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Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

nytimes.com

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Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#51

Post by mankash666 »

Well then, Google employees should start with moving out of the US. Because, they seem to benefit and enjoy the safety and security provided to them by the Pentagon.

Grow the fuck up - part of living in a democracy is tolerating the implementation of measures one disagrees with. Republicans might oppose birth control, but companies continue to support it in their health plans. Likewise, a state of the art offensive military is democratically wanted in the US, state your disagreement and tolerate it's implementation

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#52

Post by geofft »

criley2 wrote: post #28
robert_foss wrote: post #22

As an engineer I have serious moral qualms about furthering the goals of any military. Contributing means being complicit. The fact that the military funds research doesn't change that.

As an engineer I have serious moral qualms about not furthering the goals of our military. After all, I would not be here, and my job would not exist, and the freedom I have to do this work would not exist, if soldiers like my grandfather hadn't stepped up to Hitler and Stalin and Mao and say "No, you're wrong, and we're willing to use violence to protect our way of life". Just my 2c but I definitely respect the ulti…

Without defending the morality of the Hitler/Stalin/Mao governments (or of the US government), it's very much worth noting that scientific researched flourished in the USSR and technological research continues to flourish in China. A lot of discoveries in computer science had roughly simultaneous Soviet / US discovery (the Cook-Levin theorem is a good example). There are a huge number of technology companies in China, and all your chips come from there anyway.

So if your goal is "I should further the goals of a military because it provides room for the sort of work I enjoy" and not "I should further the goals of a military because the military does good things," it is not at all clear that backing the US military over those of the USSR and China is the right option.

It is also worth remembering that plenty of people the US killed could have had grandchildren who wanted to work in these same fields.

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#53

Post by adamsea »

galieos_ghost wrote: post #41
mrybczyn wrote: post #5

Google+Alphabet yearly revenues are in the same ballpark as South Africa's GDP. Google/Alphabet is already a country in its own right, and libertarians would already be sceptical of Google's role in society. This is just another step down a long road of Technocracy... Also, wasn't "Don't be evil" dropped as a motto? I thought I read that.

Do you consider all the great scientists who helped the US military during WWII evil? Would you have preferred they sat on the sideline for moral reasons and allowed Germany to win?

Sorry, which war are we fighting now, and against whom?

There’s a vaguesly worded Authorization of Use of Military Force, I think, from post 9/11, but, last I checked the US hasn’t declared war on anyone.

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#54

Post by galieos_ghost »

zython wrote: post #36
rahulmehta95 wrote: post #14

This may be an uncomfortable fact but people have surprisingly short memories: the military funded the majority of the early advances in systems, networking, and cryptography (and especially as a large part of the latter subject area, invested heavily in fundamental, theoretical research). Not saying that I disagree with the employees' opinion, just that DoD/Pentagon involvement in artificial intelligence research sh…

there is no inherent reason that these technologies need to be developed by the military, they could just as well be developed for civilian use when given the funding. also it is not surprising that these things are invented by the dod when you're spending ~600-700 bilion a year on warfare and intelligence operations. That last sentence of yours rubs me kinda the wrong way; that is a dangerious premise that could set…

China is currently heavily funding genetically engineering geniuses and AI. The US can either wake up or sit around and wait to be subjugated via an autonomous drone swarm developed by 250IQ Chinese scientists

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#55

Post by mieseratte »

robert_foss wrote: post #22

As an engineer I have serious moral qualms about furthering the goals of any military. Contributing means being complicit. The fact that the military funds research doesn't change that.

That these Google engineers support a global surveillance network that stalks and spies on everyone while taking a moral stances against military projects is truly laughable.

Keeping "free" nations safe and prosperous is as fine a goal as any.

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#56

Post by DannyBee »

nharada wrote: post #27
sqdbps wrote: post #2

"As Google defends its contracts from internal dissent, its competitors have not been shy about publicizing their own work on defense projects. Amazon touts its image recognition work with the Department of Defense, and Microsoft has promoted the fact that its cloud technology won a contract to handle classified information for every branch of the military and defense agencies." Google should stop hiring activists an…

It makes you an activist to not want to work on certain projects because you disagree with them?

This actually has a simple definitional answer:

If your goal in not working on them is to bring about political or social change as a result, then you are, by definition, an activist.

If not, no :)

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#57

Post by jbob2000 »

danesparza wrote: post #31
rahulmehta95 wrote: post #14

This may be an uncomfortable fact but people have surprisingly short memories: the military funded the majority of the early advances in systems, networking, and cryptography (and especially as a large part of the latter subject area, invested heavily in fundamental, theoretical research). Not saying that I disagree with the employees' opinion, just that DoD/Pentagon involvement in artificial intelligence research sh…

My memory isn't short. You made a point of talking about cryptography. The US government also classified crypto as munitions in order to control its usage and export: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th... This had very negative effects on cryptography in general (see the FREAK exploit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FREAK ) Also, why wouldn't this be employed to better monitor Stingray ( http…

Oh man, is this why I have to complete all this encryption and export compliance bullcrap every time I have an iOS release?

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#58

Post by chiefalchemist »

tclancy wrote: post #34
criley2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an engineer I have serious moral qualms about not furthering the goals of our military. After all, I would not be here, and my job would not exist, and the freedom I have to do this work would not exist, if soldiers like my grandfather hadn't stepped up to Hitler and Stalin and Mao and say "No, you're wrong, and we're willing to use violence to protect our way of life". Just my 2c but I definitely respect the ulti…

That's a fair point but it also treats life as a zero sum game that's played in a steady-state arena where the threat of Tartars over the next hill is ever present. That's a good way to prevent progress and to defend yourself perfectly against the Last War but one would think the last 30 years of terrorism would have shown us the flaw in that. Put another way: who benefits from $Giant_New_Military_Platform like new f…

Agree. And to that I'll add, it was an ex general and ex POTUS who coined the term (or at least etched it into history):

Military Industrial Complex

Yet most act like that "friendly reminder" never happened. The collective memory is in fact short.

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#59

Post by mtgx »

danesparza wrote: post #31
rahulmehta95 wrote: post #14

This may be an uncomfortable fact but people have surprisingly short memories: the military funded the majority of the early advances in systems, networking, and cryptography (and especially as a large part of the latter subject area, invested heavily in fundamental, theoretical research). Not saying that I disagree with the employees' opinion, just that DoD/Pentagon involvement in artificial intelligence research sh…

My memory isn't short. You made a point of talking about cryptography. The US government also classified crypto as munitions in order to control its usage and export: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th... This had very negative effects on cryptography in general (see the FREAK exploit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FREAK ) Also, why wouldn't this be employed to better monitor Stingray ( http…

We also know that independent researchers often invented new cryptographic techniques in parallel with the military.

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#60

Post by Eridrus »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #45

While I appreciate the engineers speaking out, it isn't really practical for a company the size of Google, with the resources it has, to not have programs that work with the military in one form or another. If, as an engineer, it is against your moral code to do any work that supports the military, your choices are limited to working in small companies where everyone is focused on the commercial products and services…

> While I appreciate the engineers speaking out, it isn't really practical for a company the size of Google, with the resources it has, to not have programs that work with the military in one form or another.

This is nonsense, Google has plenty of revenue and other non-defense avenues for growth.

Companies are not beholden to chase every last dollar, especially if it could alienate their workforce.

I don't have the same anti-defense leanings as others around here, but to say Google has no choice is ridiculous.

Google probably couldn't (and shouldn't IMO) stop the DoD using Android phones if they want to, but they can certainly refuse to work with the defense sector.

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