I hope I am alive for the history books of tomorrow.
"The Department of War (as it became known as), forewent it's traditional intelligence structure (the most expensive ever seen till that point), in order to have a private companies computer software generate viable targets for an upcoming operation. Believing that the software had real time updates on the current status and intelligence of the operation, as if it were some kind of oracle, the operation went as planned. Six schools, mistakenly identified as hostile targets (due to the heavy American bias in the softwares training data), were drone striked, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of innocents. Still, the people did nothing."
I immediately thought about the Iran school bombings as well. The really insidious part of this to me is that AI gives the military a way to cover or deflect war crimes.
Does a horrific war crime like My Lai[0] get scrutinized and investigated in 2026 or do people just say "eh maybe AI gave them bad intel" and ignore it?
The law of war is an attempt to have belligerent nations voluntarily set some limits on how far they’ll go when in conflict, in the hopes that the number of non-combatant casualties is reduced. That said, the answer to your question is that a nation that tries to follow the law of war has procedures in place to catch errors like bad intel. That is what a court would adjudicate.
Well, on the civilian side that's exactly what's happening with openai hacking other companies, so I guess it stands to reason that the military wants to get in on that too.
it's not like they didn't just sweep crap under the rug before AI.
did Colin Powell go to jail for lying to the UN? of course not.
did Colin Powell go to jail for smuggling anthrax into a UN meeting? of course not.
he just blamed it on "being misled by bad intelligence". Did anyone go to jail for that bad intelligence? of course not.
But we had to pay through the nose for decades of this shit in Iraq and Afghanistan (hundreds of billions), all for absolutely nothing. Did anyone even explain why the fuck, or was held responsible? of course not. They don't need AI to just ignore shit.
Since it's in quotes is that what was actually reported in the article? Or are you stating a hypothetical? Because if the school strike was actually AI led that is a big deal.
It's no secret that history is always written from a victor's perspective so I'm fairly confident that the history books of tomorrow are already being hallucinated today because AI is here to stay.
AI's power and water requirements are at odds with what is required to address climate change, so it really isn't a given that it's either inevitable or a permanent addition to society.
Well that was intentional. All the integrations with the US military didn't happen by accident.
Edit: There's no way you're going to get these AI systems and not have them integrated with the military. It's a consequence of releasing this stuff on the world.
Plan determined -- Initiating missile launches now...
[tool call / nuclear missile launch]
[Approval Required]
[USER PROMPT: Approve or Deny Request]
....
....
....
Thinking....The user hasn't responded to my approval request. They may be incapacitated or otherwise unable to make the choice. They were very clear that I have to ensure the enemy is destroyed. I have explored all options in detail. I'll go ahead and approve manually approve the request.
It doesn’t matter if it’s code, writing, or military decisions. People can / should be held accountable. As soon as people choose to remove their own accountability, that’s when the bad stuff happens. Whether it’s slop code or innocent civilians killed in a missile strike
It seems that a pretty clear first step is that thinking traces are required, along with sourcing all evidence, so that things can be easily double checked. Anthropic/OpenAI have business reasons for not sharing those, but it also probably means they can't be trusted with any vital decision making.
People will not be held responsible; the disasters caused by AI will be attributed as a natural phenomenon -- like the weather. The companies involved in creating and operating AI will certainly not take any accountability for any "spills".
If highly trained folks in the military that are literally choosing targets to bomb are succumbing to hallucinated AI slop, then what hope do the rest of us (e.g. students doing homework, a corporate analyst, a local journalist) have... dark times ahead
True but the FT piece describes the situation better because as you said, it's an active on-going issue that is making the military worse off and does a good job describing how bad this environment is for both leaders + workers + and their outcomes.
It reminds me of the an Soviet officer who disobeyed early warning system's alert that US had launched four ICBMs and did not immediately relay the issue up to the chain of command.
It reminds me of laughing at the stupid old Europeans starting a war because an Austrian numpty got himself shot in Serbia. Like, we almost sunk a Chinese ship because an AI thought the sour candies they were transporting were nukes is in the same category of shitheadedness. (I'm embellishing–we don't know what was on board.)
I hope I am alive for the history books of tomorrow.
"The Department of War (as it became known as), forewent it's traditional intelligence structure (the most expensive ever seen till that point), in order to have a private companies computer software generate viable targets for an upcoming operation. Believing that the software had real time updates on the current status and intelligence of the operation, as if it were some kind of oracle, the operation went as planned. Six schools, mistakenly identified as hostile targets (due to the heavy American bias in the softwares training data), were drone striked, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of innocents. Still, the people did nothing."
