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Israel offers a glimpse into the terrifying world of military AI

The IDF is allegedly using an AI-powered database identify targets to eliminate, according to a new report by journalist Yuval Abraham. That military tool’s name? “Lavender.”

“During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based,” Abraham wrote. It is “not a system, but simply a database whose purpose is to cross-reference intelligence sources, in order to produce up-to-date layers of information on the military operatives of terrorist organizations,” the IDF wrote in a response published in the Guardian. This week’s incident involving an Israeli drone strike on a convoy of vehicles belonging to World Central Kitchen, a prominent food aid group, killing seven of its workers, sharpened the spotlight on Israel’s conduct of the war.

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