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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

#71

Post by bbatsell »

bitL wrote: post #65
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…

Who cares about Google? What Alphabet does, matters. A new subsidiary with strict confidentiality? They can play with optimizing company structure depending on the area of business as they like.

The contract in question was, in fact, with a totally separate company ("ECS Federal") with confidentiality agreements. The Google execs, in contemporaneous emails, knew from the beginning that it would be opposed and did their utmost to conceal it while acknowledging it would probably leak and suggesting they try to spin it in advance.

https://theintercept.com/2018/05/31/google-leaked-emails-dro...

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

#72

Post by jdashg »

dfsegoat wrote: post #62

Anyone else have a problem with this? Someone else will be doing this work in place of Google, as it is inevitable that AI and defense will merge. So for those reasons, IMO, it is childish to quit and try to not assert some ethical control over something while you can. Maybe the next co. who fills the contract will be the one where the AI engineers who quit now work? TLDR: Get the program killed, or control it on you…

Is there an ethical approach to making drones better at killing people?

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

#73

Post by mindcrime »

vkou wrote: post #36
tomohawk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Two oceans, a navy, and thousands of nuclear weapons are the national defense of the United States

Don't forget "a rifle behind every blade of grass". [1]

Even if the quote is apocryphal, the overall point is valid.

[1]: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto

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

#74

Post by ocdtrekkie »

cromwellian wrote: post #70
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

This is bigger than Google. Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Oracle, Palantir, et al, will take this contract next. Google isn't the only company that can run DNNs to do image classification, it's commodified now. The DoD is going to pay money to get this software, it's inevitable, just like they got the Hydrogen bomb, and ICBMs, and biological weapons. Enough people exist out there who are smart and willing to work on i…

Presumably, a talented software engineer has literally hundreds of other options besides Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Oracle, and Palantir though, right?

I agree we need strict regulations on the use of AI in the military. It carries the same risks as nuclear weapons and chemical and biological weapons for disproportionate harm, but without the extreme cost.

"I'm pretty sure there's plenty of HN readers who actually favor the US military empire"

From the comments of many of the people defending Google's involvement in Project Maven, I am quite confident, unfortunately, that you are correct there as well.

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

#75

Post by Rexxar »

irq wrote: post #69
cryptoz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US certainly isn't 100% trustworthy. The US is the most wildly insane, two-faced and upside-down country in the world right now in terms of military. The commander-in-chief routinely makes nuclear threats, actively hurts his own citizens in times of need, and seeks to decrease military stability by accelerating climate change and isolating his country from the world. The commander-in-chief lies about every sing…

Instead of downvoting cryptoz, I encourage people to counter what he said with their own replies. The majority of his statements in this post are verifiable facts. (I do not know this person, fwiw).

I don't down vote him but I understand that some people want to keep political discussions out of this forum, especially when this is not directly related to the original submission.

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

#76

Post by mikeash »

ajross wrote: post #27
aregsar wrote: 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

That's where I am too. I mean, war stuff is bad, it kills people, and the US certainly isn't 100% trustworthy. At the same time... there's a real don't-rock-the-boat problem here. The last 3/4 of a century of US military dominance has been notable for a decrease in military/para-military violence on an order that humanity literally has never seen. It's not zero for sure, it's not always just, we may not always be the…

For most of that time, the US had an adversary that was roughly on par militarily, ahead in some areas and behind in others. The post WWII peace isn’t built on American dominance, it’s built on MAD.

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

#77

Post by jds375 »

irq wrote: post #69
cryptoz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US certainly isn't 100% trustworthy. The US is the most wildly insane, two-faced and upside-down country in the world right now in terms of military. The commander-in-chief routinely makes nuclear threats, actively hurts his own citizens in times of need, and seeks to decrease military stability by accelerating climate change and isolating his country from the world. The commander-in-chief lies about every sing…

Instead of downvoting cryptoz, I encourage people to counter what he said with their own replies. The majority of his statements in this post are verifiable facts. (I do not know this person, fwiw).

I agree. I’d guess that the downvoters are thinking along the lines of:

- Sure it’s bad now, but the US military is made up of far more than just the president... many of which may be good, rational actors.

- Just because it’s bad now doesn’t mean it won’t get better quickly (there has been a lot of pushback on the president’s agenda)

- The US may still be comparatively better/benevolent than any other dominant superpower

Note that these aren’t necessarily my views (I’d need more time to think and consider). But I think they point out some decent possible counter arguments to OP

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

#78

Post by kinsomo »

squarefoot wrote: post #49
aregsar wrote: 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

If we reduce everything to being ahead of a potential enemy, then we soon get to a point where the solution of all problems is a single deadly upfront attack. Those technologies aren't for defense; every nation in the world throws loads of money to military expenses -including those countries who have zero chances of being ahead of any other- for a single reason: war is a very profitable business. Everything else is…

> If we reduce everything to being ahead of a potential enemy, then we soon get to a point where the solution of all problems is a single deadly upfront attack.

> Those technologies aren't for defense;

Have you ever heard of Mutually Assured Destruction? Basically the idea is having "credible deterrent" actually prevents the use of the weapons, because the side that makes a "single deadly upfront attack" will lose along with their opponent. The only winning move is not to play.

The problems happen when one side has capabilities the others lack, or when there are options for a "single deadly upfront attack" that aren't suicide.

In short, "offensive" technologies can be defensive.

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

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

#79

Post by Chaebixi »

it_learnses wrote: post #64
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

False Dilemma. Direct invasion is not the only option available to a sufficiently advanced, large scale AI attack. Think of how many ways you can mess with elections, opinions, security, etc. of a target nation without being detected.

FYI, it_learnses, you've been shadowbanned for 7 months:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15570335

All your comments start out hidden, but I vouched for this one so it's visible.

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

#80

Post by ocdtrekkie »

it_learnses wrote: post #64
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

False Dilemma. Direct invasion is not the only option available to a sufficiently advanced, large scale AI attack. Think of how many ways you can mess with elections, opinions, security, etc. of a target nation without being detected.

You don't retaliate against election tampering with missile strikes.
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