The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or 4IR, is changing how wars are fought. New technology brings with it new ways of killing. The industrialisation prior to World War I saw the mass production of shells and machine guns and the development of chemical weapons.

Technological innovation combined with industrialisation has consistently increased the efficiency and creativity of killing. 

Now, digital technology, automation, and AI are increasing the possibilities of remote killing, such as drone warfare, and adding to the dehumanisation of conflict. Victims are reduced to blips on a screen.

Gaza as a laboratory

In the age of 4IR, artificial intelligence (AI) victims that might have been blips on a screen are further dehumanised as mere numbers in a spreadsheet, an outcome of a machine learning model that has decided based on past data that this person, on the basis of probability, deserves to die.

In Gaza, we are watching the world’s first AI-assisted genocide. Analysis: Israel’s AI-based ‘Lavender’ system can generate thousands of targets in seconds, reducing Palestinian lives to data points by Marc Owen Jones, The New Arab, April 10, 2024