Twenty seconds to approve a military strike; 1.2 seconds to deny a health insurance claim. The human is in the AI loop. Humanity is not

"In the first twenty-four hours of the war with Iran, the United States struck a thousand targets. By the end of the week, the total exceeded three thousand - twice as many as in the 'shock and awe' phase of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This unprecedented number of strikes was made possible by artificial intelligence."

"According to one of Lavender's operators, as the humans involved came to trust the system, they limited their own checks to nothing more than confirming that the target was a male. 'I would invest 20 seconds for each target,' the operator said. 'I had zero added-value as a human, apart from being a stamp of approval.'"

"In 2023, ProPublica revealed that Cigna had deployed an algorithm to flag claims for denial. Its physicians signed off on the algorithm's decisions in batches, spending an average of 1.2 seconds on each case. 'We literally click and submit,' a former Cigna doctor said. 'It takes all of 10 seconds to do 50 at a time.'"

The United States conducted over three thousand strikes in the first week of its war with Iran, facilitated by artificial intelligence. U.S. Central Command maintains that human oversight is essential in targeting decisions. However, the role of humans becomes questionable as AI operates at high speeds. Israel's use of AI in targeting Hamas shows a similar trend, where operators relied heavily on AI, often limiting their checks. In business, Cigna's algorithm for claim denials illustrates a comparable pattern, with physicians spending minimal time on decisions, raising concerns about the effectiveness of human involvement.

Read at Fast Company