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

Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

gizmodo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 127 posts

Re: Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

#71

Post by assblaster »

emodendroket wrote: post #56
assblaster wrote: post #7

If alphabet is the one with the machine learning contract with the government, at least they can run it conscientiously. Other companies and employees might not care about ethics as much; would these Google employees regret not having some control over this process?

Presumably they believe this should not be done at all.

Getting back to my original post, it doesn't matter if they believe it shouldn't be done at all. Machine learning will be utilized for defense/war/security, it's only a matter of when/by whom.

Would these Alphabet employees prefer the machine learning contracts to go to Lockheed Martin/Amazon where ethics are not a priority, or would they have rather kept the development in house?

Re: Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

#72

Post by resonanttoe »

have_faith wrote: post #11
sqdbps wrote: post #3

“about a dozen employees”. The 'maven' story was published in early march, it’s an 80k employee company, that is not even a blip within their natural turnover rate.

> several of whom discussed their decision to leave with Gizmodo, say that executives have become less transparent with their workforce about controversial business decisions It's a significant amount of people if all of these people are close to or part of the project being discussed. I wouldn't expect Mike from the Angular team to resign over a project he knows little about so I don't think the employee count is re…

But that's not what the article says and it does that on purpose. The phrase "Google Employees resign in protest" is significant from a writers PoV. If they had sources and evidence to suggest it was close to the project, they would have said "Google's Project Maven Employees resign in protest" as it gives it more weight.

The art/lie is omission and letting the reader jump to the conclusion. Currently there is nothing in the article to suggest that these aren't just call-centre workers but they (Gizmodo, pronouns pal) will let you believe that its Maven people and senior engineers.

It puts the article in to random-arse speculation mode of a pretty bad kind.

Re: Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

#73

Post by retSava »

sjg007 wrote: post #52
jahaja wrote: post #13

Very respectable decision in my book. Walking the walk, not just talking the talk. You just can't abstract yourself away from ethical decisions ad infinitum. The level of self-deception needed to convince oneself that this, or whatever US military tech for that matter, would only be used for defensive purposes is mind-boggling to me.

Well... yes and no.. AI research is funded and has developed out of darpa contracts. If you rule out the abstraction then we’d have no research. But it’s fine if they say they don’t wa t to do this particular work.

The thing is that you can't simply lump all military-related activities into one heap. There's a scale from passively only reacting in self-defense when acted upon, to actively seeking engagement on foreign ground.

This thing Google helps with, parsing and scanning through drone visual feeds, typically ends up on the latter end of the scale.

Sure, it could be used for parsing feeds from drones monitoring the US borders to Canada/Mexico, or cattle or whatever, but that's not the case here.

Re: Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

#74

Post by astura »

creo wrote: post #17

Off-topic: 2008 ... everyone was using G product (in my env at least). Imagine saying back then "10 years from now Google will provide military with artificial intelligence".

Only surprising to people who are ignorant of history, the entirety of Silicon Valley was built on the back of military funding.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-military-is-responsibl...

https://steveblank.com/secret-history/

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/the_next_silicon_va...

Re: Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

#76

Post by jakear »

tzakrajs wrote: post #70
emodendroket wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you could probably turn up similar stories about most insurers.

Is it bad that I have this cognitive dissonance of being fine with hating specific insurance companies but not the concept of insurance more generally?

Insurance as a concept is great. “Pay a little every month so that you won’t have to pay a lot when something unexpected happens”. The problem is when they ignore that and expect you to pay a lot when the unexpected does happen, as they look for any loophole available through which to get out of their obligation.

Re: Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

#77

Post by jakear »

sjg007 wrote: post #63
jakear wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once agreed. But three months ago I broke my leg in a skiing accident and my insurance (fuck you, Cigna) has refused to cover it because I didn't get "prior approval" for my emergency room visit. Thats right, I was supposed to call my fucking insurance company while lying in agony with a broken leg on top of a mountain waiting to be med-evac'd. On top of that, they've refused to cover my physical therapy, sending m…

Be sure to appeal. Also file a complaint with the state insurance commissioner. Any ER is covered.

Yes thankfully is a lawyer with some experience with this sort of thing. I’m just a college student trying to get through the semester.

Edit: typo. “My mother is...”

Re: Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

#78

Post by philipodonnell »

tzakrajs wrote: post #33
Matt3o12_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you not want to take about that? Did the insurance company have a very bad reputation? Because I certainly would not be embarrassed to work for some insurance companies because they can be fair and quite reasonable (while others are not).

At least in the United States, it's a trope that insurance salespeople and civil litigation lawyers are scumbags. I think it's completely bullshit, we need these industries.

> At least in the United States, it's a trope that insurance salespeople and civil litigation lawyers are scumbags. I think it's completely bullshit, we need these industries.

We can both need industries while calling out that salespeople in that industry can be unscrupulous.

Try asking an auto agent to justify why you need $100K/$300K and collision coverage on a $5K car and listen to the endless emotional stories about people being ruined and kids killed because their auto coverage was depleted after an accident.

Him: "Think about how hard it would hurt to have to pay $30K out of pocket!!!" Me: "Honestly that would suck, but the chances of it happening are pretty small, it wouldn't ruin me, and its not worth what you are trying to charge." Him: "Well what about $300K! Don't you want to be fully protected?" Me: "What about $1M?! I can name numbers too!"

OK, maybe not that last line, but, using fear to sell someone more coverage than they objectively need is a scumbag move.

Re: Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

#79

Post by sjg007 »

jahaja wrote: post #68
sjg007 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... yes and no.. AI research is funded and has developed out of darpa contracts. If you rule out the abstraction then we’d have no research. But it’s fine if they say they don’t wa t to do this particular work.

Hence the 'ad infinitum'. There's always a spectrum.

I’m suggesting it’s turtles all the way down. The AI class you take in college is based on results from DARPA funded grants on say threat assessment or battlefield awareness or even automated defense technologies. It’s exactly the same except where you are on the R&D product timeline.

Re: Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

#80

Post by [deleted] »

sjg007 wrote: post #63
jakear wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once agreed. But three months ago I broke my leg in a skiing accident and my insurance (fuck you, Cigna) has refused to cover it because I didn't get "prior approval" for my emergency room visit. Thats right, I was supposed to call my fucking insurance company while lying in agony with a broken leg on top of a mountain waiting to be med-evac'd. On top of that, they've refused to cover my physical therapy, sending m…

Be sure to appeal. Also file a complaint with the state insurance commissioner. Any ER is covered.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN