much larger group than "the Jews", as the previous charter put it. Some, like you, seem to interpret "the Jews" in the old text as 'all the jews in the world', while Hamas leaders have said that they meant the jews of Israel. Ahmed Yassin has said, on camera, that his movement doesn't have a problem with jews, but with occupiers, and that if a muslim stole his land he would resist that too.
A problem with your interpretation is that many palestinians aren't aware that there are jews elsewhere in the world, or that zionism is a predominantly christian project rather than a jewish one, so when they are refering to 'the jews' one needs to figure out whether they mean israeli jews or jews in general.
Has the UN demanded that Poland and France do so? Are Poland and France states imposing apartheid on germans, or have they ethnically cleansed these areas?
Kinda weird racist remark about arabs being inherently genocidal at the end there. Maybe edit it and make it less weird?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/world/middleeast/israel-s...
"Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a 2017 law that would have allowed for the retroactive legalization of thousands of Jewish homes built on occupied West Bank land privately owned by Palestinians, a law so provocative that few believed when it was passed that it would survive judicial review."
"Those homes — already viewed as illegal by most of the world under international law, for having been built in occupied territory — will now remain illegal under Israeli law as well, and Palestinian landowners will be able to proceed with lawsuits seeking to evict the people living in them and recover their property."
> The original Hamas charter (that was never revoked) calls for the murder of Jews.
And the original charter of Netanyahu's political party says "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty".
Yes. Arabs got all of Jordan. That you see Likud’s charter stating Jews want a smaller version of their historical homeland as being comparable to Hamas charter calling for the murder of all Jews says more about you than it does about Likud.
It isn't possible to destroy Hamas with violence, or apartheid for that matter. Israel has created hatred towards themselves that will last for generations, even if they could kill every last Hamas member, they've made damn sure that a subset of Palestinian (if not broader) youth will reorganize a militia and the cycle of violence will go on.
For what it's worth I'm not suggesting anything, just pointing out the obvious fact that this war doesn't end with the whole of Gaza population being turned into martyrs. Looks to me like Israel responded exactly like the jihadists wanted in the first place with their attack.
Remember the scene in Men In Black where the recruita do target practice? They were all accurate at hitting what they shot at but only Will Smith's character was accurate at selecting a target. This AI chooses targets; it does not fire weapons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORHAP6duw9E
The job is not "shoot aliens". It's manage aliens, including Earth's population of legal resident aliens (like the taxi driver who he delivers a baby for). The Big Bad of the film is indeed posing as a human, and Smith's character runs into an endless procession of innocent (or at least non-capital-crime) aliens he should not shoot along the way.
There's a reason he gets hired over all the military folks in the scene immediately blasting away at the aliens in the shooting range.
Yes, because he's Will Smith.
Not to be the tone police or anything, but a HN discussion of AI-powered mass murder really isn't the time to be glib.
No problem with tone policing for me. I think that's how this board works, although more implicitly.
It starts with uncomfortable chairs and a written test on flimsy paper without desks; Smith's character noisily pulls over a table to write on while the military folks do the expected thing of struggling through. "You're everything we've come to expect from years of government training", they get told, and then their memories are wiped. Smith's character, instead, gets a briefing on the MIB and an intro to alien bugs pouring Kay some coffee.
(Said briefing also indicates Earth is a neutral zone for alien refugees. Again, "shoot first" is not what they want people doing!)
It’s a criticism of letting the AI pick targets.
What we may be witnessing is the first information age level genocide, where the killing is done at the behest of a statistical function with near infinite computing power.
This is a strong accusation, but it has the evidence behind it. The most recent of which is a report published at the UN Human Rights Council[1], but also the case filed at the World Court by South Africa in December with addenda added in March[2]. The evidence for this claim is both public, overwhelming, and has been filed at the world’s highest court.
All that said, I actually didn’t make the claim here—though I have elsewhere—I merely said we should be open to the possibility that this is the case.
1: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies...
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_v._Israel_(Genoci...
But more than anything, I can just look at the conflict itself and there's no genocide going on. It's war in a dense urban area where Hamas hides among the population.
