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

#871

Post by bb88 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:27 AM UTC

drtz wrote: post #768

microcolonel wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who designed the gas chambers at Auschwitz? An engineer did that, too. Well, given how unimaginative a leap the national socialists took from the national fumigation program to the gas chambers, I doubt there was much more to it than "take bug poison room tech, use it on humans". There's no such thing as an "engineer" in the real world, and there's almost always somebody more unscrupulous, devout, or patriotic than…

> ... there's almost always somebody more unscrupulous, devout, or patriotic than you who knows or is willing to learn what it takes to finish the job ... If you believe that doing something is wrong, the idea that someone more unscrupulous will do it if you do not must not be used as an excuse for doing that thing yourself. Giving in to this notion will prove yourself to be the one who is unscrupulous.

In 2018, the following statements are true:

1. If you're on an active battlefield, both sides have already agreed that killing people is morally justified.

2. If the enemy is shooting at you, he is not interested in the ethics of killing someone on a battlefield.

3. If ethics helped wars end, there would be a US Army 27th Ethics Brigade to parachute in, but there's not and probably never will be.

If on a battlefield, given a choice between holding scrupulous ideals and living, most people would choose living.

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

#872

Post by yuhong » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:32 AM UTC

mashedvikings wrote: post #787

yuhong wrote: post #9

My favorite: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/eric-schmidt-... I wonder if Eric Schmidt left Google because of this.

Not sure if the article claims Eric Schmidt was ousted. But Schmidt has worked for the pentagon since 2016 http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/02/technology/eric-schmidt-pent...

He left quite a bit later after the article was posted. I was wondering whether this article helped.

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

#873

Post by TangoTrotFox » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:32 AM UTC

ByThyGrace wrote: post #815

mrlala wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? The killer drones couldn't communicate without said network protocols.

The point being that "killer drones" are by sole purpose immoral. You can hardly find a humanitarian use for them, while network protocols are pretty much amoral. You can use them for bad, but also for good. Please excuse my manichaeism.

One could say the same of atomic weapons, yet it's likely that nuclear weapons have saved more lives that we can even imagine. The impact of war was accelerating in raw numbers, and increasing in relative numbers, all the way up to WW2. 3-4% of the world's population was killed in WW2. In today's terms that would be ~270 million people. Think about that number for a minute. Let's put it in scales of 9/11s. During 9/11 2,996 people were killed. Our scaled WW2 had 90,120 times more deaths. That number is so absurdly large it's difficult to grasp. So put another way that's a 9/11 scale event every single day for 246 years. The United States, as a nation, was founded 242 years to give that number some scale. Just think about that! If each generation has children at 30 years old then another way of seeing that number would be a 9/11 event each and every day from today until 2 years after your great great great great great great great grandchild is born.

But then came the nuke. Nuclear weapons make traditional war between developed and nuclear capable nations basically impossible. Think about what the Cold War really was, or even what the geopolitical 'disagreements' of today are. Those are World Wars 3 and 4, averted because these wars would be unwinnable by any side. Like Einstein said, 'I'm not sure what World War 3 will be fought with, but the 4th will be fought with sticks and stones!'

Did the people developing nukes understand that they would finally create a weapon that immensely powerful that it would deter open unrestrained war for decades to come? It's possible, but I think that their motivation was something more straight forward - gain military superiority in the present, probably also mixed with a bit of scientific curiosity about the challenge of creating a nuclear bomb.

It's difficult to predict the future. The most awful and aweful weapon created in the history of mankind ended up creating the most unprecedented period of peace for mankind as well. This is also why I vehemently oppose nuclear disarmament. That's how you get WW3 if people actually disarm, though in reality it'd simply likely result in nations obfuscating their nuclear weapon programs and facilities. It's just a molten salt thorium reactor guys, come on - breeders are awesome!

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

#874

Post by cmontella » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:34 AM UTC

headsoup wrote: post #862

jsilence wrote: post #847

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please help me understand how a substance that turns sand into soil, developed to green the deserts, can be used as a weapon. To me this argument that "anything can be used in evil ways" is a poor excuse used to distract from the issue.

