Al-driven wars: ethical impact of the war on Gaza

Abstract

The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, resulting in another Israel-Hamas war, has escalated geographically, involving regional entities, politically, creating a tense situation in global audiences and technologically, revealing the dynamic nature of modern warfare. There have been many official and backchannel reports of the use of Automated Weapons by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) in their attacks on civilian populated areas. This paper focuses on the use of Artificial Intelligence in the War on Gaza and seeks to reveal the ethical perspective of the use of AI in battlefields. AI-enabled targeting algorithms like ‘Lavender’, ‘Where’s Daddy’ and ‘Gospel’ have reiterated the way surveillance and precision attacks are conducted amidst conflict. This use of technology to induce mass casualties raises strong ethical questions in terms of the rules of war. The use of technology is noted to conduct deep surveillance in civilian populated areas and the reduction of human supervision in the decisionmaking process evidentially has intensified the civilian casualty numbers. The new dynamic of warfare raises a serious question on ethics and the protection of basic human rights of civilians in these warring areas in Palestine. With human lives at stake, we must understand wholly and question whether weaponizing AI to this degree would stop at genocide or whether it will unescapably create worse. This paper will analyze the various reports and news coverage of the war on Gaza since October 7th to show the extent of Artificial Intelligence in this war and its ethical implications. This paper uncovers questions regarding the ethical reality of using such means for war. Wars are inevitable, however, in the 21st century, the weaponization of AI technology has turned warfighting into an inhumanely brutal affair. The paper highlights the ethical implications of the age of new warfare which now transcends to breaking rules of engagement creating grey areas in warfare in the present and into the future.