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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

#161

Post by frostwhale »

confounded wrote: post #155
nyxtom wrote: post #75

I for one would rather have a drone strike program that actually actively avoids civilian casualties as much as possible. There are certainly gray areas here as far as the use of that program from a political standpoint (whether the strikes are warranted or whether it is part of regime changes). On the other hand, by not helping the military become more efficient we also risk losing existing lives (our own and civili…

> I for one would rather have a drone strike program that actually actively avoids civilian casualties as much as possible. Then “AI” should be the least of your worries. Not everything is a software problem.

I believe that is the point of his comment.

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

#162

Post by sremani »

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.

Complicit of what?

These smug generalizations, if you did not vote for X, you are racist! If you are not for A, you are for Genocide! are not going to win you over people that are not already in your camp.

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

#163

Post by frostwhale »

evmar wrote: post #82

I heard an interesting view on this. Engineers build technologies like TensorFlow and demos of object recognition, which have obvious applications in drone combat (just stuff your model into the missile targeting system). Yet then when this tech is used for this purpose they're shocked, shocked -- and as long as they're not specifically building the missile targeting systems themselves they feel like their hands are…

It's nothing more than an attempt for Silicon Valley to pretend that they're a bastion of pure innovation, where all advancements are only for good. It's naive and extremely holier-than-thou.

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

#164

Post by GordonS »

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…

Sorry, but there is an enormous difference between WWII and the terrible actions of the US military since then.

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

#166

Post by jsperson »

goatlover wrote: post #105
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…

They didn't step up to Stalin and Mao. Hitler was because of alliance with Britain and the Japanese attack, not because of how awful the Nazis regime was. The US for the most part didn't want to get dragged back into another European conflict. Hitler was bad, yes. But what happened in Germany was rooted in the outcome of WW1, which was rooted in all the alliances and what not proceeding it, which was rooting in yet p…

Of course they did. It wasn't always open warfare nor does it have to be. The simple fact that the United States and her allies had a large capable military fixed a line on the map that held for 50 years until the Soviet block self-destructed. As for Mao, I'm pretty sure that having the US as a buddy kept Taiwan free as well as secured South Korea and provided a lot of security to Japan and the Philippines. The UK did the same for Hong Kong.

It's not correct to say that we have to attack a country/dictator in order to stand up to them.

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

#169

Post by richmarr »

zaroth wrote: post #141

It boggles my mind, with the current state of affairs, the number of people actively organizing to eliminate or curtail our fundamental human rights. It seems to me that 1st and 2nd amendment rights are both under particularly intense bombardment these days.

I'm not sure if you meant to imply that the 2nd amendment is a fundamental human right but if so I think that's a bit of a stretch.

'Fundamental rights' (under US law) I think is defensible as fundamental is treated as an alias for constitutional so guns are in.

'Fundamental human rights' to me implies broad and fundamental applicability, i.e. the UN declarations and covenants on human rights, which don't iterate guns as a right.

Case in point, when non-US countries talk about human rights, none of them are talking about guns.

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

#170

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

waisbrot wrote: post #76
SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is it simply per se shameful to develop technology for the military, or is there a more nuanced moral argument that this sentiment comes from? Or is there something specific to Google's Maven project that makes it shameful, while other types of military commissioned projects might not be?

Slightly more nuanced. I think there is a clear difference between, say, selling food to the military (the service you provide generally allows the military to run better and the military is frequently responsible for killing people) versus selling bullets to the military (the service you provide allows the military to kill people). Weapons-targeting systems clearly falls into the latter category. I've worked on mili…

Fair points. I think I agree with you that there is a distinction to be made between say, selling food and making bullets - the latter being a direct tool of violence.

Its perfectly reasonable for a person to decide they would rather not spend their short time on earth developing such tools (especially if it would be easy for bad actors to abuse them). I suppose that is the objection many Googlers are making.

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