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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

#441

Post by chrononaut »

workinthehead wrote: post #432
edanm wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe that having a military is evil? Serving in the military is evil?

That's an intellectually dishonest question and you know it, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

How? It's a legitimate extension of the previous thought. If it is viewed as evil to develop instruments that would kill people, is it also evil to use those instruments to kill people? Likewise, if no one developed instruments to kill people, the military would be an ineffective organization at the task that it's responsible for, and thus would the organization also be considered evil?

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

#442

Post by fixermark »

repolfx wrote: post #440
fixermark wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and Afghanistan is hardly a country to begin with, neither country has ever posed a military threat to the USA. I hate to call out the elephant in the room, but there are about 9,000 people who might disagree with you---3,000 we'd have to assume, because they are dead. Nation-states don't have the excuse of "We're barely a country" when their territory can be used to launch an asymmetric attack by private terrorist…

9/11 was not a military attack, it was a terrorist attack, and terrorism is a law enforcement problem. As evidenced by the fact that the USA has been killing 'terrorists' in Afghanistan and Pakistan for nearly 20 years now and yet there are still regular Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe.

The policing and prevention of terrorist attacks on a nation's home soil is a law enforcement problem.

Law enforcement can't handle international issues when the originating nation doesn't have cooperative domestic law enforcement. At that point, the issue where attacks on a nation's home soil are being coordinated in the territory of an unresponsive or hostile foreign government becomes a military calculation.

The military is a ham-fisted tool to replace the job of domestic law enforcement, but in circumstances where the alternative is "nothing," it's depressingly better than nothing.

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

#444

Post by fixermark »

fsloth wrote: post #345
bpicolo wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 assassinat…

I used to feel similarly about guided missiles during Operation Allied Force (when the US inadvertantly struck the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia).

My opinion on the topic has not translated into a reduction in automated warfare as a policy. On the plus side, independent of my opinion, technology has moved forward so that given similar circumstances, the embassy would at least have a chance that a drone pilot would realize during visual confirmation that the target has a big Chinese flag out front.

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

#445

Post by blindwatchmaker »

beenBoutIT wrote: post #443

If Google refused to work with our military, Microsoft's subpar AI and ethics would power the drones and the project would move ahead.

Having to deal with UI developed by Microsoft is the only thing that could ever make me feel sorry for drone operators.

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

#446

Post by drspacemonkey »

slg wrote: post #140
mattnewton wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they oppose the drone warfare program, which is killing noncombatants in nominally allied countries. https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_561fafe2e4b028dd7ea6c4ff https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-oba... It’s not the military that is evil, it’s this particular program in the eyes of many. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-24557333 Disclaimer: I am also fortunate to work at Google an…

>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…

The problem is that Google wants to give the military better weapons to kill people, knowing full well that they're intended to be better at killing people, and they're using the data we voluntarily gave them under the illusion that they wouldn't do evil things with it.

Evil things like making better weapons for people who kill innocent civilians.

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

#447

Post by wilsonnb »

delbel wrote: post #70
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…

its wrong because we don't want to one day wake up with autonomous drones flying over our head that can kill us. Upload a video to youtube with the wrong ideaology or keyword that triggered some AI to flag your account? Get ready to be fragged as soon as you step outside. I'd like to opt out please

Regardless of whether Google works with the US military on this, or if another company works with the US military on this, or if NO outside company works with the US military on this, or even if the US military doesn't work on it at all, autonomous AI powered weapons are happening anyways. We can't put them back in the box. The prosperity that technology brings us comes with a cost. Weaponizing technology will always be a part of humanity.

The only question for someone in the US should be "would I rather the US (and its allies) develop these weapons, or China develop these weapons, or Russia develop these weapons?".

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

#448

Post by randcraw »

bronzeage wrote: post #270

Why US citizens hate their army so much? All i know is that if google announced it's working with our army on some AI projects, the response would be overwhelmingly positive, and people would praise Google for that. (I'm from Israel if you're wondering) And I think US are a minority in that the citizens despise their own government and army this much. Which really makes you wonder what's the whole point of democracy…

I think your perception of US as being anti-military is mostly wrong. The vast majority of Americans love their military. The US wouldn't have doubled its military budget in the past decade if most people didn't support it enthusiastically. They wouldn't stand and cheer members of the military at most sporting events, or invite them to board civilian airplanes before anyone else, including the rich or disabled.

Americans often offer multiple dissenting opinions because our Constitution invites us to think independently and speak critically. This is a product of our being a breakaway republic separated by revolution which then defined itself and its government just as monarchies became obsolete.

Dissent and debate is in our blood.

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

#449

Post by wilsonnb »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #383
gameswithgo wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if we were currently fighting the 3rd Reich people might be more for it. But currently the USA has a massive military for no purpose, which is often used to conduct evil, and thus some people do not want to aid it.

I'd argue that the purpose is to act as a deterrent against countries that might otherwise think of invading their neighbors or things along those lines, but it's reasonable to think that the cost of such of large military is not worth the benefits. It's also one of the US's largest employers.

And one of our largest welfare programs. It's pretty easy for an 18 year old with no marketable skills to join the military and end up with some skills and a free college education.

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

#450

Post by gr__or »

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…

From outside the US (which is where I'm from) the US military doesn't look very benevolent. Do I want my data to be used to help causes I believe to be harmful to human life?

No! It's that simple.

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