I’m disgusted by this, I don’t care anymore what happened in October, this needs to stop. Israel government cannot be trusted to run this war, it’s turned into genocide and we’re all complicit letting them do it and supporting them. I can’t believe people actually support this, it’s clear they’ve forgotten Palestinians are people.
The most upsetting(for me) thing is reports of all the kids killed by snipers and just in general, as a father I cannot imagine losing my child to this.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/02/gaza-palestini...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/23/israel...
Because there has to be a number, right? Is 30k dead palestinians too many? Is 50k? is 200k? How about all of them?
That's because what they're doing is ethnic cleansing, calculated to be just slow enough to not bug out domestic and foreign (particularly American) support.
In 1999 Yugoslavia killed ~12 thousand Albanians and displaced ~85 thousand more. Bill Clintons secretary of defense had no problem calling that genocide: "The appalling accounts of mass killing in Kosovo and the pictures of refugees fleeing Serb oppression for their lives makes it clear that this is a fight for justice over genocide.". This led NATO to drop bombs on Yugoslavia [0].
In this conflict Israel has killed ~31 thousand Palestinians and displaced ~2.3 million more [1]. And now we sell them jet planes [2].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_invasion_of_the_Gaza_S...
[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-administration...
And yet, somehow I still feel like the answer to this problem still isn't "authorizing up to 15-20 civilian deaths for every enemy militant killed" as mentioned in the article.
See jhallenworld’s comment elsewhere in this post: > “Hamas terrorist” criteria: a male or fighting age…
Of course there will be males of fighting age among civilians, many of them _are_ civilians
Notably, this is not a criterion used by IDF, even though Hamas does everything to make it so.
Consider the usual criteria used to distinguish members of military organizations:
[ ] uniforms
[ ] operating from military bases separate from civilian buildings
[ ] name tags / military IDs
[ ] vehicles clearly identifiable as military (by markings, plates, etc)
All of those are required by international law.
I checked off all of the ones that Hamas uses.
See, that's how you feel, because you aren't thinking or looking at data. And perhaps because you interpret "up to" as the actual ratio.
According to the UN, civilians make up about 90% of casualties during a war[1].
Meanwhile, the estimates for Israel operation in Gaza is ~9000 militants killed out of ~25000 total[2].
The entire problem in discussing the issue is that the way people feel isn't driven by reality on the ground, but on what sounds nice.
[1] https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14904.doc.htm
[2] https://twitter.com/yaakovkatz/status/1749870793486405750
That's not exactly what it says:
"Conflict continued to cause widespread civilian death last year, notably in densely populated areas, where civilians accounted for 90 per cent of the casualties when explosive weapons were used, compared to 10 per cent in other areas."
Why would you omit the qualifiers?
It's disappointing that this UN report is so poorly written as to seem to contradict itself. Do you think ultimately the 90% refers exclusively to explosive use in urban areas, or all war casualties? I'm frankly not sure which thing the article is claiming.
Because we're talking about Gaza, to which the qualifer ("notably in densely populated areas") most definitely applies.
I don't know what you are trying to say though - that this is ok? Normal? Expected? All of the above?
Like I'm not going to just shrug my arms and say "well it's war, what are you going to do".
That's not the whole story. For example, we ban certain kinds of weapons -cluster munitions, chemical weapons, biological weapons, ideally we'd ban bloody mines- not because they kill too many people compared to "conventional" weapons (they don't) but because they are considered especially ... well, wrong, in the moral sense.
So maybe we decide that being killed by a machine, that decides you're a target and pulls the trigger autonomously is especially morally wrong and we don't accept it.
Chemical and biological weapons are banned because, like nukes, escalation of their use results in a scorched earth scenario.
Remember COVID-19? Whether you believe in it being natural or a lab leak, it is a good model of how a handling mishap with a mediocre bioweapon would look like.
We know such things are possible, but we can't actually do them.
The scandal is more that (surprise, surprise) the human oversight isn’t doing its job and the soldiers just follow orders.
So the issue isn't that there's errors, it's that the army knows there are errors and expect humans to pick them out in 20 seconds- which they know realistically won't happen. The human only has two realistic choices- approve every target, or disapprove every target (which gets you reassigned to another role).
