Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

561–570 of 1001 posts

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

#561
> In an interview in November, Mr. Schmidt acknowledged “a general concern in the tech community of somehow the military-industrial complex using their stuff to kill people incorrectly, if you will.” He said he served on the board in part “to at least allow for communications to occur” and suggested that the military would “use this technology to help keep the country safe.”

I have a sneaking suspicion that Mr. Schmidt's views on what constitutes "killing people incorrectly" and what is required to "keep this country safe" both differ fairly significantly from those of the signatories of the letter.

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

#562

> Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project That moment when you realize your mega-corp employer's "culture" is merely just another tool to get your to do their bidding. How do the share holders feel? I'm sure they're betting that almost every employee will stay no matter how their technology is used.

Attractiveness as an employer is among Google's top priorities. If this research is a significant concern to their employees, and starts to have an effect on their image and new recruiting, they are almost certain to drop it, considering it's unlikely to bring in revenue that's significant at Google's size. To put a number on it: I am absolutely certain that Facebook would be willing right now to sacrifice 25% of the…

Given more than 70% of ownership is by investors, I have to disagree. These aren't companies or people interested in Facebook's reputation among employees, they're interested in the stock price.

Yes, it's beneficial to have more talent and better PR if they were to do that - but I'd say it's much easier to spend 1B/yr on positive PR and influencing developers than it is to lose out on 10B in revenue and 4B in profit (based on their 2017 numbers).

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

#563
post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. The concept of natural rights merely means that by our nature we have rights. The schools of thought that led to that identification and to the foundation of the US based on the ideal of a government exclusively tasked with securing these rights goes back at least to the 15th century (Aristotle and other Greek thinkers already were inching towards the idea that there are things that are right to protect i…

> The concept of natural rights merely means that by our nature we have rights. The Greeks may have had a concept of natural rights separate from their being endowed by a Creator, but that is not the same concept of natural rights that John Locke proposed and which inspired the American Founding Fathers, leading to posts from Americans like the one we see above. Advocacy for that school repeatedly cites the existence…

The french rights pronounced by the French Revolution had nothing to do with the idea of a Creator and were very similar in concept with many of the Founding Fathers'. So this does not seem like a reasonable argument to make.

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

#564

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…

I'd argue that fundamental human rights means rights that exist inherently regardless of whether the UN or any given country recognizes them. My feeling is that people have a right to self defense, which would require them to have access to some effective weapon. In theory that could be a club or blade rather than a firearm; however, currently firearms are the only (somewhat) socially acceptable weapon to carry in th…

The second amendment is not there solely for self defense, its main reason is to be there to protect citizens from an overpowered government. The only people trying to pull the 2nd amendment are centrists/liberals (the corporate parties).

Gun rights are a popular idea on the right and the far left. I was surprised to learn Marx's positions on the removal of guns from the working class.

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

#565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we refuse to develop the technology, our enemies will anyway. Imagine a world where Nazi Germany developed nuclear weapons.

Ah yes, the " I have to do evil things because if I didn't, someone else would " argument... Just think about what you wrote: "our enemies". Why do you (whichever country you are from) have enemies in the first place? What did your country do to make others hate it? A lot of people seem to focus on how to defend against "those who hate us" without spending a passing thought on the why of it. Solving "why" also solves…

> What did your country do to make others hate it?

You have a very simplistic view of geopolitics.

What did Poland do to Germany in 1939 to make Germany hate it? What did the Jews do to the Nazis to make them hate them so much?

Wars get started for all kinds of reasons, some predictable, others not. It's a simple matter of survival to equip yourself as best you can to defend yourself.

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

#566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first thought, it seems 100% absurd that an ad-hoc underpowered group of people with small arms counts for anything in the modern age. But history shows otherwise: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. Empirically, every totalitarian state bans citizen firearms (Nazi Germany, USSR, Cuba, N. Korea). For "good" reason. While of course different, crypto has many of the same pros and cons as firearms, and it should be supported…

Don't forget the Revolutionary war, when we were the Guerrilla force.

with lots of help from France...

