Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 1001 posts

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

#451

Post by stevehawk »

magneticnorth wrote: post #186
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, they know few to none of these petitioners will quit. 3,000 petition signatures will do nothing. 3,000 resignations would, but Googlers aren't going to pass up on the high paychecks, three five-star meals a day, and massages in the office based on moral grounds. (In the same vein, Google's NetPAC has been quietly donating the max to Republicans like Paul Ryan and Steve Scalise, while most of their engineers o…

I know at least one Googler who really will quit if Google continues to contribute to drone warfare research. Yes, they like the high paychecks, five-star meals and massages, but the market for ML and AI experts is very strong right now. The high paycheck can be matched elsewhere, and the benefits of not contributing to drone warfare research are worth spending a bit of that money on food and massages. But as I said,…

Since Google isn't going to stop this work, I'd love to hear when this person actually leaves.

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

#452

Post by marnett »

khawkins wrote: post #304
pera wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DoD is not interested in using their budget to reduce their number of civilian "casualties". Their only intention here is to scale up their drone programs.

That doesn't make any sense. If they wanted to scale up the program, they'd use the money to buy more drones and bombs, not invest in better eyes.

why not both?

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

#453

Post by ForHackernews »

thetruthseeker1 wrote: post #331

I also think that disengaging is the wrong approach. Google once disengaged with China because they didn’t agree with China on some freedom of expression laws and all the management now think that it was a bad decision. In similar vein, if you are not part of it, somebody else will shape the outcome of this.. It should be rather you if you really care and could play a role in minimizing the negative impact of such te…

This sounds like some next-level rationalization to me. You can justify anything by theorizing that somebody else will do the same-thing-but-even-worse:

"If we don't employ child labour, somebody else will! It should be us, so we can at least make sure our child-slaves get fed once a day!"

The fact of the matter is that Google has rare talent in AI. There isn't another company with their kind of expertise waiting in line behind them, and even if there were, sometimes you should keep your hands clean.

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

#454

Post by kiliantics »

plandis wrote: post #178
smokeyj wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but maybe that just means I’m just a no-good warmongering fool, right? More specifically, a warmongering fool who can't discern a false dichotomy - because your options in life are rarely ever drones vs more lethal drones. These regions we're using drones in. They could probably use more tools to enable true democratic representation. Isn't that what Google should be doing, given that they "don't do evil"? Building…

Id argue it's not a false dichotomy because drone strikes will go on regardless of what Google does. It's very clear that whatever collateral damage drones currently cause is an acceptable cost to the militaries using them.

> regardless of what Google does

If Google employees wanted to, they could probably put a lot of pressure on the military directly. Imagine Google no longer served ip addresses that belonged to the military unless they ended their drone strikes. Or say they turned off google maps for anyone that is known to work for the military.

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

#455

Post by pera »

khawkins wrote: post #304
pera wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DoD is not interested in using their budget to reduce their number of civilian "casualties". Their only intention here is to scale up their drone programs.

That doesn't make any sense. If they wanted to scale up the program, they'd use the money to buy more drones and bombs, not invest in better eyes.

> buy more drones and bombs

Which is exactly what they have been doing since day one, but to keep growing they need some help to make these robots a bit more autonomous.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/18/life-as-a-dron...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/03/drone-pilots-ar...

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

#456

Post by wilsonnb »

needToSay wrote: post #428
IAmEveryone wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

There's nothing more immoral than working for Google. Stop your bullshit, people working for it are cowards contributing to spy machine.

There are plenty of jobs that are more immoral than working for Google. You don't even have to look outside of the tech field.

I'm sure someone is making a lot of money helping distribute child pornography over the internet. Plenty of tech jobs in human trafficking, too, I would imagine.

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

#457

Post by Tepix »

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…

You must love those weapons from the Slaughterbots video then https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA Do you also love the other implications?

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

#458

Post by GiorgioG »

gfo wrote: post #391
GiorgioG wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only in the USA is it normal to think that people should have the right to kill in self defense. If that's the case, I don't want to live anywhere else. If someone breaks into my home in the middle of the night, they pose a deadly threat to my family. In what country would you not feel the same way? > Even more, many think they should be able to defend themselves from the state. Not all states are benevolent, nor a…

Why must an intruder, who may be there just to steal something and not harm others, immediately have to pay for their actions with their life? Do gun owners truly believe that they can band together and stop the entirety of the United States military anymore? The same people who are large proponents of the 2nd Amendment also seem to encourage a massive defense budget which seems backwards to me.

Because a man's home is his castle.

> Do gun owners truly believe that they can band together and stop the entirety of the United States military anymore?

Nope, some of us citizens believe that the US military ranks will by and large not obey unlawful/unconstitutional orders to attack its own citizenry on our soil. If they choose to do so anyway - good luck, there's more of us than there are of them.

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

#459

Post by oarsinsync »

mr_spothawk wrote: post #278
rdtsc wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends how you look at it. What was the purpose. Presumably after fighting in the Revolutionary War the goal was not to give people hunting privileges, they had something else in mind. From that point of view, maybe RPGs should be allowed, but so should attack helicopters, surveillance capabilities, private spy satellites, etc. > IANAL but I’m pretty sure the second amendment only applies to guns; you can’t walk…

> It depends how you look at it. I recently purchased the Federalist Papers so I could have a better understanding of "how" to read it, what the context was, and what types of discussions to anticipate having with those who'd like to look at it differently

And what have you learned for those of us who haven’t read the federalist papers?

Also, why do they need to be purchased? Isn’t that information in the public domain? Surely enough time has passed and Alexander Hamilton’s family don’t need to continue to profit from it?

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

#460

Post by lliamander »

gfo wrote: post #391
GiorgioG wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only in the USA is it normal to think that people should have the right to kill in self defense. If that's the case, I don't want to live anywhere else. If someone breaks into my home in the middle of the night, they pose a deadly threat to my family. In what country would you not feel the same way? > Even more, many think they should be able to defend themselves from the state. Not all states are benevolent, nor a…

Why must an intruder, who may be there just to steal something and not harm others, immediately have to pay for their actions with their life? Do gun owners truly believe that they can band together and stop the entirety of the United States military anymore? The same people who are large proponents of the 2nd Amendment also seem to encourage a massive defense budget which seems backwards to me.

> Why must an intruder, who may be there just to steal something and not harm others, immediately have to pay for their actions with their life?

The loss of property, and the violation of one's home and sense of security are real harms. But the point is not to make the violator pay, so much as it is to merely prevent an injustice.

And many (I believe most) defensive gun uses involve merely brandishing the weapon. Most people do not relish the thought of taking another's life.

> Do gun owners truly believe that they can band together and stop the entirety of the United States military anymore? The same people who are large proponents of the 2nd Amendment also seem to encourage a massive defense budget which seems backwards to me.

It makes more sense when you realize that there is significant overlap between "gun owners" and "past or present military service".

Post reply on HN