"... Inside Centcom, which conducted the US attack, some personnel relied too much on the artificial intelligence embedded in Maven Smart System, the officials [involved in the Pentagon's internal investigation of the incident] said. Maven, which is made by Palantir Technologies Inc., allows users to view and coordinate complex military operations — from targeting to command and control — using AI-enabled software that fuses more than 150 different data inputs into a coherent set of information to inform commanders’ decisions.

In the past year, the Defense Department has rapidly made Maven a cornerstone of the US military apparatus. Several former senior US military officials now work for Palantir, including some with high-level security clearances in Centcom’s Tampa headquarters. Their role is to keep the software functioning inside secure military environments.

Some Centcom personnel expected Maven to flag stale information or inconsistencies in the underlying intelligence assembled for potential targets, the officials said. It’s not clear why they had such expectations. ...

... On March 12, more than 120 Democrats in the US House wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asking about the Minab school strike and the role that artificial intelligence, including Maven Smart System, played in identifying the site as a target. The Pentagon hasn’t responded publicly to such questions, citing the ongoing investigation.

Some of Hegseth’s advisers have expressed concern that political scrutiny of Maven could disrupt the benefits they anticipate from its further adoption, according to officials involved in the probe. ...