Depends on whether you see this 'greening the desert' as destructive to the environment or not I suppose. And then perhaps there's a question of who owns this now greened and more usable desert?...

Reminds me of Frank Herbert's "Dune", where the greening of the desert was viewed as ecological destruction (and more), as it destroyed the habitat of the worms.

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

#875

Post by russdpale » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:45 AM UTC

cmontella wrote: post #761

betolink wrote: post #731

From the movie "Flash of Genius" about Robert Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper: "I can't think of a job or a career where the understanding of ethics is more important than engineering," Dr. Kearns continues. "Who designed the artificial aortic heart valve? An engineer did that. Who designed the gas chambers at Auschwitz? An engineer did that, too. One man was responsible for helping save ten…

As a roboticist at the beginning of my career working on drones, I decided then and there that I would never make "bombs", a metaphor I used to mean anything that could be weaponized. I realized a lot of the work I was doing was funded by DARPA, and I was very cognizant about my research being used in this way. And like Dr. Kearns suggests, it's not entirely black and white. Would my path planning algorithm be used t…

Ah man, as a former straight leg grunt (meaning no plane, usually no helo or even a truck, we walk _everywhere_) anything that can take weight off is an absolute God send. We aren't blood thirsty but you would be saving a ton of knees, backs, frustration, and pain all around.

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

#876

Post by confounded » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:51 AM UTC

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…

I no longer have any “skin in the game” Re: Google, but those who do may be interested in the Tech Workers’ Coalition (Free beer! Other Googlers!):

https://techworkerscoalition.org/

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

#877

Post by eloop » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 6:58 AM UTC

These employees are right to be worried. If Google becomes a defense contractor I'll be going out of my way to stop using their products. I'm not a pacifist, but I'll always choose to work for and patronize peaceful enterprises, it's as simple as that. I also influence lots of non-technical friends and family in their IT purchases and habits and I'll definitely be warning them off as well. So Google, be less greedy and make the world a better place for us all.

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

#878

Post by russdpale » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 7:01 AM UTC

ehsankia wrote: post #713

guelo wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the United States has decided in the past that the only way we are allowed to fund tech R&D is through the military budget doesn't mean that it is the only way it could possibly be done.

No one said it's the only way, but it also doesn't mean military funding should be shunned. As long as it's handled responsibly and has well defined limits.

But the problem is that is cannot be handled responsibly and in well defined limits.

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

#879

Post by samastur » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 7:01 AM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #726

samastur wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every example of yours had plenty of external help without which I am doubtful they would have as much success. No idea what your definition of totalitarian state is, but there certainly was not a complete ban on firearms neither in Nazi Germany nor in many of post WW2 socialist countries (e.g. hunters).

> there certainly was not a complete ban on firearms neither in Nazi Germany It actually started post-WWI (due to Treaty of Versailles). > In 1919 the German government passed the Regulations on Weapons Ownership...anyone found in possession of a firearm or ammunition was subject to five years' imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 marks. [1] Laws were later relaxed from a total ban, though ownership was low, as all gun…

Germany in 1919 was definitely not a totalitarian state. The laws were relaxed in 1928 which was BEFORE nazis came to power.

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

#880

Post by MichaelMoser123 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 7:01 AM UTC

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #793

betolink wrote: post #731

From the movie "Flash of Genius" about Robert Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper: "I can't think of a job or a career where the understanding of ethics is more important than engineering," Dr. Kearns continues. "Who designed the artificial aortic heart valve? An engineer did that. Who designed the gas chambers at Auschwitz? An engineer did that, too. One man was responsible for helping save ten…

just a reminder: you are writing this over the internet - that one was funded by the pentagon too (darpanet) http://ccr.sigcomm.org/archive/1995/jan95/ccr-9501-clark.pdf Here they say that the design of the internet was very much determined by the military priorities of the project (Telcos had different priorities so they came up with OSI where the link layer is supposed to be reliable, as opposed to DARPANET/IP, whe…

On the networking side of things: interesting that ROcE, infiniband and FC (depending on service class) all have reliability in the link layer, so the telcos did know something about their priorities.