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

#567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funding come from the DoD because any other appropriate entity is financially starved because the DoD gets so much money. The latest budget provides them: $700,000,000,000 Or as Obama said in the 2016 State of the Union: "We spend more on defense than the next 8 nations COMBINED." Keep in mind, most of that 8 are allies. I struggle to see why we should be praising a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Naming it 'defense' is already a huge stretch. I realize every country does this but it is as much or more about projecting power all across the globe as it is defense.

> I realize every country does this but it is as much or more about projecting power all across the globe as it is defense.

I disagree that "every country" does this. Many countries in Europe and Asia do not use their defense forces as a tool for attacking other countries and getting involved in regional conflicts that were only affecting people in those countries. And countries that do it are usually just "helping" US-lead invasions of countries (an example would be Australia -- the single reason we were ever in the Vietnam War was because of the US).

(While I may be a biased given that America bombed my home country and engaged in a "peacekeeping mission" when I was a child, for a civil war that had been going on for many years and had nothing at all to do with the US, I never understood how Americans can see invasion of other countries as being anything other than that.)

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

#568
post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This way you end up with someone unskilled taking a job and instead of 1 drone you have to send 10 because only 1 will hit the target.

If our war machine kills less people, sounds like a win to me.

Worse aim often means you’ll kill more people.

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

#569

> Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project That moment when you realize your mega-corp employer's "culture" is merely just another tool to get your to do their bidding. How do the share holders feel? I'm sure they're betting that almost every employee will stay no matter how their technology is used.

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 multiple people who work at Google that are quitting because of this. Lots of people have lines in the sand when it comes to violence and military work, but those lines are deep for a reason and they don't really want to talk about them so you'd never know.

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

#570
post #233

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…

Yes, the entire Bill of Rights in fact pertains to our inalienable, universal rights. There is no difference from what one may term "fundamental" or "human" rights. It doesn't matter what the UN or anyone in other countries say or talk about -- just as the laws of physics are facts regardless of what some people may say or feel. If we have the right to life, we have the right to self-defense. If we have the right to…

FWIW, and I use this example in discussions with non-scientists all the time, Newtonian Gravity, aka the "Law of Gravity", not only isn't a fact, it isn't even correct. General relativity appears to be a closer approximation to nature, as Sir Arthur Eddington demonstrated in 1919[1], and Albert Einstein put forth in 1915[2].

That writers continue to conflate the definition of legal "law" with scientific "law" is in some ways amusing, but it weakens the analogies. A physical theory (testable hypothesis making specific predictions) isn't a law. The analogies aren't merely suspect, they are often fatally flawed with appeals to authority amongst other practices which are not relevant in science.

What I am saying, more simply is that "laws" of physics aren't facts. Using them as the basis for an analogy results in flawed reasoning.

With regard to the original subject matter, fundamental rights mean different things to different people, countries, governments, and other entities. It would be nice if everyone adopted a single minimal definition that we all interpreted and supported in the same manner.

This wish is unlikely to ever be fulfilled, as fundamental human rights often run counter to power structures of various types across the world. These rights could potentially constrain other entities rights, so they may choose to adopt some or none of them, or interpret them in as wildly different a manner as they wish.

This is vastly different than how physicists interpret and test theories. We don't set h_bar == 0 because we don't want the world to have a quantum character in some locations. But entities in power can set FundamentalRight_type == 0 for a specific type (pick speech, life, liberty, pursuit of happyness) if they so choose.

In this way, "fundamental" rights are really not so fundamental. They aren't like the theories of physics, the same everywhere.

[1] see https://www.space.com/37018-solar-eclipse-proved-einstein-re... though like almost all writers, they misunderstand what "proven to be correct" means in the context of a physical theory.

[2] see https://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters_20...

Post reply on HN