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In the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, airstrikes hit an elementary school in Iran, killing at least 175, most of them children. According to the Pentagon’s preliminary report, the United States is responsible. It’s far from the first time U.S. forces mistakenly hit a purely civilian target and killed innocents. But unlike erroneous civilian killings in previous wars, this one may have involved artificial intelligence—which makes it much harder to work out what went wrong.

In one of the worst incidents of the war on terror, a drone strike hit a wedding procession in Yemen in 2013, killing at least 12. In another, a strike during the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 killed 10 civilians, most of them children. Subsequent analyses concluded that the drone operators believed they were shooting at military targets.

In the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, airstrikes hit an elementary school in Iran, killing at least 175, most of them children. According to the Pentagon’s preliminary report, the United States is responsible. It’s far from the first time U.S. forces mistakenly hit a purely civilian target and killed innocents. But unlike erroneous civilian killings in previous wars, this one may have involved artificial intelligence—which makes it much harder to work out what went wrong.

In one of the worst incidents of the war on terror, a drone strike hit a wedding procession in Yemen in 2013, killing at least 12. In another, a strike during the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 killed 10 civilians, most of them children. Subsequent analyses concluded that the drone operators believed they were shooting at military targets.

Like those attacks, bombing the school in Iran was presumably a mistake. The missiles are accurate, and there’s no indication they flew off course, but that doesn’t mean the U.S. set out to hit a target with no military value. There’s no strategic gain, and considerable strategic risk, since high-profile killings of innocents can reduce support for a war effort. U.S. forces hit what they aimed at, but they likely didn’t think they were aiming at civilians.

This time, AI may have played a role, perhaps relying on old........

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