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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

#151

Post by paganel »

flatline wrote: post #62
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…

Or accept the reality that we live in a world that feels the need to kill people. I think it would be swell to not need a military but the reality is that we do. If you have qualms about working for Google as a defense contractor, consider the implications of living in the US (or in all likelihood wherever you happen to reside). Can you justify paying your taxes? Can you justify voting for one of a handful of candida…

> Or accept the reality that we live in a world that feels the need to kill people.

We dream day and night about inventing self-driving cars and about reaching Mars (which are both nice things but without which I can easily live) but we've given up on trying to stop killing each other, and worse of all, we regard it as futile. It hasn't always been like that, for example just look at the Catholic Church's push to bring back peace in the war-torn world of the early Middle Ages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_peace_traditions#The_...). For example just look at one of Thomas Aquinas's arguments regarding this:

> Peace must be a central motive even in the midst of violence

Now, look at Google, an almost $1 trillion company which is one of the most successful business entities on this planet and tell me if you can say that "peace is a central motive" for them in the midst of the quest for profit. It isn't.

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

#152

Post by 3131s »

ipsin wrote: post #77
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…

I have this queasy feeling that the U.S. is killing people who aren't actually taking up arms against it. If doing so shaves a few percent off the error rate that's saving innocent lives, but it's also becoming an essential part of a process that kills innocent people? I'd prefer standing against the slaughter.

It is fact, not a feeling. How many of the roughly 1 million people dead in the last 15 years of the "War of Terror" ever directly attacked the US or US citizens?

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

#153

Post by tlrobinson »

eksemplar wrote: post #147
slg wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because they oppose the drone warfare program, which is killing noncombatants in nominally allied countries. I don't understand this logic. Drones are a weapon. They are not any more evil than any other weapon that the military uses. They aren't killing people autonomously. There is a human pilot behind every death. The pilot just happens to be hundreds or thousands miles away from the aircraft. Would we be fine wit…

So the people who build the Death Star are innocent? The guilty don’t feel guilty, they learn not to. I wouldn’t personally want to work in weapons development, but I certainly wouldn’t want to work in weapons development for a military that as a result of its offensive use of its weapons is making children in the third world afraid of blue skies. But I have a gmail and I use google maps, so I’m not really in a posit…

Death Stars don't kill people. People kill people.

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

#154

Post by apatters »

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…

These are all highly opinionated statements, but:

- If you're American, you should support Google developing technology for the US military.

- If you're human, you should support a foreign policy that only considers military action as a last resort.

- If you're human, you should support early, aggressive, global regulation of the military applications of AI and drones. We made this mistake with nuclear. We leveled Hiroshima, we leveled Nagasaki, we fueled decades of animosity between the Soviets and the West that still plagues the world today. We need to do better next time. The biggest abuser might be the US again but it could just as easily be China.

- If you're human, you should support regulation that forbids Google from using your personal for military applications without your express and informed consent.

Substitute Google for any other tech giant's name.

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

#155

Post by jstanley »

mc32 wrote: post #141
hoppa_liza wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you boil down your statement into "I would rather have the Americans kill these people than the Chinese" you will begin to see the real meaning of what you are saying.

Maybe I’d ask the Vietnamese, who we fought, who they’d rather have, or the afghans who fought the USSR, who they’d rather have to get the meaning of what I’m saying. You can also ask the Pakistanis if they’d rather have US or India, go ahead.

"Who would you rather be oppressed by?" isn't a very convincing argument that you're on the right side of history.

Just because there exist worse oppressors than you doesn't mean you're not evil as well.

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

#156

Post by joering2 »

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 doesn't fucking rhyme with "don't be evil".

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

#157

Post by murukesh_s »

apatters wrote: post #154
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…

These are all highly opinionated statements, but: - If you're American, you should support Google developing technology for the US military. - If you're human, you should support a foreign policy that only considers military action as a last resort. - If you're human, you should support early, aggressive, global regulation of the military applications of AI and drones. We made this mistake with nuclear. We leveled Hi…

> - If you're American, you should support Google developing technology for the US military.

Why? Americans are not humans?

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

#159

Post by krageon »

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…

What is evil about murder? If you honestly don't think that is a bad thing then I will grant you that for you, working with the military is fine.

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

#160

Post by DrJaws »

mc32 wrote: post #127
DrJaws wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Well, what’s the alternate option? If the US hadn’t been the “police” of the world. It could have been Russia or China or India, would we rather have had them? And don’t say Europe unless you consider France and the U.K. and others and their things. We don’t live on a vacuum. If you create one, someone will fill it. I am loath to think of how much worse things could be despite the idiotic wars of Obama and W., I thin…

False dilemma fallacy
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