Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by Eridrus » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 1:24 PM UTC

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…

Alternatively: Military decisions (in the US) are already overseen and approved by political leaders and they can make judgements on a case-by-case basis, rather than blanket war=good/bad.

The US has not had a great track record here, even in my lifetime, but in a world where our adversaries are not going to have these same qualms, I think it is necessary for the US to build this technology, and if you accept that it is necessary for someone to build it, I think holding your nose and saying you want to be as far away from it as possible seems hypocritical.

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

#342

Post by Lennie » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 1:24 PM UTC

bonesss wrote: post #180

apatters wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> ... you should support early, aggressive, global regulation of the military applications of AI and drones. The history of global regulations on the military application of useful military technologies is not too impressive. The second a shooting war breaks out those rules will be forgotten, giving a huge head-start to anyone shady enough to ignore them wholesale. "AI" has been used in war since WW2. Strapping an IE…

> The history of global regulations on the military application of useful military technologies is not too impressive.

So far we've been able to prevent a lot of use of bio weapons. Many have said they want to do the same with AI and have already started doing that.

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

#343

Post by grigjd3 » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 1:27 PM UTC

barrkel wrote: post #313

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…

Drones are a worse weapon than a man on the ground with a gun, because they have asymmetric risks. The country with the drones doesn't risk civilian backlash from casualties. They get to start wars without much political pushback. And that means they can start wars for less justifiable reasons.

Mostly curious but do you feel the same way about body armor? Body armor reduces casualties as well and makes war seem less risky?

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

#344

Post by josefresco » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 1:29 PM UTC

Dear young, super smart Googlers: If your knowledge of the Middle East and terrorism goes back to ISIS/Al Qaeda - stop coding (or selling ads) and visit your local library. The history section is chalk full of wonderfully informative books that will inform your opinions.

You might find that Internet tropes about terrorism to be less than accurate.

For example, I just finished "Rise and Kill First" [1] a rather enlightening book about Israel's use of targeted assassinations going back almost 100 years. When I started reading Israel wasn't in the news, but then the whole Iran/US nuclear deal fiasco hit, and it made Netanyahu's actions all the more clear. Note, I'm not saying justified but rather that I now understand why Israel thinks and acts the way it does, and how sometimes this clashes with their normally close allies like the US.

1: https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Kill-First-Targeted-Assassinatio...

Before that, I read "Ghost Wars" [2] another beast of a book that covers US involvement in the Middle East going back to the late 1970's up to 9/11. Fascinating book about the struggle to dominate Afghanistan by regional and world powers.

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-Septe...

Before that, it was "The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War" [3] about the history of the CIA and the US's foreign policy in the last 100+ years.

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Foster-Dulles-Allen-Secret/d...

Key point - These books look past recent events to provide an mostly complete understanding of these conflicts that you can't get with 20 minute Google searches and Wikipedia snippets.

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

#345

Post by fsloth » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 1:31 PM UTC

bpicolo wrote: post #333

fsloth wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If your problem is with killing people, it should be with the people who ordered the killing and not the specific weapon that was used to carry out the killing." Drone strikes, as they are used, are a more evil way of taking out identified targets of other nationalities. I find the concept of a nation state summarily assassinating people a bit troubling, but drone strikes make it even worse by making it imprecise an…

Do you think that if part of Google's work were to make it more precise, would that be less evil?

If they could make sure they are killing only the guy they wanted, and act on that using pinpoint precision?

Uh, actually, now that you mentioned it, that would be even more scary.

That would be totally consequence free assassination device. At least the civilian casualties put some lid on the tendency to wantonly fly around in glorified RC planes murdering people.

The way I see it, if you are intending to assassinate a person (i.e. kill them not part of a military engagement) you could at least have the decency to have operators on the ground, with visual range to the target to pull the trigger. That's skin in the game. That's proper balancing of the calculus.

When you remove the chance of your own guys getting hurt, you are lowering the threshold to apply deadly force.

The whole point of due process and so on is to guarantee human rights for all and more importantly, put checks and balances on the actions of the political leaders.

When it suddenly becomes "ok" to kill people in automated fashion around the globe, that's a serious threat to all civil liberties regardless if one is a US citizen or not.

