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Artificial Intelligence Is Now a Pentagon Priority. Will Silicon Valley Help?

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Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Now a Pentagon Priority. Will Silicon Valley Help?

#71

Post by justonepost »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #35

The reason why the military will always be technologically behind is that the salaries they're willing to pay for talent is far less compared to what you can get in the Bay Area and/or New York if you decide to do quantitative finance. It's as simple as that, but there's far more than just the economics that are involved. Even if in the world where the military does pay salaries on par with the Google farm, very few…

Yeah, peaceful economics far outweigh military. Military cant hire talent because talent can make more money building products for the world. It's a nice trend. Trump's anti-trade is screwing that up though.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Now a Pentagon Priority. Will Silicon Valley Help?

#72

Post by xamuel »

throwaway287391 wrote: post #64
liftbigweights wrote: post #60

Does silicon valley like money? Will an industry created by the military take military money? I'm no expert, but my crystal ball says yes. If not, the pentagon would simply fund a new silicon valley in virginia and the surrounding area. Considering the huge defense budget, I'm sure silicon valley is salivating for a piece. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/13/trump-signs-717-billion-defe...

> If not, the pentagon would simply fund a new silicon valley in virginia and the surrounding area. I'm skeptical that the military would be able to recruit AI talent in significant numbers. There's a fairly strong cultural opposition to military applications among AI researchers. Between that and the comp packages they're getting to work at "cool" companies (i.e. consumer or pure research focused), the cost for the…

>Isn't the military pretty limited in how much they can pay?

The AI researchers wouldn't literally be soldiers. They'd be contractors, side-stepping the pay limitations.

That said, military grunts would be perfect for the bootstrapping needed for some applications. "Manually label these one million images? No problem!"

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Now a Pentagon Priority. Will Silicon Valley Help?

#73

Post by throwaway287391 »

ojbyrne wrote: post #70
throwaway287391 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If not, the pentagon would simply fund a new silicon valley in virginia and the surrounding area. I'm skeptical that the military would be able to recruit AI talent in significant numbers. There's a fairly strong cultural opposition to military applications among AI researchers. Between that and the comp packages they're getting to work at "cool" companies (i.e. consumer or pure research focused), the cost for the…

DC is a pretty fun city. And if we’re comparing to Virginia suburbs, Silicon Valley isn’t exactly exciting.

Yeah, I actually agree. But I wrote "boring" with the quotes because I think that's the common perception among young engineers/researchers.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Now a Pentagon Priority. Will Silicon Valley Help?

#75

Post by throwaway287391 »

reacweb wrote: post #68
throwaway287391 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If not, the pentagon would simply fund a new silicon valley in virginia and the surrounding area. I'm skeptical that the military would be able to recruit AI talent in significant numbers. There's a fairly strong cultural opposition to military applications among AI researchers. Between that and the comp packages they're getting to work at "cool" companies (i.e. consumer or pure research focused), the cost for the…

I think that one of the cultural opposition to military applications is the presence of NDA. I think all NDA shall be limited in time. There should be also a law so that NDA not limited in time or with an exagerate time limit are void. The other main opposition is moral, but I think this is a bad reason. If all the people with morality refuse to work on military project, this means that all the projects will be manag…

> The other main opposition is moral, but I think this is a bad reason. If all the people with morality refuse to work on military project, this means that all the projects will be managed by sociopaths. If you do not want your army in the hands of sociopaths, it is a duty to accept working on military projects.

You're probably right, but I think for a lot of people who aren't the super patriotic type, it's just easier to work in private industry without any direct military interactions and not feel as much obligation to think hard about the ethics of the tech they're creating. Of course, there is a lot of discussion about the ethics of big private tech firms lately (and rightly so), but as far as just being able to tell your peers what you do in mixed social settings, there simply aren't as many people who would immediately recoil if you tell them you work at Snapchat vs. the Pentagon, right or wrong. And yeah, that's a morally weak and bad reason to choose private industry, but I suspect that something like it is a big part of the motivation for many people nonetheless.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Now a Pentagon Priority. Will Silicon Valley Help?

