Tuesday, August 13, 2024

AI and information overload

 

It looks as if Israel's pioneering use of artificial intelligence (AI) to process, sort and apply intelligence gathered from multiple sources to produce a recommendation for action, is hitting a snag.  Strategy Page reports:


Now the IDF finds that it has often collected too much data on potential targets. This makes it difficult to find the current targets it needs to hit. Efforts to use AI to find the right targets in time to attack them have stumbled over the inability to sort out the available target data to find current targets that need to be hit. Another problem is that using AI to analyze the data and find the right targets concentrates on speed rather than accuracy. As a result the IDF is often hitting the wrong targets and doing so faster than before. Before AI, human analysts were used. This process was slower and often missed targets buried in a massive amount of target data. With human analysts you had better accuracy but the process was often so slow that the target had moved out of view by the time IDF air, artillery or ground attacks were launched.

Current criticisms of inaccurate targeting and civilian casualties are the result of Israeli target planners choosing speed over accuracy. Greater civilian casualties are also caused by the frequent use of the wrong weapon. Often a half-ton aerial bomb is used when a ground based anti-tank missile would have done the job. Another problem was that Israeli target planners had stopped keeping track of how many civilians were killed during attacks. When recent data on the actual number of civilians killed in recent Gaza attacks became known, it was an embarrassment for Israeli target planners and a tragedy for the victims.


There's more at the link.

It's the military intelligence version of the old builder's conundrum:  Fast, cheap, high quality.  Pick any two.  You can't have three.  If it's to be a fast, cheap job, it won't be high quality.  If it's to be fast and high quality, it won't be cheap.  If it's to be cheap and high quality, it can't be fast.  The same applies to actionable military intelligence (i.e. intelligence that leads to action at once or very soon, rather than being filed for future reference).  If you want a fast intelligence analysis and recommendation, it won't be as high-quality as one where you take more time to make up your mind.  If it's high-quality, it'll be slower - and your target may no longer be there when you arrive at a decision.  Effectively, Israel has been trying to use AI to speed up the process;  but AI is being overloaded with too much information, and is therefore making the same mistakes as we might expect from human analysts in that situation.  Unfortunately, it's making those mistakes faster - and people are dying faster as a result.

This is, of course, a tragedy for those civilians caught in the crossfire.  They're "collateral damage", if one uses the official (?) military term.  Trouble is, that term hides the reality of burned, maimed, wounded and killed men, women and children who were doing nothing wrong.  There have been thousands of them in Gaza already, and more will come.

There's no easy answer to this.  I can feel immense sympathy for the innocent on both sides . . . but as long as terrorists are prepared to slaughter innocent people in Israel, they are effectively bringing this down on their own innocent people's heads in Gaza, because Israel cannot - dare not - not respond to terrorism.

Peter


9 comments:

  1. Course if the "Innocent" did not chose to live with the killers threatening Israel there would not be a problem.

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    Replies
    1. The level of choice the Gazans have is...debatable...as emigration is rather difficult because no one wants them.

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  2. Come back quickly, Lord Jesus! Nevertheless, Thy will be done.

    Stefan v.

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  3. Analysis paralysis at gigabit speed. The dart method might have redeeming qualities in the final analysis.

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  4. Sounds like an insoluble problem.

    Maybe the Israeli's should just default to the British and US WW2 Dresden methodology. That ought to shut up at least those two critics.

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  5. "emigration is rather difficult because no one wants them"

    Gee, I wonder if there's a reason for that....

    I'm pretty well convinced that there are no innocents in Gaza. The vast majority support Hamas and a significant number were dancing in the streets and helping desecrate bodies after October 7.

    If anything, I think Israel is wasting too much time and energy on appeasing the world in trying to spare "civilians" in this conflict.

    Don't want to get bombed to smithereens? Don't support the terrorist "government" that violated a cease fire and brutally attacked a powerful neighbor without provocation...oh...and refusing to allow them to use you as a human shield would also be a good pro-tip.

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  6. I wonder what would be the response of those "civilians" if Israel publicly announced that they were in talks with the US about the possibility of renting the B-52 conventional bomb fleet for a month? "Linebacker III" has a nice ring to it.

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  7. In a sad way it's a little like the ongoing total failure in the US to comprehend that most of the black on black killing and wild shooting is a result of total gang dominance. Suburbanites just think it's just poor impulse control. In Gaza to defy the rulers is to die and when you die so does your family. It's not hard to see why terrorists flourish there. I just don't know of any way on Earth to end the killing. This is almost a text book case for genocide. Most people around here think the Jews are too squeamish for it but if you look deeply into the matter what other realistic options are there? You could bleat about relocating a population but short of the genocide it's not going to happen for obvious reasons. It is endless war. I marvel that none of the liberal media ever delve into why the other arab and muslim world will not step in or offer refuge to the gazans. We know why but we're always surprised by how dim the liberal mind is.

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  8. "In Gaza to defy the rulers is to die and when you die so does your family."

    I don't buy that as an excuse. They were forced to come out of their homes, dance in the streets and desecrate the bodies under threat of death? I don't think so.

    They are forced to express support for Hamas in anonymous polls? I don't think so.

    Not to mention the fact that Hamas originally gained power by being voted for by the people of Gaza.

    A people always gets the government it deserves.

    And by extension, they deserve the consequences of actions taken by that government.

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