The Israeli case provides the best forensically documented example of this. Lavender, which created lists of targets for Israeli strikes in Gaza, was not a rogue program. It was officially approved, and officers were given the right to kill up to twenty civilians per junior Hamas operative the system flagged. The approval processes were cut down to a few seconds of rubber-stamping, according to 972 Magazine. The humans “in the loop” were simply laundering algorithmic decisions with a veneer of authorization.
Also notable here is the diffusion of this paradigm to client states. The literature on AI warfare focuses disproportionately on the competition between the U.S. and China. What it conceals is the way U.S. and NATO AI doctrine, and its underlying assumptions regarding acceptable civilian casualties, is exported to allied militaries under Foreign Military Sales agreements without the ethical supervision framework that purportedly limits it in the home country.
This is not a complex ethical dilemma. The people who build and operate these systems are responsible primarily. The people who fund and elect them also hold some responsibility. That means that government officials, agency employees, military operatives, and the private technology workers are killers. It also means that voters, to the extent that we have democratic systems, also have culpability for the killing.