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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

#51

Post by dmead »

C50VGicCxmHC wrote: post #21

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 fail to see the problem here. Do you understand why people would want a motto like "Don't be evil"?

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

#52

Post by mesozoic »

Looks like Google is going to wound itself greatly for letting leftists take over their hiring and internal culture. Shunning real diversity of opinion and ability to reason while trying to have diversity of skin color and genitalia.

It appears that the management is starting to realize the danger and fight back hopefully not too late. https://gizmodo.com/alphabet-shareholders-and-employees-want...

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

#53

Post by simion314 »

kinsomo wrote: post #44
simion314 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 Do you think China will send drones and attack US citizens? 2 Google was claiming they were doing open source work, so China would have access to it anyway 3 If there are enough money in this there will be people going to work on the project, so I am sure the US will have good droning software 4 US brought this on itself with the way they used the drones , like you have the verb "droning"

> 1 Do you think China will send drones and attack US citizens? It's not unthinkable, especially if they feel confident that they have a technological advantage that would shield them from detection or in-kind retaliation. They also have somewhat different notions of citizenship/nationality than Western countries, and they have a few diasporas they'd like to control. > 3 If there are enough money in this there will b…

So in your opinion developers and scientists are not "patriotic" enough, I disagree, if there were some threat many would try to help their country but there is no threat, this weapons are used on dubious external missions.

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

#54

Post by kinsomo »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #50
kinsomo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, the primary difference is that we deploy drones in areas we are not engaged in warfare, and to assassinate various individuals in foreign countries where we are not at war. The US hasn't been officialy "at war" in a long time. I think the last one was World War II. > We do not deploy F-35s to assassinate people in Pakistan. Of course not: F-35s are more expensive to operate and I'm not sure they've even attaine…

The point is these aren't even military operations, I am fairly confident it'd be literally illegal for the Air Force to assassinate people in the manner we've been using our drone program.

> The point is these aren't even military operations

I disagree. I would call operations conducted with military equipment and with the participation of military personnel (e.g. USAF pilots) military operations.

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

#55

Post by mkempe »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #47
mtgx wrote: post #2

I imagine that in the 2-3 years this contract run, Google shared most of what they needed to share with the Pentagon in order to catch-up to the company's current AI capabilities.

I doubt that. It's what, a $9 million contract? Assuming Google is making a profit or at least breaking even, I'd doubt there's more than 15 or so people working on this full time.

This $9m amount was a lie by Google management to the employees. The actual project revenue is much higher, and was planned to reach $250m.

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

#56

Post by ocdtrekkie »

cromwellian wrote: post #45
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #12

The thing I think everyone needs to remember for the future is that Google is only backing off on Maven because of the bad PR. They aren't suddenly growing a conscience, and you can be sure that given the chance to secretly get involved in a horribly unethical program for hundreds of millions of dollars is still definitely an option for them.

That may be a component, but IMHO, pronouncements and explanations haven't diminished employee objections to say the least.

Corporations have no ethics or morals, though. Google has no conscience of it's own. Employees can perhaps keep it in check, for a while. But the notion that people have held that Google is good for society is a myth, and people are increasingly realizing it.

Sure, employees may continue to protest actions like this in the future... if they find out about them. Bear in mind, a significant component of this incident involved Google lying and downplaying the importance of this project.

Shortly after yesterday's article containing leaked emails, a Googler expressed public shame of having promoted articles by one of the people in said emails, which explicitly talked about concealing Google's involvement with the military implementing AI, and shortly thereafter, announced intention to leave. This person had blocked me a mere couple months ago for saying that "Google is not worth saving", and today, perhaps they'd agree with me.

Eventually, Google will cross a line that everyone considers too far. For me, it was several years ago. For this individual, it was yesterday. How long will Google have people there who still object to the behavior the company engages in? Where's your line?

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

#57

Post by simion314 »

kinsomo wrote: post #48
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the primary difference is that we deploy drones in areas we are not engaged in warfare, and to assassinate various individuals in foreign countries where we are not at war. We could not and would not deploy manned aircraft to do these jobs. We do not deploy F-35s to assassinate people in Pakistan. But we've been deploying drones there since 2004. Note that a key issue here is that the drone strikes aren't even mi…

> No, the primary difference is that we deploy drones in areas we are not engaged in warfare, and to assassinate various individuals in foreign countries where we are not at war. The US hasn't been officialy "at war" in a long time. I think the last one was World War II. > We do not deploy F-35s to assassinate people in Pakistan. Of course not: F-35s are more expensive to operate and I'm not sure they've even attaine…

>The US hasn't been officialy "at war" in a long time. I think the last one was World War II.

If you believe that then how you call the military operations in recent years and present?

Also if there is no war then people that are killed are just murders/assassinations this murders makes the scientists not want to get involved

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

#58

Post by ocdtrekkie »

kinsomo wrote: post #54
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is these aren't even military operations, I am fairly confident it'd be literally illegal for the Air Force to assassinate people in the manner we've been using our drone program.

> The point is these aren't even military operations I disagree. I would call operations conducted with military equipment and with the participation of military personnel (e.g. USAF pilots) military operations.

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

"under the operational control of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division". Feel free to click in and read what SAD does, these are assassinations, not military actions. Remember that military actions are something a government does officially, and assassinations are something denied and covered up for over a decade.

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

#59

Post by kinsomo »

simion314 wrote: post #57
kinsomo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, the primary difference is that we deploy drones in areas we are not engaged in warfare, and to assassinate various individuals in foreign countries where we are not at war. The US hasn't been officialy "at war" in a long time. I think the last one was World War II. > We do not deploy F-35s to assassinate people in Pakistan. Of course not: F-35s are more expensive to operate and I'm not sure they've even attaine…

>The US hasn't been officialy "at war" in a long time. I think the last one was World War II. If you believe that then how you call the military operations in recent years and present? Also if there is no war then people that are killed are just murders/assassinations this murders makes the scientists not want to get involved

>>> No, the primary difference is that we deploy drones in areas we are not engaged in warfare, and to assassinate various individuals in foreign countries where we are not at war.

>> The US hasn't been officialy "at war" in a long time. I think the last one was World War II.

> If you believe that then how you call the military operations in recent years and present?

Wars, for the most part.

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

#60

Post by ocdtrekkie »

it_learnses wrote: post #17
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #12

The thing I think everyone needs to remember for the future is that Google is only backing off on Maven because of the bad PR. They aren't suddenly growing a conscience, and you can be sure that given the chance to secretly get involved in a horribly unethical program for hundreds of millions of dollars is still definitely an option for them.

this is so stupid. Meanwhile Chinese govt is going full steam head with AI. This will come back to bite Americans.

I suspect China will eventually regret creating it's own dystopian society. (Some would argue it is already there.)

And anyways, please explain the bogeyman: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17210194

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