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Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially

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Re: Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially

#91
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was only meant to be a $9 millon project, why take the risk? Google aren't that badly cash strapped.

Because the military contracts are really lucrative. Many are worth billions on their face. Performing well on a 9 million dollar contract opens the door to larger contracts.

Isn't this, in itself, a huge problem? Shouldn't public service be a low margin project? Could the fact that military contracts are so needlessly "lucrative" (despite the government having a literal monopoly on who you can sell advanced weaponry to) be why such a huge margin of your taxes go to defense?

Re: Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially

#92
post #3

Is my moral compass off, or does war profiteering completely violate the whole "don't be evil" thing?

[deleted]

> the world has been a safer place over the last 70 years because there's a global cop who's willing to use force to keep the peace.

for god's sake. there are really people thinking this way.

Re: Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially

#93
post #67

I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping their military. GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi and all tech giants of that era did that with pride during WWII. Then why can't Google, Facebook for USA? Perhaps the illusion of globalization is making us perceive Google, Facebook and other international giants as global companies. Although, geniuses from around the world have significant contributions…

The US is directly and indirectly responsible for more civilian death than any other coutry since the cold war ended. Basic human decency should be the answer to why you shouldn't help kill even more.

I think you should read some stats on Syria and get back to us.

Re: Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially

#94
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And do you know what it is that really upholds the peace we all love?

Username checks out. So social media and search are guarantors of world peace? From a non-US perspective, it looks more like SIGINT against allies by treaty. But hey, it's a private company, no harm, no foul.

What are you talking about? Google is/was not contemplating offering social media and search services as part of Maven. The subthread op asked, why can't a company help its country's military?

Re: Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially

#95

I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping their military. GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi and all tech giants of that era did that with pride during WWII. Then why can't Google, Facebook for USA? Perhaps the illusion of globalization is making us perceive Google, Facebook and other international giants as global companies. Although, geniuses from around the world have significant contributions…

April 2004: We will machine-read your e-mails so that we can show you banners more efficiently. No funny business, we promise. We also collect all kind of data about you, even offline data but no biggie.

April 2018: We developed all that technology by reading your e-mails and analysing your daily life, now we will make military gear with all the expertise we know about the world and the human population so that political actors can kill more efficiently. No biggie.

PS: We control the information flow, we can start and stop political conflicts by selectively displaying information but we would totally not use it to sell military gear. Oh, we also don't claim to be not evil anymore but no biggie. We also have established political ties and spend tons of money on lobbying but we would definitely not extract wealth by starting political conflicts and selling gear that is designed to contain the specific conflicts to the people in power that we spend a lot of money to keep in touch. No biggie.

Re: Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the arguments you outline would also be ways to reduce cognitive dissonance as well ("if we didn't do it, others would"). I don't think Google would stop all wars by not contributing to this project. But Google, and the employees who work at Google, has power - a kind of power that's very, very different from my power as an individual when paying taxes or when voting for a federal employee (behaviors that create…

I basically agree with the last points. As to the drone strikes, I believe there is potential there for decent things. Who is to say these would not grant the power to stop a war by executing key individuals in a scenario where a manned strike would be prohibitive? And yet there is a clear moral hazard of facilitating murder. I’m not wise enough to see where the balance lies. I choose not to work on projects like tha…

Yeah, I think we have a fundamental difference in our beliefs about the effectiveness of violence (i.e. assassination via drones) to promote world peace. Hard to know what wars have been prevented via assassination, but if you might look into all the evidence of violence continuing or escalating after assassinations (how many "heads" of ISIS have been killed in drone strikes? and check out all the US activity in Latin America...). But that discussion goes beyond the graveyard of a hacker news comments section. In any case, thanks for the thoughtful responses.

Re: Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially

#98

I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping their military. GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi and all tech giants of that era did that with pride during WWII. Then why can't Google, Facebook for USA? Perhaps the illusion of globalization is making us perceive Google, Facebook and other international giants as global companies. Although, geniuses from around the world have significant contributions…

Because it is a conflict of interest.

The public has put their trust into Google for 20 years. We supported them. We cheered them on. We have voluntarily given them all our personal data. Our emails. Our instant messages. Our voices. All of it feeds into their massive database for them to mine.

We put our faith into them, in the hopes that they would honor their creed, that they would do no evil.

But gradually, that facade has faded away. Their accumulation of personal data, beyond what is necessary for them to perform their work. And now this. The utilization of their wealth and knowledge, to push forward the state-of-the-art in the weaponization of Artificial Intelligence.

There is nothing that will stop this. The military will find a defense contractor to do their bidding. But Google can voluntarily elect to remove themselves from this sector. Let some other company do it. Let someone else figure it out. The blood of dead innocent civilians will be on their hands. You don't see Raytheon, Boeing, or Northrop crying about it.

By doing the military's bidding, then Google is now far scarier than Microsoft ever was. For those who don't know, when they coined the phrase, Do no evil, they meant it in relation to the Microsoft Borg of the 1980s and 90s. Microsoft now seems like a sheep in comparison to Google.

I think it's time to disconnect Google from our lives. But, it's hopeless. They are everywhere.

Re: Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially

#99

I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping their military. GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi and all tech giants of that era did that with pride during WWII. Then why can't Google, Facebook for USA? Perhaps the illusion of globalization is making us perceive Google, Facebook and other international giants as global companies. Although, geniuses from around the world have significant contributions…

Others doing it doesn't make it morally any better, though others thought like you do... like all the axis powers doing their fair share of deportations and gulags.

Re: Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially

#100

I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping their military. GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi and all tech giants of that era did that with pride during WWII. Then why can't Google, Facebook for USA? Perhaps the illusion of globalization is making us perceive Google, Facebook and other international giants as global companies. Although, geniuses from around the world have significant contributions…

What is your opinion of the work that IBM did for the Germans in WW2?
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