Years ago, in my talks about future AI risks, I explained how satellites and fax machines by 1960s had become essential technology in the success of U.S. Army special force operations in Africa.

Rescue teams gathered an accurate record of building footprints in order to prepare raids and make quick work of kidnappers.

A new Google blog post about their use of AI reminded me of it.

An accurate record of building footprints is important for a range of applications, from population estimation and urban planning to humanitarian response and environmental science. After a disaster, such as a flood or an earthquake, authorities need to estimate how many households have been affected. Ideally there would be up-to-date census information for this, but in practice such records may be out of date or unavailable. Instead, data on the locations and density of buildings can be a valuable alternative source of information.

I see only a very subtle nod to the “humanitarian response” elephant in the room.

Here’s an example from “In the Shadows… Intelligence Corps”

Another time I mentioned briefly how quickly deflating cost of spatial intelligence feeds into asymmetric conflict.

One of the more interesting aspects of this new Google post is something I highlighted as far back as my 2016 talks, which is that AI engineers do not think about African geography when they develop “recognition” systems (I easily broke a Cambridge “driverless” system claiming 90% accuracy by running it on scenery from Botswana, where it immediately failed).

…taking into account confounding characteristics of different areas across the African continent. In rural areas, for example, it was necessary to identify different types of dwelling places and to disambiguate them from natural features, while in urban areas we needed to develop labelling policies for dense and contiguous structures.

It begs the question whether someone associated with military intelligence or special operations poked Google for help on a “humanitarian” mission by providing accurate footprints… in Africa. Or maybe even Google hired a spy to their dubiously funded massively expanding engineering teams.

I mean remember how Twitter engineers had been taking money from the Saudi government for access before the new CEO made it into an official strategy?

The war on science is in full swing as evidenced by a clueless crackpot clown who managed to get his insecurity promoted by Netflix.

Unavoidable problems in his script were easily picked apart by experts, who also posed the question how someone so obviously wrong could be spread by Netflix.

Most glaring to scholars investigating the history of Hancock’s pseudoarchaeology is that while claiming to “overthrow the paradigm of history,” he doesn’t acknowledge that his overarching theory is not new.

Scholars and journalists have pointed out that Hancock’s ideas recycle the long since discredited conclusions drawn by U.S. Congressman Ignatius Donnelly in his book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, published in 1882.

That’s a pretty damning blow, which should crush the bogus anti-science mysticism…again.

The problem however is that the mysticism is propaganda meant to be a gateway to violent hate crimes.

Like many forms of pseudoarchaeology, these claims act to reinforce white supremacist ideas, stripping Indigenous people of their rich heritage and instead giving credit to aliens or White people. […] This sort of “race science” is outdated and has long since been debunked, especially given the strong links between Atlantis and Aryans proposed by several Nazi “archaeologists.”

Factually debunking weaponized white grievance propaganda pushed by Netflix is unlikely to be enough to stop expansion of dangerous terrorist cells now who already cared not a whit about truth — trying to feed them science could backfire.

Netflix should have known better than to fertilize Nazis with this, as the damage and cleanup will be very expensive.

I’ve written before here (back in 2008!) that people consuming poisonous conspiracy may become more devout and extreme if a scientist dares to directly challenge such beliefs.

The easiest option now may be for Netflix to retract the show, explicitly condemn it, air a science-based refutation without promoting directly or as a response (send it to people who didn’t watch the hate propaganda yet)… and then donate all related proceeds to anti-hate organizations that help track the consequences of this hateful propagandist being aired.

Perhaps that doesn’t sound easy, but the alternative is much harder as the Hearst network realized watching Kristallnacht in 1938 after they had been promoting Hitler in the years prior.

Con artists like this attacking institutions are extremely dangerous when left unchallenged, especially ones like Elon Musk who attack institutions from within.