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

theintercept.com

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

#101

Post by rdiddly »

killjoywashere wrote: post #24
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are talking besides the point. War != "War Profiteering". You can believe war is unavoidable and still find excess profiting from war morally repugnant

The company with the single best resources to execute on this mission is trying to help make sure the kinetic energy doesn't get off target. How is that evil, exactly?

By putting it on the target, duh. If I shoot you I don't get hailed as a hero for saving your family's lives and neither does the gun sight manufacturer. Especially since they did it for the money.

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

#102

Post by mirimir »

strooper wrote: post #58

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…

Maybe Google isn't literally a global company, but I doubt that it wants only US business.

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

#103

Post by rifung »

blackrock wrote: post #98
strooper wrote: post #58

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…

> 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.

I work at Google but opinions are my own.

This is actually the thing I don't understand. Could you or someone please kindly explain it to me?

What is "evil" about working with the military or developing weapons?

I've seen this whole "Google is betraying its 'do not evil' by working with the military" as fact so many times but I've yet to get a better explanation for why it's actually evil besides some variation of "the military is bad"

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

#104

Post by citrablue »

bmelton wrote: post #66
aunty_helen wrote: post #48

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.

I don't know any of the details of Maven, but I've done a lot of federal work, and there are a few very good reasons to do insignificant projects, mainly based around past performance. In order to do any work for the government, you have to show that you have have done the work before to a satisfactory standard, and that you've done it for a type of agency similar to the one requesting proposals for the work. So, whi…

If the prior contract reputation is the primary concern, couldn't google get good reviews from the feds on altruistic projects? The less important the contract amount, the easier it should be to choose an altruistic project (they tend to pay less).

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

#105

Post by AmericanChopper »

rickycook wrote: post #61
AmericanChopper wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you’re describing some commercial inventive to go to war, which is very different from selling goods and services to the military.

those 2 things are pretty heavily correlated. guns and ammo, military rations manufacturers, and yes creators of technology that support military operations have a huge economic incentive for war the more war you create, the larger the military, and get larger their ability to spent on “protection” and “defence” *edit: which is certainly offset pretty substantially by the hit to the countries GDP, because yknow... wa…

There is no logic to your argument here at all. You’re saying that every company that supplies anything to the military is automatically wielding an unethical influence to create war on false pretences.

I think you can certainly find examples where commercial entities have played a suspicious role in that respect, but to say that simply by supplying goods or services to the military you are war mongering is completely devoid of logic.

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

#106

Post by DrJaws »

rifung wrote: post #103
blackrock wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. I work at Google but opinions are my own. This is actually…

Some people will see the evil as the country you are working for is known as the one of the primary aggressors and war initiators of the history that continues to kill directly and indirectly hundreds of thousands of people in other countries bringing them "democracy" where no one asked them for anything.

Others will just see it as a necessity and that every company should work and help the government when they are asked to defend the country and maintain the global status quo.

for some that conduct is a virus, for others just a symbiosis, but it's easy to see where they come both of them.

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

#107

Post by jadedhacker »

fakescience wrote: post #31

To any Google Employees reading this. Don't worry! There are SEVERAL ways you can reduce any cognitive dissonance you might be experiencing as you read more about the evils your company is committing : + rationalization of your own behavior : "I'm not doing this work...I'm working on projects that help people. And ads. But ads are pretty neutral compared to bombing people." + rationalization of others' behavior : "Bo…

If Google employees strike over this, we must find ways to show solidarity with them. An end to the war machine is within our power!

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

#108

Post by spiderPig »

rifung wrote: post #103
blackrock wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. I work at Google but opinions are my own. This is actually…

Think of it the other way, if Lockheed martin were to start a Gmail, GDocs equivalent tomorrow, would you use their services knowing how closely they work with the military? Would global users be comfortable using it? The whole PRISM fiasco isn't far from this. What's stopping the Pentagon from buying access to users data? It's a trust thing, imo.

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

#109

Post by yongjik »

cobookman wrote: post #78
yongjik wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... after all, they are loyal only to profit and the USA . You know what, most employees of Google or Facebook would vehemently disagree, including American citizens. In fact, say anything like that in Google's internal groups and I'm sure some lawyerfolk will descend down on you, hissing "Would you please stop talking about what you have zero ideas about?" (These days it might even involve HR. After all, saying to…

Source please. I've Not seen anything stating most tech employees are anti Maven. Blind had a poll and it showed the exact opposite, with a strong majority for Maven.

There's a large gap between being OK with your employer having a military project, and believing that the entirety of your multinational corporation is (either morally or legally) bound to one particular nation.

I suspect most of those Googlers who are OK with building a robot for Pentagon will probably be OK with building another for, say, the German military. (Why not? It's double the profit.)

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

#110

Post by meritt »

blackrock wrote: post #98
strooper wrote: post #58

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…

> Because it is a conflict of interest.

No, it's not. That's entirely subjective. It's only a conflict of interest in the heads of people who believe the U.S. military is evil.

The problem is that Google has a different interpretation of evil than yourself, and you're struggling to cope with that reality.

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