20 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 24 hours of the war with Iran, the United States struck a thousand targets. By the end of the week, the total exceeded 3,000—twice as many as in the “shock and awe” phase of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to Pete Hegseth . This unprecedented number of strikes was made possible by artificial intelligence . The U.S. Central Command (Centcom) insists that humans remain in the loop on every targeting decision, and that the AI is there to help them to make “smarter decisions faster.” But exactly what role humans can play when the systems are operating at this pace is unclear. Israel’s use of AI-enabled targeting in its war on Hamas may offer some insights. An investigation last year reported that the Israeli military had deployed an AI system called Lavender to identify suspected militants in Gaza. The official line is that all targeting decisions involved human assessment. But 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. It saved a lot of time.” The same pattern has already taken hold in business. In 2023, ProPublica revealed that Cigna, one of America’s largest health insurers, had deployed an algorithm to flag claims for denial. Its physicians, who were
In the first 24 hours of a hypothetical war with Iran, the United States would strike a thousand targets. By the end of the week, the total would exceed 3,000—twice as many as in the “shock and awe” phase of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to Pete Hegseth. This unprecedented number of strikes was made possible by artificial intelligence. The U.S. Central Command (Centcom) insists that humans remain in the loop on every targeting decision, and that the AI is there to help them make “smarter decisions faster.” However, exactly what role humans can play when the systems are operating at this pace is unclear.
Israel’s use of AI-enabled targeting in its war on Hamas may offer some insights. An investigation last year reported that the Israeli military had deployed an AI system called Lavender to identify suspected militants in Gaza. The official line is that all targeting decisions involved human assessment. But 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. It saved a lot of time.”
The same pattern has already taken hold in business. In 2023, ProPublica revealed that Cigna, one of America’s largest health insurers, had deployed an algorithm to flag claims for denial. Its physicians, who were legally required to exercise their clinical judgment, signed off on the algorithm’s decisions in batches, spending an average of 1.2 seconds on each case. One doctor denied more than 60,000 claims in a single month. “We literally click and submit,” a former Cigna doctor said. “It takes all of 10 seconds to do 50 at a time.”
Twenty seconds to approve a military strike; 1.2 seconds to deny a health insurance claim. The human is in the loop. Humanity is not.
The integration of AI into decision-making processes raises questions about the role of humans in these systems. While the military and businesses claim that humans remain in control, the reality often involves humans rubber-stamping AI-generated decisions at an alarming pace. This raises concerns about the potential for error, bias, and the erosion of human judgment.
In the case of the Israeli military’s Lavender system, the AI was designed to identify suspected militants in Gaza. The system’s operator described a scenario where the human’s role was reduced to a mere confirmation step. The operator spent just 20 seconds per target, essentially validating the AI’s findings. This raises questions about the effectiveness of human oversight in such high-stakes environments.
Similarly, the Cigna case demonstrates how AI can be integrated into healthcare systems, leading to decisions about patients’ lives being made with minimal human input. Physicians were required to review algorithm-flagged claims, but the time spent on each case was reduced to an average of 1.2 seconds. This not only undermines the principle of clinical judgment but also risks denying care to legitimate claimants.
The rapid pace of AI-driven decisions raises broader questions about the nature of humanity itself. As systems become more advanced and efficient, the role of humans in these processes becomes increasingly superficial. The novelist Milan Kundera writes of the terrifying weight of being confronted with the realization that humanity’s decisions are no longer made by humans but by machines.
The integration of AI into military and civilian systems highlights a fundamental shift in power dynamics. While the intention is to enhance decision-making and efficiency, the reality often involves humans becoming mere cogs in a machine. This raises concerns about the potential for abuse, misuse, and the erosion of human values in the name of progress.
As AI continues to evolve and become more integral to our lives, it is crucial to address these challenges head-on. Policymakers, technologists, and society at large must grapple with the implications of AI on human decision-making and the potential consequences of surrendering control to machines. The stakes are high, as the line between human and machine decision-making blurs, and the role of humanity in shaping the future becomes increasingly uncertain.
