The disruption and creative friction brought about by the Gaza war, while terrible in the amount of death and destruction, has led to tremendous new digital advances, IDF Brig.-Gen. Yael Grossman, commander of the C4I Branch’s Lotem Technological Unit, said Monday.
Speaking at the Artificial Intelligence Day Conference at Tel Aviv University, she emphasized how AI has helped the IDF manage its firepower and force distribution at completely new levels.
After Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021, top defense officials labeled it as the “first artificial intelligence war” due to the significant progress made in using AI-directed firepower.
Yet even those advances, which barely used ground troops, paled in comparison with the use of AI in the current war, involving a four-month invasion of Gaza so far, with multiple full-fledged divisions that are coordinated with artillery, tanks, aircrafts, drones, and the navy.
Managing the war from afar
The Lotem Technology Division is the army’s largest software house and is responsible for increasing the IDF’s ability to streamline resources, cut through red tape, and improve services for recruits and career officers.Grossman said now more than ever, she and other officers can manage the war from their secure cellphones and the IDF’s privately built clouds.
The Lotem commander said her staff has created special spin-off clouds just for the current war to handle the immense amounts of new data constantly streaming in from the various fronts. These spin-off cloud factories have separate sections for audio material, texts, videos, and images, she said.
Previously, IDF Col. “S” said the new speed of digital targeting had crossed a threshold where the military can now add new targets in real time faster than it disposes of old ones.
In contrast, before this revolution, the IDF had lots of targets to hit in the early hours or days of a conflict, but then it would sometimes run out of updated real-time targets despite having air superiority.
Grossman also discussed the significant advantages for the home front in receiving digital alerts, medical advances, a far more rapid capability to call up reservists, and a more efficient system for identifying fallen soldiers using their fingerprints and dental records.
In addition, she talked about the IDF’s much greater use of digital mapping and Ztube (the IDF’s internal YouTube channel) to follow and share real-time military progress.