Also on this topic, from students who would interview at Google. It's important to hear how the upcoming generation, who would actually be doing this work, feel https://gizmodo.com/students-pledge-to-refuse-job-interviews... [Students Pledge to Refuse Job Interviews at Google in Protest of Pentagon Work]
From my observations in my college, Google is starting to become the new "Microsoft". It is still seen as well paying, and nerdy but it is no longer new and exciting. Facebook is taking over Google's spot as the well established but still exciting tech company, while Airbnb seems to be taking FB's spot as the new and exciting tech company.
So, I'm all for giving someone the benefit of the doubt if they have a change of heart upon reconsidering an issue, but this coming after the fact rings a bit hollow to me. I think the only principle at play here is that it became a PR issue. That's fine, but let's be honest about it. Early emails between Google execs framed this project only in terms of revenue and potential PR backlash. As far as we're aware, there…
I doubt that Google spelling out their moral stance is intended to convince you right away that they're all good now. It's a public standard that they're setting for themselves. If you think their actions don't match their words, you now have concrete terms and principles to critique and compare with. It's a benchmark to which employees and the public can hold them accountable.
Historically has anyone succeeded in holding such giant firms accountable to their own stated principles? At the moment, I like those principles more than I like Google.
There was a similar "comming to jesus moment" with Google in China. They saw how they had to do the right thing after years of censoring and manipulating data for the chinese government, but only after they got massively hacked, blocked, and essentially forced out of china... However a good thing done for the wrong reasons is still a good thing.
Hmm not really. Google is bad and they should feel bad, you're just handwaving away how bad they are because you like them. Imagine I wanted to have somebody killed and I hired a hitman to kill them and when I go to pay the hitman I accidentally wire the money to the wrong place and inadvertantly pay off the victims mortgage instead of paying the hitman. Now the victim doesn't die and gets their mortgage paid off. I'…
Beleive me when I say that I do not like Google. But what is a person or a group of people supposed to do when they have done something wrong? All they can do is stop doing it, and try to prevent doing it in the future.
You can speculate about their motives, I personally beleive it to be PR motivated aswell, but what matters in the end is that it stopped happening.
The best way to lead is by example. Thank you, Googlers. The choice not to accept business is a hard one. I've recently turned away from precision-metrology work where I couldn't be certain of its intent; in every other way, it was precisely the sort of work I'd like to do, and the compensation was likely to be good. These stated principles are very much in line with those that I've chosen; a technology's primary pur…
That's a pity - as someone in stereo machine vision, metrology is something we really really need for a huge range of applications - that said, if its feeding an autonomous armed targeting system, I agree. We really need to decide as a species we want to continue being a species and realize that solving problems with each other by force is coming to an end. I'm not speaking from a pacifist viewpoint, just a practical…
Russia reportedly has armed robots capable of operating autonomously and they preemptively refused to honor any ban, and other nations are developing their own.
As terrifying as the prospect is, it's already happening.
Well, now you are talking about philosophical questions. - Is pursuing an AI that kills 10 bad guys but saves 20 good ones overall bad? - Is pursuing an AI that doesn't kill anyone but pushes us to watch ads and lose our life on youtube overall bad?
We only call it AI - creating an autonomous ML system that is designed to kill anyone can lead to us all being killed by math and plastic - it's a singularly bad idea, so much so there is no scoring mechanism that justifies it - too much chance we end up with this -- https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA
We will end up with that. Do we want to be as helpless as the people in that video?
It's good that they're openly acknowledging the misstep here. However, I wish that the "will not pursue" section got the same bold-faced treatment as the one above it.
It seems appropriate at this point for industry leaders in this field, and governments, to come together with a set of Geneva-convention-like rules which address the ethical risks inherent in this space.
Well, now you are talking about philosophical questions. - Is pursuing an AI that kills 10 bad guys but saves 20 good ones overall bad? - Is pursuing an AI that doesn't kill anyone but pushes us to watch ads and lose our life on youtube overall bad?
> - Is pursuing an AI that kills 10 bad guys but saves 20 good ones overall bad? - Yes. If your philosophical development is to the point where there are clearly defined good guys and bad guys in your mind I suggest you read more.
His statement doesn't really depend on the definition of "good" and "bad", as the logic only requires that the good people be half as valuable as the bad people, not more valuable.
Well, now you are talking about philosophical questions. - Is pursuing an AI that kills 10 bad guys but saves 20 good ones overall bad? - Is pursuing an AI that doesn't kill anyone but pushes us to watch ads and lose our life on youtube overall bad?
Can you really build an AI that can identify bad guys? What if it's a good guy in the wrong uniform?
Then we can just do it Russian style. Kill everyone.
That's a pity - as someone in stereo machine vision, metrology is something we really really need for a huge range of applications - that said, if its feeding an autonomous armed targeting system, I agree. We really need to decide as a species we want to continue being a species and realize that solving problems with each other by force is coming to an end. I'm not speaking from a pacifist viewpoint, just a practical…
Agreed regarding surveillance. In my book, working on Landsat, JWST, or LISA = awesome. I will only direct expertise toward an imaging system like Keyhole or targeting/guidance systems if our society faces a clear and acute foreign threat.
What about street level city/town surveillance? Of course all the cop shops want to feed all their wants/warrants into it. I have no problem with this if there is a legal framework that supports it. More importantly, there are toddlers that get loose from their mothers because they are fundamentally greased pigs, or there are older members of our society who may be prone to wandering off in a daze - the ability to locate them within a very few minutes would be a good thing indeed. My own take is that I will look, I will try and recognize, but I will NEVER target. Machine is too good, sacks of meat like us have no prayer. That said, I've talked to a couple of cop shops, my position is that I will work with them when there is a framework that defines a legal basis for that level of tracking of people who clearly wish not to be tracked, even if they are bad actors. It's not a question of how far away you are, its a question of what you will track, why you will track, and what structure our society has put in place to get the benefits, not the risks. Looping back to the main point of the post, looking is OK, tracking requires societal governance, and any autonomous lethal capability, never mind action, should be absolutely forbidden, not just by law, but because we don't all want to die.