#76

Post by davemp »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #35

The reason why the military will always be technologically behind is that the salaries they're willing to pay for talent is far less compared to what you can get in the Bay Area and/or New York if you decide to do quantitative finance. It's as simple as that, but there's far more than just the economics that are involved. Even if in the world where the military does pay salaries on par with the Google farm, very few…

> People want to work on things that will help change the world and improve the quality of lives of other people, not make it easier to kill.

Plenty of military/government projects have changed the world for the better (ignoring geopolitics) including: modern surgery, the internet, GPS, cellphones, microwaves, canned food, duct tape, etc.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Now a Pentagon Priority. Will Silicon Valley Help?

#77

Post by lawrenceyan »

davemp wrote: post #76
lawrenceyan wrote: post #35

The reason why the military will always be technologically behind is that the salaries they're willing to pay for talent is far less compared to what you can get in the Bay Area and/or New York if you decide to do quantitative finance. It's as simple as that, but there's far more than just the economics that are involved. Even if in the world where the military does pay salaries on par with the Google farm, very few…

> People want to work on things that will help change the world and improve the quality of lives of other people, not make it easier to kill. Plenty of military/government projects have changed the world for the better (ignoring geopolitics) including: modern surgery, the internet, GPS, cellphones, microwaves, canned food, duct tape, etc.

I would argue that these innovations were able to be created in spite of the military not because. Think of why the military exists. With finite resources at its disposal what does it fund to maximize its objective? Remember that the military exists only for one purpose, and that is the ability to wage war.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Now a Pentagon Priority. Will Silicon Valley Help?

#78

Post by citrablue »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #77
davemp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People want to work on things that will help change the world and improve the quality of lives of other people, not make it easier to kill. Plenty of military/government projects have changed the world for the better (ignoring geopolitics) including: modern surgery, the internet, GPS, cellphones, microwaves, canned food, duct tape, etc.

I would argue that these innovations were able to be created in spite of the military not because. Think of why the military exists. With finite resources at its disposal what does it fund to maximize its objective? Remember that the military exists only for one purpose, and that is the ability to wage war.

I disagree, I think the military exists for the purpose of advancing American interests at home and abroad. Think of ships like the USS Mercy, or other humanitarian efforts.

What makes you think those innovations would have been created without the military? The US military does a lot of research that doesn't have immediate practical/commercial applications. They cost a lot of money, and don't have obvious payoffs, which make them a poor candidate to be funded by private investment.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Now a Pentagon Priority. Will Silicon Valley Help?

#79

Post by noetic_techy »

Honestly, the Pentagon doesn't need to work with Silicon Valley, it just needs to put together teams of incredibly bright people who are smart enough to understand the AI technology coming out of Silicon Valley AND willing to work defense projects. It's delusional to think that all bright people who are capable of working in this realm are anti-defense-industry. I don't think it would be that hard to get that talent with VERY competitive salaries (if not outright generously overpaid) and maybe some other perks like the ability to work anywhere in the country and a cool cryptic group name. Hence JAIC. At any point, if it catches wind of something that's new and potentially an AI game changer, it has the authority to demand to see the IP for national security reasons, and feed that to a defense contractor. In fact any patent can be reviewed and deemed classified in this manner. Take the olive branch and come to terms with the fact that western civilization is not defended by pacifists.

Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Now a Pentagon Priority. Will Silicon Valley Help?

#80

Post by wilsonnb3 »

syshum wrote: post #51
CitizenTekk wrote: post #44

Is it just me? Or I'm just really excited that the war of "people" is gonna be over and there will be a war of "AI" just like on Reel Steel.

It is just you, as war will necessarily always involve death and destruction. The only thing that will change here is that it will no longer be a human choosing who lives and who dies, it will be an computer algorithm. The problem with war today is the people that choose who lives and who dies are not the same people that actually have to do the killing, further removing humans from this decision chain is not desirab…

> Not use technology to find way to kill each other more efficiently

Without nuclear weapons we would have probably had world war three already. Sometimes finding more efficient ways to kill each other is a good thing.

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