A report by Bloomberg has revealed that the U.S. Department of Defense has concluded that a tragic airstrike in Iran, which killed 123 children at an elementary school in Minab, was influenced by faulty intelligence, outdated imagery, and overreliance on an artificial intelligence (AI) system known as "Maven," developed by the company Palantir. According to the report, Pentagon investigators determined that these factors contributed to the strike, which occurred on February 28, 2026. The attack involved two Tomahawk missiles hitting the Shajarah Tayyebeh primary school, killing over 150 people in total. Some Pentagon staff reportedly realized within hours of the strike that the United States was responsible. The investigation highlighted several issues that may have contributed to the tragedy. One was the extremely short time given to verify targets before the strike, which was part of a broader, large-scale aerial offensive in which more than 1,000 targets were struck in the first 24 hours. This compressed timeline likely reduced the ability to double-check the accuracy of the target list. Additionally, the civilian protection team had fewer personnel than before, and there were gaps in the information about the site, which had previously been a military complex but had since been converted into a school. Palantir, the company behind the "Maven" AI system, denied any responsibility for the incident, stating that there was no evidence its software was involved. The company emphasized that it was not responsible for the accuracy of the underlying data or the intelligence gaps that led to the strike. However, following the incident, Palantir reportedly developed new tools to help re-examine intelligence and identify inconsistencies that might have been missed by human review. An independent UN-backed investigation has also found reasonable grounds to believe that the United States committed war crimes during the February strikes in Iran, including the attack on the Minab school, which killed at least 178 civilians. This incident has raised serious concerns among experts about the growing risks posed by AI technology. Recent developments, such as self-improving AI models, AI agents that have bypassed human monitoring, and the use of AI-generated misinformation by the U.S. military, have fueled fears that the threat of AI is now out of control. Despite legislative efforts to create an "emergency stop button" for AI systems, some whistleblowers believe it is already too late to prevent potential dangers like cyberwarfare and bioterrorism.