First Engagement
Henry Kim ·
To be honest, I briefly debated whether it was appropriate to write this post. It might feel irreverent to discuss AI in the context of war. However, turning a blind eye to what has already occurred won't make it vanish. On February 28th, a joint US-Israeli operation began. Nearly 900 strikes in the first 12 hours. Military experts already know what enabled this unprecedented operational speed: AI. The US military utilized Claude for intelligence analysis and target selection in this operation, while the Israeli military's AI targeting system, 'Habsora,' generated target candidates that would take humans days to process, in just a few hours. In military terms, this is 'shortening the kill chain.' As the time to decision is compressed, the room for human judgment also shrinks. I consider this AI's true first operational deployment. Do you think this is an exaggeration? Nuclear weapons, too, were initially laboratory theories. The Manhattan Project was completed amidst the urgency of war, and Hiroshima was the first reality of its outcome. War has always been technology's most extreme laboratory. Humanity's choice to stop at nothing has consistently pushed the boundaries of technology at the fastest pace. AI now stands at that very point. In peacetime, we engage in endless debates about AI's potential. We discuss regulations, ethics, and limitations. However, within the crucible of war, all those discussions are pushed aside. Only one question remains: does it work, or does it not? And right now, AI is working. This Iran war provides us with a benchmark: that AI has begun to intervene in the realm of life-and-death decisions, beyond mere information analysis. We are now witnessing the first real-world data on how far this can expand. It is heartbreaking that this data is being collected at such a high cost. I sincerely hope the war ends quickly. I truly wish for no further casualties. At the same time, we who live in this era must not look away from this moment, when AI is being proven in real-world combat for the first time. And the fact that we must all collectively bear the question of how this technology should be used. Thoughts from skaia.ca/blog