VIDEO. "This technology leads to a disempowerment of humans" : a documentary warns of the dangers of using AI in times of war

How far will the artificial intelligence revolution go? Does this technology endanger our freedoms and our democracies? What will the military conflicts of tomorrow look like? So many questions that a documentary entitled China-United States: the AI ​​wardirected by Barbara Stec and Marie Lorand and broadcast Sunday May 31 at 9:05 p.m. on France 5 as part of a special program of “CÂ dans l’air”.

This survey, which takes place against the backdrop of the competition between China and the United States to take first place in the field of AI, takes stock of the various upheavals generated by this new technology in many areas, and exposes the rapidity of its expansion. It also describes how the face of our daily lives and our societies is being reshaped on an economic and political level, but also on a military level, where AI finds a worrying experimental field.

The various conflicts currently shaking the world highlight the omnipresence of artificial intelligence on the battlefields. If the war between Ukraine and Russia is the perfect illustration of this, with, among other things, the massive use of drones, the conflicts led by Israel have also relied, for several years, on AI. In Iran, from the first hours of the American and Israeli offensive, the Iranian supreme guide was killed along with several senior dignitaries of the regime. A demonstration of the effectiveness of this technology.

“We knew, for example, that the Israeli secret services had access to video surveillance in Tehran.”reports Laure de Roucy-Rochegonde, director of the geopolitical technology center of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri). Artificial intelligence, once it has all these video surveillance images, once it has identified license plates corresponding to regime figures, it can suggest moments when it would be relevant to carry out a strike.”

This is not the first time that the Jewish state has used AI to target its enemies. In its war against Hamas in Gaza, in retaliation for the terrorist attacks of October 7, the Israeli army succeeded in locating and eliminating members of the terrorist movement and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad using software called Lavender. This tool was originally used to analyze information collected on the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, thanks to a mass surveillance system. It has in fact taken a prominent place in Israeli military strategy to identify potential targets.

Meron Rapoport, editor-in-chief of the Israeli-Palestinian investigative magazine +972 who testifies in the documentary, investigated the use of this software. “Let’s take the case of person X who the Israeli intelligence services know is from Hamas, explains the Israeli journalist. Thanks to artificial intelligence, they know who this person is meeting, who they are talking to on the phone, who is in their contact list.”

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From ces données, Lavender established the list of this individual’s interlocutors, giving them a score ranging from 1 to 100 which determines their degree of belonging to Hamas. “If it’s a 5 year old child, he will have a low probability, but everyone has a score”specifies Meron Rapoport, who is worried to see the army give such significant decision-making power to a machine.

“L’IA a recensé 37 000 personnes [membres du Hamas], says the journalist. It was decided during the war that for every member of Hamas, even of very low rank, it was acceptable to kill 20 civilians. This decision was made within the army. And if it is a senior Hamas officer (…) this figure can rise to 100, 200, even 300 civilians. This is what led to a significant number of deaths.” According to the Gaza Ministry of Health and Unicef, more than 71,000 people were killed in the Palestinian enclave during this war.

“The problem is not AI itself, but the way it is used, denounces Meron Rapoport. But there is no doubt that the machine plays a primary role in deciding who can be killed.” Letting technology determine where strikes should be directed and limiting military decision-making raises fears of dehumanization of conflicts, an increase in the number of victims and disastrous margins of error, such as during the bombing of a school during the war against Iran.

“Mechanically, this technology leads to a lack of responsibility on the part of humans with regard to possible consequences which are tragic,” deplores journalist Gallagher Fenwick, specialist in international politics, in this investigation. Despite the fears aroused by the use of AI on the battlefields, and the need to dictate rules to regulate it, States are investing massively in this area to serve their military interests, as its performance is formidable, as the documentary shows.

“Before the IDF used this type of artificial intelligence program, they had the capacity to identify around fifty targets per year. And after these programs were used, they communicated on about a hundred targets per day. It’s beyond measure.”, concludes Laure de Roucy-Rochegonde.

The documentary “China-United States: the AI ​​war”, directed by Barbara Stec and Marie Lorand, is broadcast on Sunday May 31 at 9:05 p.m. on France 5 as part of a special program of “C dans l’air”. It is also available on the france.tv platform.