The 11-day flare-up between Israel and Hamas was dubbed the “first AI war” by Israel’s military, which bragged about using advanced computing technologies to sift through the staggering amount of intelligence it collects on Gaza.
“For the first time, artificial intelligence (AI) was a key component and power multiplier in fighting the enemy,” a senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Intelligence Corps said, as cited by Israeli media.
1st "AI War"? The fact that this piece does not mention even 1 incident where AI-enabled decision-support systems or other systems using machine learning algorithms were wrong/made mistakes makes me very skeptical of overall claims in this piece.
— Franz-Stefan Gady (@HoansSolo) May 27, 2021
https://t.co/0pjSJFDBym
The elite intelligence Unit 8200 used programs called “Alchemist,” “Gospel” and “Depth of Wisdom,” to further boost an already overwhelming superiority that IDF has over militants in the blockaded Gaza enclave. AI-powered analysis was applied to vast amounts of data collected through satellite imaging, surveillance cameras, interception of communications and human intelligence, according to the Israeli military.
The volume of intelligence was staggering. The IDF said, for example, that any given point in Gaza was imaged at least 10 times each day during the conflict. The military appears to be happy with what it got out of the algorithms.
The “Gospel” program, for example, flagged in real time hundreds of targets for the Israeli Air Force to strike, while the “Alchemist” system warned Israeli troops of possible attacks on their positions, according to the reports.