I think a free and open society is the only reason US has any credibility in claiming a moral high ground and things like eliminating targets on the disposition matrix [0] without due process erodes that high ground quite effectively.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix

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

#346

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 1:33 PM UTC

Regardsyjc wrote: post #232

manigandham wrote: post #212

The world runs on violence. It's the fundamental force that keeps things in order. Modern society with all its rules and laws is nothing without enforcement, which is ultimately delivered via a monopoly license granted to the government with its military and police to keep everyone else safe and free. Being the best at deploying violence is how you defend against the chaos elsewhere. This isn't about "evil corporatio…

I agree. I believe the only reason American civilians like us have been able to enjoy peace is because we dropped a ton of bombs to blast tiny countries out of the sky and we also have a history of fighting wars not to win, but not to lose. If Americans are willing to sacrifice their people and resources for a tiny country in the middle of nowhere, imagine what they would do to you if you attacked them or their inter…

[deleted]

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

#347

Post by Lennie » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 1:35 PM UTC

drawkbox wrote: post #182

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…

> When a war breaks loose, these data monsters are one of the best weapons against the opponents . War and military research throughout history have done many good things for quality of life, even back to the days of Archimedes fearing the Roman invasions, when it is more about defense not offense. This here ARPA/DARPA decentralized network of the internet is one of those good things along with self-driving cars, wif…

> But what could possibly go wrong when military/war artificial intelligence is combined with all your data and knows everything about you?

Someone made a video about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM

Dailymotion (French company) mirror:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6kttmw

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

#348

Post by aninhumer » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 1:35 PM UTC

noetic_techy wrote: post #327

globuous wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But then, if you live in the "west", please realize the cost of turning on your light bulb or driving your car or wearing your shoes, or turning on the AC, or buying frozen meat. Realize the cost our lifestyle imposes on people elsewhere. The regimes that are protected and the lives we ruin in exchange for us being able to live the lifestyle that we have. Please don't make me say what I didn't. I'm just asking,…

> Sure. But then, if you live in the "west", please realize the cost of turning on your light bulb or driving your car or wearing your shoes, or turning on the AC, or buying frozen meat. Realize the cost our lifestyle imposes on people elsewhere. The regimes that are protected and the lives we ruin in exchange for us being able to live the lifestyle that we have. Ah the old veiled blame capitalism and blame the west…

As opposed to that parallel universe without capitalism where no improvements happened?

You can't just point to improvements and say "look the system is good". If feudalism had remained the dominant system then we'd still have had some improvements in quality of life, and I'm sure the aristocracy of this hypothetical world would be pointing to that and saying "look feudalism has been nothing but a boon!" just as confidently as you.

The question is, could another system be better? And given that by pretty much any measure, we've had the resources to lift everyone out of poverty for years, and yet haven't used them to do that, I think it's not unreasonable to suggest that another way of allocating resources might be an improvement.

>Meanwhile some in the west are sitting at Starbucks on their mac books or smart phones whining about how terrible the "west" is while checking to see if their steady paycheck was direct deposited before they uber back to their furnished home or apartment, all without being arrested by secret police for their negative post upon arrival. Fancy that.

Meanwhile many people in the west can't afford most of these things, don't have a steady paycheck because they do shift work, live in a trailer, and are often harassed by the non-secret police for no reason. And they're the ones lucky enough to be born in developed economies.

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

#349

Post by alexandercrohde » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 1:36 PM UTC

repolfx wrote: post #181

sqdbps wrote: post #46

The irony of this particular piece is that they are publishing emails expressing concern about how the media might frame and distort such an item and doing just that. The email discussion is mainly about potential revenue if they were to win the JEDI contract it's not about maven or 'expecting the drone ai work to grow'. Also worth noting that Google isn't the only contractor for maven yet they are made as such in mo…

Google probably can't change that, at least not overnight. The reason Google are experiencing leaks and taking flak for this is that it's only Google that ever claimed to be a superior moral actor. Amazon and Microsoft, for all their faults, never claimed to be much more than tech companies that want to make money - the extent of Microsoft's moral ambition was "computers are good, let's put a computer in every home",…

Also, Google has reaped the reward of being a superior moral actor for a long time.

There was a good decade where google was the coolest place to work in the country. Many of the smartest people channeled not only their time but their passion into propelling the idea of google forward based on that understanding.

Some of the brightest minds happen to be idealists and visionaries (Gates, Musk, Wales) who want to work toward a post-war future where information is abundant and there is no scarcity. Putting power into the hands of the few seems like a step in the wrong direction to us idealists.

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

#350

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 01, 2018, 1:36 PM UTC

Regardsyjc wrote: post #232

manigandham wrote: post #212

The world runs on violence. It's the fundamental force that keeps things in order. Modern society with all its rules and laws is nothing without enforcement, which is ultimately delivered via a monopoly license granted to the government with its military and police to keep everyone else safe and free. Being the best at deploying violence is how you defend against the chaos elsewhere. This isn't about "evil corporatio…

I agree. I believe the only reason American civilians like us have been able to enjoy peace is because we dropped a ton of bombs to blast tiny countries out of the sky and we also have a history of fighting wars not to win, but not to lose. If Americans are willing to sacrifice their people and resources for a tiny country in the middle of nowhere, imagine what they would do to you if you attacked them or their inter…

[deleted]