Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 114 posts

Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts

#31

Post by _iyig »

Having canceled Project Maven and dropped out of competition for the DoD cloud contract on principle, Google continues to operate an AI center in Beijing. They host conferences with Chinese companies and research institutions who they tutor on the use of Google's ML tools.

How much of this knowledge (much of it focused on computer vision and image understanding) has been applied to China's surveillance program in Xinjiang, which has put over 1 million ethnic Uighurs in concentration camps? Why has Google continued to operate their China AI center, which aids and educates China's state-controlled enterprises, while refusing to work with the US government even on vanilla I.T. systems?

[0] https://www.scmp.com/tech/article/2165209/google-shrugs-trad...

Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts

#32

Post by Mirioron »

temp1827 wrote: post #8

I mean, he has a point. It's clear U.S. tech companies have become hugely susceptible to hiring foreign spies and the issue of foreign governments stealing IP is real. There was a very recent public case of Apple's autonomous driving unit stopping a Chinese engineer from leaving the country just as he was bound for China after detecting he had uploaded a bunch of code to a personal account. And most likely many more…

But aren't they stealing IP from the companies? In that case it's not treason, is it? In fact, in these cases it's the government's job to help the company affected.

Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts

#33

Post by earthstabber »

dleslie wrote: post #22

This part is worth considering: > Thiel, a Facebook Inc. board member, argued that the kind of AI developed by DeepMind, which like Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., should be thought of as a potential “military weapon.” “We’ve been a lot more dishonest about that in Silicon Valley than the nuclear physicists were in the 1940s,” he said in the opening speech at the National Conservatism conference. If one beli…

Strong encryption is used for offensive measures as well.

Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts

#34

Post by cscurmudgeon »

nemothekid wrote: post #24
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negligence can be a crime under the right conditions.

1. If negligence in this case means treason, there are several companies you can investigate then - it makes less sense to single out Google when Cisco has likely suffered more. Huawei was literally founded on stealing foreign technology and is allegedly built by Cisco engineers. 2. Rather than investigating if Google negligence is treason, would Thiel agree to charge Zuckerberg with treason due to the Cambridge Anal…

Thiel is definitely hypocritical. That alone does not make him wrong. (He may be right or wrong, I don't know).

Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts

#35

Post by dawhizkid »

nemothekid wrote: post #18
temp1827 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says "He then suggested Google’s actions were “seemingly treasonous,” asking whether DeepMind or Google senior management had been “infiltrated” by foreign intelligence agencies." To clarify, by stealing I also mean infiltrated by spies that are hired as employees who in turn provide information to foreign governments... And yes, of course this could happen to Facebook as well, but as of today Google/MSFT…

> To clarify, by stealing I also mean infiltrated by spies that are hired as employees who in turn provide information to foreign governments... Again, this isn't new. This has been happening for decades - just ask Cisco. Wether is treason is one thing, but I'm not arguing it doesn't happen. The radical statement Theil is making here, is that the _executives_ are compromised, and that they _actively_ sabotage the USG…

Why is it easy to believe all tech companies are filled with foreign agents but hard to believe that any of them could rise to senior management? If anything, a desirable goal of getting hired as a foreign agent at one of these companies would be to rise to an executive rank

Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts

#36

Post by Mirioron »

tedunangst wrote: post #12
temp1827 wrote: post #8

I mean, he has a point. It's clear U.S. tech companies have become hugely susceptible to hiring foreign spies and the issue of foreign governments stealing IP is real. There was a very recent public case of Apple's autonomous driving unit stopping a Chinese engineer from leaving the country just as he was bound for China after detecting he had uploaded a bunch of code to a personal account. And most likely many more…

Isn't that a problem that Google should be themselves be seeking to solve? Is it typical for the government to help protect companies' IP by investigating them for treason?

I would say that the government should be trying to help companies in these situations. That's what all the rules about foreign trade are for after all, but it should be in a way that helps the company, not hurts it.

Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts

#37

Post by thrwayxyz »

ALittleLight wrote: post #20
thrwayxyz wrote: post #4

I interviewed with him once. Got on the short list by telling the recruiter that "Palantir is a bunch of really smart guys run by a Bond villain". Not sure if that ever got back, but not being thrown out of the process tells me a lot about the company.

Doesn't it say as much about you that you were applying to work there?

If you think that's bad you should see the startup I'm trying to get funding for.

Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts

#38

Post by remarkEon »

nemothekid wrote: post #11
temp1827 wrote: post #8

I mean, he has a point. It's clear U.S. tech companies have become hugely susceptible to hiring foreign spies and the issue of foreign governments stealing IP is real. There was a very recent public case of Apple's autonomous driving unit stopping a Chinese engineer from leaving the country just as he was bound for China after detecting he had uploaded a bunch of code to a personal account. And most likely many more…

1. Almost every tech company has been acutely aware of China stealing IP for decades now. It's not a new point. 2. Where did Thiel make this point? Thiel does not make the point that the Chinese are stealing US IP. He makes the charged point that Google executives (and somehow not Facebook executives) are Chinese agents. To that claim, I don't think he "has a point". It's in very bad taste to me that Thiel would poin…

>when he sits on the board of the biggest troublemaker.

Why is this some kind of detraction from his larger point? If he has a problem with how Facebook is being run - or has concerns with their implementation of AI - then of course he'd want to retain his seat. How else would he influence the company?

Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts

#39

Post by WillySchu »

thrwayxyz wrote: post #37
ALittleLight wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't it say as much about you that you were applying to work there?

If you think that's bad you should see the startup I'm trying to get funding for.

I'll take ya up on that. Show me?

Re: Thiel Urges U.S. Probe of Google's 'Seemingly Treasonous' Acts

#40

Post by starpilot »

Google certainly needs to be kept in check. We've been too trusting. It is obvious that their search engineers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality.
Post reply on HN