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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

#351
post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to FANG companies not realy

CoL and benefits need to be figured into your assertion

Yes right trouble is this is often used by hr to try and explain why they don't pay market rate.

Doesn't really explain why google pays less in London UK for that google does in low col states in the states.

And I don't think Lockheed and BAE pay their engineers as much as FANG companies do and they certainly don't out compete on benefits.

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

#352
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US was motivated by ideology. Why was the US an ally of GB/France/etc and not Germany/Italy? Contrary to your belief, greed can be ideological -- striving for global free trade is an example of this.

I'll admit I was modifying what I would have said IRL for this medium. You are absolutely right: one of the most brilliant victories of so-called "neoliberal" capitalism is how it's utterly convinced people that it represents human nature. That it's not ideological. What I meant by my comment was that "saving the world from the evil of global Fascism" was a post-hoc rationalization, not what motivated America to join…

FYI: I said I know why my grandfather fought, NOT WHY his commander in chief ordered him to fight.

That's a big difference, and one you chose not to respect.

His CiC may not have agreed, but my grandfather told me, to my face, that he fought fascism and was proud to do so.

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

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gun…

The gravity of the second amendment isn't arms per se, it's the right to retain enough personal power to repel a dictator from taking over the government and just as importantly, making it so that even if a dictator succeeds, the country will be ungovernable for them.

So we should substitute 'strong cryptography' for 'arms' and see what happens.

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

#354
post #23

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…

It still is. It is not necessary for world peace to help the Pentagon to build better killing machines.

Pentagon and their killing machines is the #1 reason why there’s now peace here in Balkans, for 18 years and counting.

I don’t think people of ex-Yugoslavia would stop killing each other without being forced to.

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

#355
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They have an agenda that is clear but it doesn't mean they should be shutout because the investment they make can help push new ideas forward.

Alternatively, there is an abundance of private sources of funding.

One of the founding principles of American government was the freedom from state surveillance and intrusion into private homes. Nowadays, the federal government of the USA can legally use any technology that is patented, so why should they be allowed to restrict inventors from disclosing or selling IP that inhibits surveillance?

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

#356
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from the other fronts and the destruction of the German infrastructure and blockading supplies to Germany?

I don't imagine they were saints, but statistically they did the heavy lifting there.

Without UK/US, all of Europe would have been in the USSR

It's extremely glib to point out that the Nazi's lost to the Russian winter (let's be frank, Russian weather did more to the Nazi's than Russian soldiers ever could...) without recognizing that:

- Hitler's strategy that lost in Russia was completely predicated on the knowledge of the Western Front. No UK/USA, we may not have had Hitler losing in Russia.

- The USSR would have taken all of Europe had it not been for the USA liberating France and meeting the USSR in Berlin.

Easy to say Russians did the heavy lifting when the truth is that Hitler fucked it all up.

Easy to say that Russians did the work, when the truth is that the reason why France and UK aren't post-communist bloc countries is because of what Americans did.

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

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

does encryption being classified as munitions also put it into second amendment territory? It doesn't much matter. Even if somebody made the case that "crypto is a form of 'Arms', subject to 2A protection," the 2A doesn't grant an unregulated right to own whatever "arms" one chooses. All the rights granted by the Constitution are subject to reasonable regulation. So, Congress could simply legislate a restriction on c…

It could be argued that the 2nd amendment was put in place to ensure a means of the citizenry to overthrow the government (as an absolute check on an unjust government). Unfortunately it's now just a vestige of an older time and the 2nd amendment only serves to protect the rights of gun hobbyists. The guns that a person are allowed to bear are nowhere near sufficient to take on the US military, and the modern arms su…

> The guns that a person are allowed to bear are nowhere near sufficient to take on the US military,

I'm tired of reminding HNers about Aghanistan.

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

#359

On one hand, I reluctantly appreciate Trump's election because it will force silicon valley to think many times before readily giving up user privacy to the US government. I felt like the attitude was very lax under Obama (despite the Snowden revelations). On the other hand, this bothers me a bit because it continues to allow people in the valley to maintain a (sorry to use this word) delusion that what they are doin…

> allow people in the valley to maintain a (sorry to use this word) delusion that what they are doing is "moral" People refusing to work on military technology isn't "appearing moral". It's just "moral", at least if you consider war to be generally amoral. People here and elsewhere have been throwing the term "virtue signalling" around a lot in the last year or so. This is a perfect counterexample: Google employees s…

Right, it's reminiscent of decrying "virtue signaling" as if there is anything bad with doing something because it's virtuous

We shouldn't make fun of people because they "do the right thing". That sounds like something Facebook would do

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