This is a real thing, it's why units like Sturmtruppen or special forces units have been successful throughout history - a smaller, better trained and coordinated force is often better than a large, uncoordinated mob. _Especially_ if your force is made up of people willing to do suicide attacks. Or if you goal is not to take and hold territory, but to trade lives for terror and body count.

A wave of 1000 soldiers won't break a trench line, but a squad of infiltrators can sneak in and make entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormtroopers_(Imperial_German...

Or the researcher read what they wanted to into it. It would be interesting to ask them what they did before to learn things, how much they read, etc. If they were illiterate and uneducated, and got voice AI telling them stuff that would be common sense for anyone with a high school education, I can see how it might make them more effective at whatever they do. But I wouldn’t really blame AI in the way that’s implied.

Why is it a strange claim?

> We used to rely on our traditional methods. We sent 200 fighters because we had a lot of strength, but then 60 got killed.

They used to try to overpower people. We have 600 and that guard post has 400. We should be able to win. That type of logic.

> With the help of AI, we learned that it sometimes makes sense to only send 20. We learned more about well-coordinated attacks and deployment of smaller units

Better coordinating the attacks let them use less people and lose less people while still achieving the objective. Also it's possible smaller troop movements are less easily noticeable.

That's just one very reasonable interpretation. Am I missing something?

You send 200 fighters and 60 get killed. In the same situation, if you send 20, what do you expect would happen? (I mean, you won't lose 60...)