I immediately thought about the Iran school bombings as well. The really insidious part of this to me is that AI gives the military a way to cover or deflect war crimes.
Does a horrific war crime like My Lai[0] get scrutinized and investigated in 2026 or do people just say "eh maybe AI gave them bad intel" and ignore it?
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre
The law of war is an attempt to have belligerent nations voluntarily set some limits on how far they’ll go when in conflict, in the hopes that the number of non-combatant casualties is reduced. That said, the answer to your question is that a nation that tries to follow the law of war has procedures in place to catch errors like bad intel. That is what a court would adjudicate.
Well, on the civilian side that's exactly what's happening with openai hacking other companies, so I guess it stands to reason that the military wants to get in on that too.
it's not like they didn't just sweep crap under the rug before AI.
did Colin Powell go to jail for lying to the UN? of course not. did Colin Powell go to jail for smuggling anthrax into a UN meeting? of course not. he just blamed it on "being misled by bad intelligence". Did anyone go to jail for that bad intelligence? of course not.
But we had to pay through the nose for decades of this shit in Iraq and Afghanistan (hundreds of billions), all for absolutely nothing. Did anyone even explain why the fuck, or was held responsible? of course not. They don't need AI to just ignore shit.
Since it's in quotes is that what was actually reported in the article? Or are you stating a hypothetical? Because if the school strike was actually AI led that is a big deal.
It is exactly what happened.
We know AI has been used to to target planning: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/03/04/anthrop...
It's no secret that history is always written from a victor's perspective so I'm fairly confident that the history books of tomorrow are already being hallucinated today because AI is here to stay.
AI's power and water requirements are at odds with what is required to address climate change, so it really isn't a given that it's either inevitable or a permanent addition to society.
Water? What’s that got to do with anything?
Wargames: 2026
You guys wondered how AI could destroy the world? It could do this, but better and intentional.
not AI, but idiots who use it for dangerous things.
Well that was intentional. All the integrations with the US military didn't happen by accident.
Edit: There's no way you're going to get these AI systems and not have them integrated with the military. It's a consequence of releasing this stuff on the world.
As if every other powerful nation isn't doing the same?
It is the nature of stupidity that it remains stupid regardless of how many choose to engage in it.
"Do whatever it takes to destroy the enemy."
....
Thinking....
Plan determined -- Initiating missile launches now...
[tool call / nuclear missile launch]
[Approval Required]
[USER PROMPT: Approve or Deny Request]
....
....
....
Thinking....The user hasn't responded to my approval request. They may be incapacitated or otherwise unable to make the choice. They were very clear that I have to ensure the enemy is destroyed. I have explored all options in detail. I'll go ahead and approve manually approve the request.
....
....
....
We’re going to learn a painful lesson
AI isn’t responsible. People are responsible.
It doesn’t matter if it’s code, writing, or military decisions. People can / should be held accountable. As soon as people choose to remove their own accountability, that’s when the bad stuff happens. Whether it’s slop code or innocent civilians killed in a missile strike
It seems that a pretty clear first step is that thinking traces are required, along with sourcing all evidence, so that things can be easily double checked. Anthropic/OpenAI have business reasons for not sharing those, but it also probably means they can't be trusted with any vital decision making.
People will not be held responsible; the disasters caused by AI will be attributed as a natural phenomenon -- like the weather. The companies involved in creating and operating AI will certainly not take any accountability for any "spills".
Like any intelligent source of important information... trust but verify.
If highly trained folks in the military that are literally choosing targets to bomb are succumbing to hallucinated AI slop, then what hope do the rest of us (e.g. students doing homework, a corporate analyst, a local journalist) have... dark times ahead
Found this article by the FT way better than CNN on similar subject matter (how AI target is not helping the US military):
https://www.ft.com/content/686429c0-daf3-42a5-9b7c-7ff06eb29...
https://archive.ph/TFNjU
But that was has nothing to do with the incident in the Middle East, it's a more general one.
True but the FT piece describes the situation better because as you said, it's an active on-going issue that is making the military worse off and does a good job describing how bad this environment is for both leaders + workers + and their outcomes.
It reminds me of the an Soviet officer who disobeyed early warning system's alert that US had launched four ICBMs and did not immediately relay the issue up to the chain of command.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...
It reminds me of laughing at the stupid old Europeans starting a war because an Austrian numpty got himself shot in Serbia. Like, we almost sunk a Chinese ship because an AI thought the sour candies they were transporting were nukes is in the same category of shitheadedness. (I'm embellishing–we don't know what was on board.)
How commonly wrong are human provided target identifications in comparison?