While Lavender AI identifies human targets, Angel targets structures and buildings.
New Delhi:
There have been reports claiming that the Israeli military has used advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems in its bombing campaign against Gaza. These systems, called Lavender and Gospel, have played a central role in the IDF's targeting strategy, sparking debate about the ethical and legal implications of their deployment.
What is Lavender AI?
Developed by Israel's elite intelligence division, Unit 8200, Lavender serves as an AI-powered database designed to identify potential targets linked to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Lavender uses machine learning algorithms and processes vast amounts of data to identify what are considered “junior” militants within these armed groups.
According to reports by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, Lavender initially identified 37,000 Palestinian men affiliated with Hamas or the PJ. The use of AI to identify targets marks a significant shift in how the Israeli intelligence apparatus, the Mossad and the Shin Bet, operate – relying more on labor-intensive human decision-making.
Soldiers often make discrete decisions, taking less than 20 seconds to determine whether to bomb these identified targets based on Lavender's information, primarily to determine the target's gender. . Despite the AI program's margin of error of up to 10 percent, the human soldiers often followed the machine's information without question, meaning it could be wrong up to 10 percent of the time. According to the report, the program often targeted individuals who had no connection to Hamas.
What is Angel AI?
Gospel is another AI system that works by automatically generating goals based on AI recommendations. Unlike Lavender who identifies human targets, Angel allegedly identifies structures and buildings as targets.
“It is a system that allows the use of automated tools to generate targets at high speed and refines accurate and high-quality intelligence content as needed. With the help of artificial intelligence, and State-of-the-art intelligence for fast and automated extraction – it generates a recommendation for the researcher, with the aim of making a perfect match between the machine's recommendation and the identification made by a person,” The IDF said in a statement.
The sources of the specific data provided in the Gospels are unknown. However, experts suggest that AI-powered targeting systems typically analyze diverse data sets, including drone imagery, intercepted communications, surveillance data, and behavioral patterns of individuals and groups.
Ethical and legal considerations
The use of Lavender and Angel in Israel's bombing campaign represents a significant advance in AI and modern warfare, but also raises ethical and legal concerns. Although these technologies offer potential advantages in target identification and operational efficiency, their deployment raises ethical and legal dilemmas.