Online Intelligence Dashboards (Aka, More AI Slop?)
According to Tech Review, a number of different "dashboard" websites have popped up recently, displaying a variety of data sources related to the current war in Iran. They are meant to mimic the sorts of dashboard displays used by governments...but these have been "vibe coded" and don't have traceable sources of data. As well as being entertaining, it seems that these are often tied to gambling on various war-related topics. Story at https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/03/09/1134063/how-ai-is-turning-the-iran-conflict-into-theater/ or if paywalled, try https://archive.ph/G0zut
AI-enabled dashboards, combined with prediction markets and fake imagery, are reshaping how war is observed.
[...]As a journalist, I believe these sorts of intelligence tools have a lot of promise. While many of us know that real-time data on shipping routes or power outages exist, it's a powerful thing to actually see it all assembled in one place (though using it to watch a war unfold while you munch on popcorn and place bets turns the war into perverse entertainment). But there are real reasons to think that these sorts of raw data feeds are not as informative as they may feel.
Craig Silverman, a digital investigations expert who teaches investigative techniques, has been keeping a log of these dashboards (he's up to 20). "The concern," he says, "is there's an illusion of being on top of things and being in control, where all you're really doing is just pulling in a ton of signals and not necessarily understanding what you're seeing, or being able to pull out true insights from it." [Silverman page, debunking many things, https://x.com/CraigSilverman ]
One problem has to do with the quality of the information. Many dashboards feature "intel feeds" with AI-generated summaries of complex, ever-changing news events. These can introduce inaccuracies. By design, the data is not especially curated. Instead, the feeds just display everything at once, with a map of strike locations in Iran next to the prices of obscure cryptocurrencies.
Anyone here tried one of these sites? I suspect you need a big monitor...
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.