This is not an "AI error". This is a human decision to use known unreliable AI for waging war, in full knowledge that civilian death is an inevitable consequence.
If you decide your strike locations using a pair of dice, it's not a "dice error" when you blow up a school.
1) the school was within the security perimeter of an IRGC base
2) it was in a building that was an IRGC control center 3 years ago
3) the road to the school is a road internal to that base
4) the students are from a minority and were forced to go to that school
5) that base was involved in hostilities when it was hit
Let's face facts here: the IRGC explicitly created this situation to try to get exactly this mistake, forced those children into the line of fire.
Btw: that is a war crime. Creating this confusion in the first place is a war crime. On one hand I like that there is a large amount of navel-gazing over this mistake ... but now is not the time.
6) the attention this attack is generating is being immediately exploited by the islamic guards to commit more warcrimes against Iranians, to kill children, put more civilians in danger, and even kill patients in hospitals. That, of course, does not seem to justify anyone's attention:
7) and the fact that this generates asymmetric attention is being exploited in hostilities by the IRGC as well. They aren't just committing warcrimes in Iran:
In other words: the attention this is generating is directly leading to the killing of Iranian and Israeli civilians. AND THAT IS THE INTENTION BEHIND THIS REPORTING.
This report is a weapon used to commit more warcrimes. Not a reasonable attempt to hold people responsible. It must stop.
And, frankly, do you people even know who you're dealing with when it comes to Iran? Google "plastic keys to heaven", for an explanation how Islam means you can use 6-year-old minority children as cheap demining equipment? That other people's children can be kidnapped and used to figure out where the enemy deployed chemical weapons? (Iraq btw, that's how mullahs fought their first war). Use kidnapped children where snipers are located? Another fantastic islamic mullah invention! Seriously, LOOK IT UP.
The 2 sides just don't compare here. So by all means, investigate the mistake that lead to this attack and try to prevent it. Slowly. Thoroughly. When the situation stabilized. Which means in a month or two. First, give people a chance to end it.
And yes, this might end in disaster. The situation before this conflict started was a disaster already, just not for you personally.
Even when it's the US' fault, it's still everyone else's fault. The superpower with an unrivaled spy and surveillance state with a constellation of satellites and precision missiles with blades that can hit an individual person from across the world is just simply helpless from blowing up a school of children.
"Btw: that is a war crime. Creating this confusion in the first place is a war crime. On one hand I like that there is a large amount of navel-gazing over this mistake ... but now is not the time."
Are you under the impression that the US does not have schools on their own military bases? Would you consider this a war crime as well? If they get bombed, would you shrug it off as collateral wartime damage?
Right and I'm sure if a family at a US army base commissary or movie theater were to get blown up by Iran tonight you'd accuse the US of a war crime and let Iran off the hook, right?
> Target schools, blame vendor instead of operators.
> I fully expect this.
> Based on industry experience, where vendors were hired (and paid well) so that there would be, and I quote, "a throat to choke" when needed.
This could be the feeler for a full-on buck-passing.
The first refuge of a scoundrel is to blame someone else. "We didn't kill those kids. Faulty AI did it." A "perfect" setup. Or do you believe in a string of 10 accidental coincidences?
"The immediate theory is that the AI program included the
school’s position based on older, archived intelligence.
The logic behind the launch, and the mechanics of who
authorized it is unclear."
Is this a "We don't know what's in the black box" scenario?
I bet Anthropic has logs of whatever prompt was used to determine targeting the girls elementary school and can find out if they were directly responsible for their deaths through AI.
> People believe for some reason that the AI is 99.99% correct and the warning not to trust it too much is just legalese.
That "some reason" is science fiction plus some modern-day hype. The sci-fi trope of AI is that it's something more intelligent and perfect than any human (e.g. Data from Star Trek or even HAL, despite his malfunctions), and the people who are selling LLMs are happy to let influence people to over-estimate LLM capabilities.
There's no sci-fi model for subhuman and kinda crappy generative AI.
Funny how Anthropic's press team has been working overtime to ensure the public they're the AI on the right side of history, yet that's anything further than the truth...
When you choose to serve the American military, knowing both its history and the fact that it's been facilitating at least one genocide over the past few years, you can't just claim "we didn't want anything bad to happen".
Indeed. We all know, just based on his proclamation of support for terrorizing the Iranian people the other day, that the US is perfectly willing to target and kill entire schools full of children.
Killing 150+ elementary school girls was no accident. Do not let them get away with claiming it was an "error". They purposely targeted an elementary school filled with little girls to kill them.
the US military has never had any real qualms about murdering innocent civilians; they've just had a problem admitting it out loud to the public.
You'll recall the multiple wedding parties that were massacred by drones during the Obama administration, or the Winter Soldier testimonies from Iraq and Afghanistan ca 2008 or the original Winter Soldier investigation in 1971 or the infamous My Lai massacre ca 1968.
Hegseth is skipping the normal ritual of denial and fake regret but this event is firmly within a well-documented lineage going back decades.
This is NO error buddy! These are all intentional and surgically planned atrocities.
israel has done the same thing over and over in Gaza - bombing and double striking schools, universities, hospitals, aid-workers indiscriminately. Now they are doing the same thing in Iran. Also, it is not just a one time incident. In fact, israeli terrorists in conjunction with Americans just bombed the 6th elementary/primary school in Iran just yesterday!
The crimes of israel and America can’t be sugarcoated anymore. We are not living in 50s, this is 21st century!
If you decide your strike locations using a pair of dice, it's not a "dice error" when you blow up a school.