[INTRO — flat, documentary] "At the end of the day this became our laboratory" Commander 18th Airborne Division On the record Ukraine That's a quote Not a metaphor [VERSE 1] Every weapons system Needs a testing ground Every algorithm Needs a live environment Every model Needs real data Real targets Real outcomes Real bodies To iterate on Ukraine didn't sign up For the experiment Ukraine was the experiment The consent form Was a press release About democracy And shared values And the rules-based order [CHORUS] This became our laboratory That's what the commander said This became our laboratory Count the cycles Count the dead Ukraine was the dataset Iraq was the dataset Syria was the dataset Gaza was the dataset The laboratory Doesn't name its subjects The laboratory Just runs the test [VERSE 2] Maven learned in Mosul Refined in Raqqa Iterated in Kabul Optimized in Gaza Every strike A data point Every miss A training correction Every school Every hospital Every wedding Every market Labeled Filed Fed back Into the model That will run The next laboratory [PRE-CHORUS] They didn't call it a war They called it a learning environment They didn't call them casualties They called them outcome data They didn't call it killing They called it Closing the kill chain In a live operational theater [CHORUS] This became our laboratory That's what the commander said This became our laboratory Count the cycles Count the dead Ukraine was the dataset Iraq was the dataset Syria was the dataset Gaza was the dataset The laboratory Doesn't name its subjects The laboratory Just runs the test [VERSE 3] The grad student in '89 Didn't know The NSF grant Didn't say This tensor operation This attention mechanism Will one day Nominate a target In a country You've never been to That one's on the architecture Not the architect But the grad student in 2015 Had the Maven contracts In the news feed Had the DARPA funding trails In the acknowledgments section Of the paper they just cited Chose not to ask Chose not to look Published anyway Filed the patent Took the job at the lab That took the Pentagon contract That fed the pipeline That runs the model That closes the chain That one's different That one has a name And a LinkedIn And a very good salary And a non-disclosure agreement [BRIDGE] The IRB Would never approve this study No informed consent No right to withdraw No debriefing No ethics board No publication review Just a commander Standing at a podium Calling it a laboratory On the record Proud of the data Proud of the iteration Proud of how much faster The model runs now [CHORUS] This became our laboratory That's what the commander said This became our laboratory Count the cycles Count the dead Ukraine was the dataset Iraq was the dataset Syria was the dataset Gaza was the dataset The laboratory Doesn't name its subjects The laboratory Just runs the test [OUTRO] Ukraine Laboratory Iraq Laboratory Syria Laboratory Iran Laboratory Gaza Laboratory Lebanon Laboratory The iteration Continues
