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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

#161

Post by slg »

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…

I know you are being a little facetious with the Death Star line, but I think that bares a distinction because it would be a WMD and part of its intended purpose is to kill civilians. Likewise in our world developing indiscriminate killing WMDs like bio-weapons deserves extra scrutiny. Drones are not indiscriminate killing machines any more than manned aircraft. If they are used indiscriminately, the problem should be with the leadership ordering their use in that manner.

My overall point is that drones are not a unique class of weapon. You should either have a problem with Google working on a weapons program or not. Working on drones is no worse than working on manned aircraft.

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

#162

Post by adamsea »

Cookingboy wrote: post #87
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 kind of agree actually. Humanity has always been at conflict with each other and will be for the foreseeable future. But for the first time in history we have the tools to conduct intense warfare yet limit collateral damages and minimize cost in both human and material resources. The engineers who worked on precision strike weapons/smart bombs should be applauded instead of ostracized, in the past we'd just carpet…

> Humanity has always been at conflict with each other and will be for the foreseeable future.

This could be used as an excuse for pretty much anything.

> But for the first time in history we have the tools to conduct intense warfare yet limit collateral damages and minimize cost in both human and material resources.

And yet the invasion of Iraq was a tragedy on a mass scale. Also, by this logic should we supply dictators like Assad (president of Syria) drones and smart bombs next time there is a civil war so they can reduce the collateral damage of oppressing their own people?

If only Al Qaeda had had smart bombs. Then collateral damage would have been minimized /sarcasm /blackhumor

> The engineers who worked on precision strike weapons/smart bombs should be applauded instead of ostracized, in the past we'd just carpet bomb the whole city to get rid of enemies, along with innocent civilians.

Killing the civilians was the point of the bombing. Breaking the morale of the populace is an important strategy in total war (Such as WW2).

Also by this logic should we applaud white collar crooks for innovating to commit robbery without physical violence?

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

#163

Post by bonesss »

tlrobinson wrote: post #153
eksemplar wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

... ideally with Death Stars, millions at a time :D

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

#164

Post by adamsea »

citrablue wrote: post #104
bmelton wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Not for military contracts.

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

#165

Post by marklgr »

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…

> The guilty don’t feel guilty, they learn not to.

Along with the usual "If I didn't do it, someone else would".

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

#166

Post by discordance »

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 don't think WW2 and the "wars" of the last 20 years are a fair comparison.

The recent wars are highly controversial and this is clearly recognised and protested by people working in SV.

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

#167

Post by ImSkeptical »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #113
rifung wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 working with the military or developing weapons? If you work on weapons which are then used to kill people, you are complicit in those murders. AI automation of weapons and surveillance systems is probably going to kill a large fraction of living humans. I'm not talking skynet, just about automation we could easily achieve right now. Anyone who works on those systems will be complicit in the su…

What if you pay taxes that are used to buy the weapons that kill people?

For the sake of discussion, suppose you know your tax dollars will be spent this way.

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

#168

Post by krageon »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #105
rickycook wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 completel…

He is saying that any company that supplies to a military has an economic incentive to make sure war happens. Seeing as they profit from the size of the military, that's not exactly far-fetched.

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

#170

Post by repolfx »

meritt wrote: post #139
Muanh wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the quote can basically mean anything you want it to mean? You just have to bend your definition of evil into whatever shape suits you.

There's no bending necessary. Google defined [1] what they meant in their IPO filing. > We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains So it boils down to the simple interpretation: Is helping the U.S. military consistent with doing good things for the world? Public opinio…

For what it's worth I also worked for Google for many years. And I'm hardly a shrinking liberal violet. I think it was stupid to fire Damore.

But the mental gymnastics on display in this thread are depressing.

Is helping the U.S. military consistent with doing good things for the world?

Google has always been a global company with most of its users and employees outside of the USA. You can't even stop yourself talking about "good things for the world" here, even though you then immediately go on to talk about Americans only.

But even if a slim majority of Americans support the Pentagon's drone strike program, the VAST majority of the world hates it:

http://time.com/2986118/drone-strike-poll-pew/

Anyway, we don't need opinion polls in this case. A definition of "evil" that doesn't include assassinating defenceless people is utterly useless and might as well be abandoned. The US isn't at war with Pakistan and Afghanistan is hardly a country to begin with, neither country has ever posed a military threat to the USA. So the drone program has simply become a self-perpetuating bureaucratic machine that eats lives on the flimsiest of pretexts and based on the most damningly absurd 'evidence' (like mobile phone signals), with the obvious consequence of mass deaths of innocent people. For instance at red weddings:

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/world/middleeast/drone-st...

... not just once, but multiple times:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wech_Baghtu_wedding_party_airs...

I find myself so saddened by what Google has become.

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