It's the classic statistics case of two medical diagnostics for an underlying value that isn't directly observable.
I think you've misunderstood the "zero-error" statement. It's not saying "there must be zero errors", rather that "errors don't exist - only some level of collateral damage". Hence the follow up about things being viewed statistically.
They view it in the same way that you suggest they should - that there will always be deaths and the questions is whether the system leads to more or less of them.
Personally I view that as a very utilitarian argument when applied to a machine of war. It embeds the concept that some loss of innocent life is acceptable.
"Hamas terrorist" criteria: a male of fighting age, give higher weight to those congregating with others of fighting age. Basically take out a generation of Palestinian men and you're all set. Lovely.
>This sentence is horrifically dystopian... "in order to save time and enable the mass production of human targets without hindrances"
Reminds me of similar industrial thinking of a certain previous fascist government.
The attack itself was allowed to have a 15x to 100x number of civilians killed depending on the supposed importance of the target.
UN Estimates, as of March 1st, are "10,675 [civilians] killed, 20,080 wounded" -- on both sides.
The number of soldiers killed on both sides (combined) is certainly no less than 100k, and might even exceed 400k.
In Gaza, more than 25,000 civilians have already been killed. https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/01/1145742
This is a callous, inexcusable massacre. By comparison with the Israelis, the Russians look like "gentle and parfait knights." But the former are presumably on our side, and the latter are our geopolitical opponents. So.
>> The U.N. human rights mission in Ukraine, which has dozens of monitors in the country, said it expects the real toll to be "significantly higher" than the official tally since corroboration work is ongoing.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/civilian-death-toll-ukr...
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/more-than-8000-civilian...
There are more than 10,000 fresh graves in the city of Mariupol alone and many of them appear to contain multiple bodies - which was the case in other graves uncovered in places like Kherson and Lyman.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-erasing-mariup...
The actual civilian death toll is almost certainly in the tens of thousands, not a singular ten thousand.
Also consider the death toll caused by the withholding of medical assistance to those who refuse to take Russian citizenship, and the flooding caused by the destruction of the Nova Khakovka dam.
Perhaps the number is higher. What's your best estimate for the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine? How about military casualties on both sides?
And, quibbling over numbers aside, surely you can see that the nature of the war in Gaza and the war in Ukraine are very different. In Gaza, civilians are taking the brunt of the fighting. Ukraine, in contrast, is hell for soldiers, but civilians and aid workers are generally moved away from the front, and they're more rarely treated with the wanton disregard and disdain that Gazans suffer.
To all appearances, what's happening in Ukraine is a war, fought by and large by the accepted rules of war. In contrast, I don't think that Israel is fighting a war; they're marauding and taking shots at a densely populated civilian enclave that refuses to surrender to them unconditionally.
>And, quibbling over numbers aside, surely you can see that the nature of the war in Gaza and the war in Ukraine are very different. In Gaza, civilians are taking the brunt of the fighting.
I do not see the difference between Gaza and Mariupol, except that the population of Mariupol is older and the temperatures drop below freezing for months of the year. It was carpet bombed, residential areas were shelled, there were reports of civilians needing to drink water from puddles, incidents of torture and murder, practically the entire city was destroyed.
>To all appearances, what's happening in Ukraine is a war, fought by and large by the accepted rules of war. In contrast, I don't think that Israel is fighting a war; they're marauding and taking shots at a densely populated civilian enclave that refuses to surrender to them unconditionally.
With all due respect I do not see how you can possibly think this unless you've been ignoring much of what has been happening in Ukraine.
One example of many: https://www.wsj.com/video/series/in-depth-features/images-sh...
Another: https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/te9kvd/khark...
Another: https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/t5s44r/cctv_...
Another: https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/t4rfgy/russi...
Hospital hit with a 1500kg bomb: https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/170fues/russ...
Russians using a Ukrainian POW as a human shield during an attack: https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1azri7n/russ...
Russians using 3 Ukrainian POWs as human shields during an attack: https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/18hnvkx/clai...
You don't want me to share the video of Russians executing 9 Ukrainian POWs with their hands behind their backs, the video of Russians castrating a Ukrainian POW and then executing him, or the video of Russians decapitating a Ukrainian POW slowly with a knife.
