Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project • Hacker News Board

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

#701

Post by marricks » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:21 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #590

danesparza wrote: post #31

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…

Yes, they made some bad choices, and then they corrected them. They also funded the research that created the field. Things can be morally mixed. On balance though, the US military funding for cryptography has been pretty clearly a good thing.

I love how any defense of US military history often boils down to, “sure they did terrible things in the past, but we definitely learned from them.”

I’m sure people have been saying that for decades if not centuries. Terrible things just get declassified slowly so we only learn about them later.

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

#702

Post by geodel » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:21 AM UTC

monfrere wrote: post #671

grellas wrote: post #533

Where does one draw a line these days among the personal, the moral, the legal, and the political? The military application in question is legal and is approved by a duly elected government that supports it politically. In earlier days, employees generally would see this as just doing their jobs in developing technology that their employers wanted developed and would not concern themselves about ultimate uses and app…

Your discussion of "legality" here is U.S.-centric. Google has offices in Germany, France, Poland, Russia, Turkey, U.A.E., India, and China, to name a few. How would you feel if Google worked on military technology for those countries? Would you point out that it was inevitable that their militaries would seek ways to use A.I.? Would you point out that the Turkish armed forces' activities are permitted under Turkish…

I am from one of the country you listed above and it seems perfectly fine to me that Google comply with existing laws of respective countries even if they are in contradiction to US laws.

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

#703

Post by donw » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:21 AM UTC

pryce wrote: post #660

donw wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average Joe or Jane gun owner in the United States can not purchase, and does not own, automatic weapons. Literally tens of millions of responsible Americans walk around, every day, carrying semi-automatic weapons, and this is not a problem. This is also true in the Czech Republic! Shall-issue, just like Texas. They are one of the safest countries in the EU. You are far more likely to be shot by a cop, than by a…

> Literally tens of millions of responsible Americans walk around, every day, carrying semi-automatic weapons, and this is not a problem. The idea that 'this is not a problem' is exactly the thing under dispute, so I don't think it should be cheerfully asserted Objectors to this climate of easy access to firearms -wrong or right- will point to things like: * criminal gun violence and mass shootings (a phenomenon that…

> The idea that 'this is not a problem' is exactly the thing under dispute, so I don't think it should be cheerfully asserted.

There are sixteen million Americans with concealed-carry licenses, plus fourteen states that allow for "constitutional carry" (e.g., no license required).

(Keep in mind that I do think that we should require training and licensing for concealed carry, although this needs to be balanced with not imposing an undue economic burden or disenfranchising minorities)

According to the Violence Policy Center -- a very solidly anti-gun group -- there were 27 murders committed by licensed concealed carriers in 2017 across the United States. That's a murder rate of 0.16 per 100,000 people.

By comparison, the total UK murder rate for the same year was six times that.

Likewise, the Czech Republic, which also has a lower murder rate than the UK, has "shall-issue" concealed carry licensing for gun owners -- just like Texas -- and the majority of Czech gun owners have such a license.

I think it's fair to say that concealed carriers are not the problem.

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

#704

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:24 AM UTC

rasz wrote: post #410

Im confused, do people working at Google not know the origin of their company? There would be no Google if not for Pentagon funded military research. Look up "Highlands Forum", DLI, MDDS. Sergey Brin was literally funded by NSA and CIA under MDDS.

Sometimes it's knowing your origins intimately which gives the strongest cause to oppose them. There's the case of Robert Oppenheimer, father, and opponent, of the atomic bomb.

http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/hist...

From the Soviet side, Andrei Sakarov.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Sakharov

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

#705

Post by kiliantics » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:25 AM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #575

kiliantics wrote: post #484

And this is why tech workers need to unionise. This petition is a weak statement that probably will have no effect. Unless these workers could pose a real threat to Google by threatening a strike action, Google has no need to change anything. Furthermore, if the workers really stood by their moral convictions, they'd use their collective power to tackle the issue more directly than by just appealing to Google. Compan…

> A union at Google could threaten to effectively halt all institutional operations of governments or other companies in order to influence their actions. But this seems an amoral thing to do, to me! A small group of unelected, unaccountable and non-diverse people abusing their relative power to try to force a democratically elected government or private company to do something? Why would anyone want that?

Currently, Google and other large companies already do have power and influence over what the government does. But only a tiny portion of people at these companies are the ones deciding what to do with that power. It would be preferable if the entire company took part in deciding how it would influence what the government does. It would be even more preferable if workers across whole industries and whole sections of society together used their collective power to influence what the government can do. Ideally, these large federated unions would also do so with the interests of the unemployed/disabled/disenfranchised as well. This is what the IWW does. Tech workers should join the IWW.

