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Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

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Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct that a corporation's biggest enemies are the workers who do all the work and create all the wealth of that corporation. You're also correct that this is a victory for those workers and a defeat for the corporation.

In "moral crusades" like this, it is often a very vocal minority that dominates the discussion. I seriously doubt that it was a majority of Google employees who objected to this.

>it is often a very vocal minority that dominates the discussion

do you suppose the decision to support a military project was made by a large majority before? Committed minorities almost always steer decision-making within business ventures.

By framing this as a 'moral crusade' you're suggesting that there is an asymmetry here while there is not, participating in projects that can be used for purposes of war is no amoral default position. The stronger minority simply won.

Or framing it in another way, suppose Google would hold an employee vote tomorrow, do you think this would change the outcome?

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#32
post #5

Congrads google activists you have hurt your employer's business and business prospects and prevented your colleagues from working on really interesting AI applications relegating their life's work to sorting photo albums. Oh, and none of that will make a difference because a competitor of yours will pick up the slack and be in a position to offer really interesting work to attract and retain researchers.

[deleted]

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#33
post #24

While there are good intentions here, what happens if China and Russia military get ahead of US military in this technology due to us limiting ourselves

I don't think there's much of a problem with that. The thing is, the danger from AI weapons is that they will be dumb as bricks and cause unprecedented levels of collateral damage- not that they will somehow take over the world for their evil overlord owners.

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#34
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we cannot find better applications for so-called AI than bullshit like sorting photo albums and military applications, maybe we should not do it at all? I am still sure there are enough industrial, medical and civil applications for Google to work on, no need to resort to "photo albums" immediately.

That’s sort of an academic answer. Perhaps Google should go straight for creating the Singularity? Business works by creating a product that someone will pay for. Then they reinvest those profits, grow the company, etc to improve that product. Maybe we’ll eventually get the robotic butler that consumers will pay for, but in the meantime the Apple II robotic/AI revolution has been a little slow to materialize.

But as an employee why should I like what the management wants, I think is your duty to speak if you consider that management does something bad and resign if you don't want to participate. My goal is not to make money for my boss/company, I personally get satisfaction when our customers are happy. If Google management does not like developers with this kind of ideals they should say it in their recruitment announcement that you should be OK with working with the military and spy agencies.

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#35
post #24

While there are good intentions here, what happens if China and Russia military get ahead of US military in this technology due to us limiting ourselves

Then we'll have fewer weapons at our disposal for fighting our many fruitless and stupid proxy wars around the world.

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#36
post #24

While there are good intentions here, what happens if China and Russia military get ahead of US military in this technology due to us limiting ourselves

Likely, the cabal of employees will continue to feel smug that they took the moral high ground by refusing to contribute to the national defense.

If the Department of Defense primarily concerned itself with national defense, as opposed to political games on the other side of the world, that 'cabal' would probably have fewer members.

Two oceans, a navy, and thousands of nuclear weapons are the national defense of the United States. The rest is empire-building.

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#37
post #24

While there are good intentions here, what happens if China and Russia military get ahead of US military in this technology due to us limiting ourselves

Then we catch up.

Or we don't, because autonomous killing machines are a big enough risk to all life they're not worth it. For example, you don't see an arms race to develop nastier strains of the flu or ebola, because that would be stupid for everyone.

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#39

This will really hurt their enterprise cloud business. Google has shown to have a bunch of employees who will leak confidential discussions to the press and try to PR damage their employer. If you are a large company looking for a home, that is exactly the kind of environment you want to avoid. In addition, many of the large US companies have a military component. Examples are GE, Boeing, United Technologies. How man…

I think this was different then regular military projects because of drones, drones have a terrible reputation.

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#40
post #24

While there are good intentions here, what happens if China and Russia military get ahead of US military in this technology due to us limiting ourselves

It's very likely if there were a legitimate threat or need for the technology, employee opinion on helping the military would likely change. China and Russia are regularly highlighted as the bogeymen in these scenarios, but how many people realistically would suggest either is likely to say... invade or fire on the United States?
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