And Bucha, and the Nova Khahovka dam, and the torture chambers, and the air campaign designed in the Russians own words to freeze Ukrainians over the winter, and the mass graves in Lyman where raped and murdered women and tortured Ukrainian men were discovered. And the Kramatorsk railway station attack. And the Kremenchuk shopping mall attack.
Literally yesterday the Russians hit an elementary school in Dnipro with ballistic missiles, the only reason it wasn't a mass casualty event was that they had 5 minutes warning to evacuate to bomb shelters.
This is literally just what I can remember off the top of my head.
What's your best estimate of civilian + military casualties in Ukraine, with whatever supporting evidence you care to muster?
Edited to add:
You've edited and added to your post after my response.
In response to your Reddit links, I think that they distract from the main point, which is that the Gaza war has disproportionately affected civilians, even in comparison with the worst of Ukraine's battlegrounds.
Ukraine has depth, and not only can its civilians move west to cities such as Lvov, its citizens have been invited into Europe.
In contrast, Gaza is a sprawling low-rise cityscape with a population of 14,000 people per square mile -- far in excess of anything in Ukraine; nearly double Kiev's population density -- and Gazans are, for the most part, forbidden from leaving. Egypt can't take them, save in special circumstances. All the privation of war is felt by this civilian population -- and, at least to an extent, this is used by Israel as a weapon.
Russia, for all its faults, has a straightforward strategy and straightforward, even realistic aims. I don't think you can say the same for Israel. It's just wild.
It's not wrong, you're wrong. You called it an estimate of casualties. The UN calls it a list of verified casualties and say that they estimate the number is "far higher".
I don't have a problem with citing those numbers if you call them what they are - the hard minimum that can be independently verified. "at least" 10,000 dead civilians, as opposed to "only" 10,000 dead civilians. That is a significant distinction. "everyone" uses those numbers to make Israel look worse at the expense of whitewashing Russia, which is appalling to me.
An actual estimate is extremely hard to find. It appears that Ukraine estimated in February 2023 that the number of civilians killed was around 100,000. The UN themselves won't say what they think the number is other than that it's "likely far higher" than the confirmed number in one statement, "tip of the iceberg" in another, etc.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-war-...
Mark Milley estimated around 40k civilian casualties in November 2022
https://www.euronews.com/2022/11/10/ukraine-war-100000-russi...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/civilian-deaths-ukraine-acc...
In any case, the highest the UN was ever able to count in Mariupol was around 2000, whereas there's more than 10,000 fresh graves, many of which are big enough for several bodies, alongside some mass graves. And that was over a year ago, in one city. Dunno what more to tell you.
If you want to compare apples to apples, then Hamas' claims of ~25,000 dead civilians should be compared against the Ukrainian government's claims of tens of thousands of civilian dead. Otherwise don't compare claims against numbers that have been independently verified to be correct (minimums).
And also, oh my god, don't say
> civilians and aid workers are generally moved away from the front, and they're more rarely treated with the wanton disregard and disdain that Gazans suffer.
or
>To all appearances, what's happening in Ukraine is a war, fought by and large by the accepted rules of war. In contrast, I don't think that Israel is fighting a war; they're marauding and taking shots at a densely populated civilian enclave that refuses to surrender to them unconditionally.
Because that's such utter horseshit. Everything the Israelis have ever been accused of doing, the Russians have done in Ukraine. Don't claim otherwise just because those pictures / videos don't get as much traction on TikTok
This is demonstrably false in trivially obvious ways. How many Ukrainians have left the country? How many Gazans have been permitted to leave? And the question you keep muddying the waters around: What's the military to civilian casualty ratio? It's much worse in Gaza, no matter how you slice it.
Even if we run your apples-to-apples comparison: 25k civilians dead in Gaza, "tens of thousands" (let's say 40k?) dead in Ukraine. (I am not sure how credible this is). The Ukrainians also claim that 180k Russian soldiers have died. Israel hasn't killed more than 12k Hamas members; Hamas claims 6k dead. In the one war, far more military than civilian casualties; in the other, the reverse. There's really no way to spin this.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/08/ukraine-russian-assault-...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/26/russia-accused...