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

#706

Post by batmansmk » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:25 AM UTC

Maybestring wrote: post #438

GordonS wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with this. Trying to compare WWII to the actions of the modern military is absurd. How can you possibly compare it with overthrowing governments in South America and the Middle East, Vietnam, Guantanamo, Abu Gharib, drone strikes on hospitals, up to 200k civilians dead in Iraq, and much more - and of coursr the deeply, deeply questionable motives of all of these. The actions of our ancestors in WWI…

>drone strikes on hospitals, up to 200k civilians dead in Iraq You are looking at allied actions in WWII through rose colored glasses if you think that's worse. Dresden, Tokyo, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Berlin, Saint-Nazair... the allies engaged in total war. Civillians are part of the war making capability of a nation, and in WWII all sides considered them to be valid targets. In Saint-Nazair's case it wasn't even enemy…

You made your point: war is dirty. But that was not my claim either.

If we want to defend the necessity and impact of those weapons, they should be taken in the context of modern american and NATO warfare, not in the context of WW2. Normandy 1944 was a very different conflict than Libya 2011 for instance.

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

#707

Post by ajross » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:26 AM UTC

abalone wrote: post #195

I completely support the employees but it is criminal that this NYT article does not mention the extensive roots of Silicon Valley in Pentagon funding. SV as a whole is substantially a creation of military spending. Just recently in the AI space: - Siri was spun out of a Pentagon project -- look up SRI International and CALO. Its purpose: a "soldier’s servant".[1] - Autonomous driving is a direct evolution of Pentago…

> SV as a whole is substantially a creation of military spending.

That's true, but not really in the general way you argue. Military spending on bay area R&D has been more or less insignificant for the entirety of the internet era. It exists, sure, but it's not driving meaningful revenue for any of the big players. Silicon Valley since the mid 90's has been a consumer thing only.

And even in the genesis of the valley, it was just one serendipitous application (missile guidance systems, which were willing to pay huge sums for early transistors which were literally 100x lighter than vacuum tubes).

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

#708

Post by thetruthseeker1 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:26 AM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #453

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…

Your comparison is like comparing apples and oranges. You can’t do child labor because there are laws in the US to prevent that. If you lobby to pass a law that prevents AI for defense purposes then that would be similar. Here the US govt is a client, if not google they will go to some-other company for that tech as long as there is no law that prevents that.

Also, if they don’t go to google, sure they may not see as much of a rapid growth in AI tech, but if you think they will never be able to get anywhere significant, you sir are underestimating others IMO

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

#709

Post by olleromam91 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:26 AM UTC

calcifer wrote: post #470

emanresu101 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Contributing means being complicit. I don't agree with this. Many open source projects have been used for sinister means (not just by governments). But does that make those contributors complicit? Should those contributors be safe-guarding against all possible unintended use cases? It seems like you're painting all military efforts and funding in evil terms. But these efforts are directed by many different people,…

> Does that make us complicit if those technologies are ever used in malicious ways? Yes. If you choose to work for an entity you help further their work. Militaries are made for war and by contributing to a military, you directly help them commit atrocities. Working for a military is simply war profiteering [1]. > Do the evil actions of some people in an organization make the entire organization evil? Yes, if you vo…

By using this "logic" you draw a very blurry line, that wont lead to any decision making, just arguing over who is most evil.

I can now assume that miners and forgery workers are complicit in murder because they harvest and refine the metals that build weapons. And that farmers are complicit because they produce the food that is used in military rations, the wool or cotton that is used to make their uniforms.

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

#710

Post by StanislavPetrov » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:27 AM UTC

abalone wrote: post #195

I completely support the employees but it is criminal that this NYT article does not mention the extensive roots of Silicon Valley in Pentagon funding. SV as a whole is substantially a creation of military spending. Just recently in the AI space: - Siri was spun out of a Pentagon project -- look up SRI International and CALO. Its purpose: a "soldier’s servant".[1] - Autonomous driving is a direct evolution of Pentago…

>And to think that SV has a large population of supposedly "small government" Libertarian Capitalists

Not only that, but when Youtube and Google block content, censor people, or otherwise prevent free speech, the common rejoinder is "they are private companies, they don't have to abide by the 1st amendment". Any company that is received taxpayer money, whether through direct subsidies, grants, partnerership, or any other avenue, ceases to be a "private company". I believe strongly that if you are truly private, and you operate entirely with your own private funds, and wholly-owned, privately purchased infrastructure, you are free to say and do what you want - silence any voice or opinion that you don't like. But once you receive public funds, in any context, along with that comes with the responsibility to the public. Despite being "the way it works" currently, this system is incredibly corrupt and logically inconsistent. In a world where the Constitution was respected, enforced and held inviolate, a company that received public funds (like Google) would not be allowed to declare themselves a private company with total autonomy on one hand, and grab countless millions in taxpayer money in the other.