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/03/ukraine-human...
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/08/1085097957/what-the-war-in-sy...
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-blames-russia-a...
https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc15023.doc.htm
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/russia-filtra...
https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/09/01/we-had-no-choice/filtr...
About military-to-civilian casualty ratio: again, compare like-for-like. Mariupol is the best analogue for Gaza, and Mariupol suffered tremendous civilian casualties despite not having all that many soldiers in the city. I would be shocked if the ratio was not comparable to Gaza if not worse. Had Kyiv been encircled it would have suffered the same fate or worse.
Even if you use the UN-confirmed deaths in Mariupol (around 2000), which we agree is an undercount, that's around 0.5%, compared to 1.2% in Gaza. On the other hand if it's 10,000, which still might be an undercount, that would be significantly more than Gaza.
But yes, Ukraine has "depth" and a larger population, so yes, lots of the fighting takes place away from cities. That doesn't, of course, prevent Russia from bombing and striking apartment buildings and kindergartens. Like this incident from a few days ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm6j9_XQNtY
Or this one, from yesterday
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-missile-damages...
But no, geographic reality shouldn't let Russia off the hook. If the conditions were right they'd treat every city like Mariupol, or Grozny.
https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1776318157348540724
There's the two-wrongs-make-a-right atonement for the holocaust aspect on the German side and the promise of the rapture for Americans also.
Maybe most importantly willingness to show eager support for something that may seem 'bad' such as genocide functions as a shibboleth to display allegiance to one's political party and society because ultimately what's happening in the news has no deep significance for most westerners beyond that of a football match. Showing you're not an anti-semite is the most important thing one can do, and there's no better way to do that than support whatever the current Israeli government feels like doing (perhaps sparking a large regional conflict) and rounding up any Jewish people who object on charges of being race traitors.
Of course it's perfectly ethical, why do you ask?
Now that we've established that this is horrific, please turn a small portion of your attention to American predictive policing systems (digital and not) and the circumstances that lead to mass incarceration (including the War on Drugs).
They just spout a high number that is not 100% (clearly civilians are being killed publicly undeniably ) claiming 100% would be too obviously ridiculous.
More than half of 32,000+ (more under the rubble) killed are woman and children, Hamas is still quite able to fight, hardly any hostages has been recovered .
Israel labels any sort of civilian organization as hamas including journalists, medical and aid staff. 200 UN staff and 100 journalists are dead so far . Israel’s argument is UNWRA terrorist aiding and journalists were also secretly Hamas and doing non journalistic stuff when killed so they include them in legitimate targets .
If you consider everyone is Hamas unless otherwise proven then 90% is possible .
There is no realistic way an algorithm was designed factoring in the level of destruction of infrastructure never seen in any real world data and also benchmarked accurately.
That said, any organization might do something if it’s 90% accurate. Assuming it even is (doubt it), I think any fair evaluation of such a technology must ask:
What is the accuracy of inexperienced humans in the same position who are rushing through the review during a blitz invasion? If they have battle experience, what about them, too? (I’m assuming most won’t.)
Is the system better than those humans or worse? How often?
Do the strengths and weaknesses of the system allow confidence scores on predictions to know which need more review? Can we also increase reviews when the number of deaths will be high?
That’s how I’d start a review of this tech. If anyone is building military AI, I also ask that you please include methods to highlight likely corner cases or high-stakes situations. Then, someone’s human instincts might kick in where they spot and resolve a problem even in the heat of war.
Basically AI is being used as a wheel-of-death and nothing more.
Anyone believing differently in my opinion is both delusional, and complicit
> “Everything was statistical, everything was neat — it was very dry,” B. said. He noted that this lack of supervision was permitted despite internal checks showing that Lavender’s calculations were considered accurate only 90 percent of the time; in other words, it was known in advance that 10 percent of the human targets slated for assassination were not members of the Hamas military wing at all.```
So, there was no human sign-off. I guess the policy itself was ordered by someone, but all the ongoing targets that were selected for assassination were solely authorized by the AI system's predictions.
This sentence is horrifically dystopian... "in order to save time and enable the mass production of human targets without hindrances"