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He created Oculus headsets as a teenager, now he makes AI weapons for Ukraine

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Re: He created Oculus headsets as a teenager, now he makes AI weapons for Ukraine

#121

Post by hulitu »

libertine wrote: post #21
DolphinAsa wrote: post #4

AI weapons seems like a bad bad idea.

In theory, I can see that point, in practice, unfortunately, it seems like a good idea. We're witnessing Russia, a massive country with nuclear deterrence, trying to annex a smaller peaceful country that hasn't provoked any neighbor since it existed - Ukraine. Russia has used genocide in the past, and is now using it again to try to wipe yet another country and culture from the face of the earth. The vast majority of…

> They can no longer rely on US for help

Maybe you shall check some news. /s

Re: He created Oculus headsets as a teenager, now he makes AI weapons for Ukraine

#122

Post by impossiblefork »

Manuel_D wrote: post #113
OKRainbowKid wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the satire!

The whole part about civilizing the Middle East and Africa sounds dumb. But it does really ring true for Europe, Korea, and Japan. My Polish and Estonian coworkers really do enthusiastically support Pax Americana. Because when you have a hostile (or potentially hostile) country on your border, you actually have to take a sobering look at your country's survival.

It does absolutely not ring true for Europe.

Even for WWII, Hitler was a specifically German character, and it wasn't as if though he lacked opponents, so he didn't even represent all of Germany, and he was actually inspired by the US and by Turkey rather than by European thought.

The US has actually been the source of some very recent and significant barbarism in Europe, for example, the torture that happened at Bromma airport despite promises, and after quite extreme threats against Sweden's trade, the torture prisons in Poland, Lithuania and Romania, etc.

So I actually think it's almost the complete other way around.

But it's always nice to have allies against hostile powers like Russia, and I think that's what the Estonians appreciate.

Re: He created Oculus headsets as a teenager, now he makes AI weapons for Ukraine

#123

Post by southernplaces7 »

renewiltord wrote: post #93
archagon wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the glorious peace of Vietnam and Iraq. I can’t wait for us to be “protected” by more unhinged violence against some far-off nation.

[flagged]

The satire is good, but beneath it, in the reality of modern history and today, you do realize just how genuinely, barbarically cruel the Japanese Empire was? To put it another way, if you truly, genuinely had to start living under it as of tomorrow, would you genuinely prefer that the dominating hegemony be enforced by a country like the old Japanese Empire, or say modern Russia, or China, or the Modern Middle East, vs one dominated by the United States?

Many people who snidely show disgust at U.S cultural, social and economic/political domination of the world, or at least major parts of it, do so while voluntarily living in countries influenced by that same domination and not countries under the control of a rival power structure.

Re: He created Oculus headsets as a teenager, now he makes AI weapons for Ukraine

#124

Post by southernplaces7 »

impossiblefork wrote: post #122
Manuel_D wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole part about civilizing the Middle East and Africa sounds dumb. But it does really ring true for Europe, Korea, and Japan. My Polish and Estonian coworkers really do enthusiastically support Pax Americana. Because when you have a hostile (or potentially hostile) country on your border, you actually have to take a sobering look at your country's survival.

It does absolutely not ring true for Europe. Even for WWII, Hitler was a specifically German character, and it wasn't as if though he lacked opponents, so he didn't even represent all of Germany, and he was actually inspired by the US and by Turkey rather than by European thought. The US has actually been the source of some very recent and significant barbarism in Europe, for example, the torture that happened at Bro…

You must be incredibly blind to basic modern history to not see exactly how it does ring true for Europe. It was specifically the U.S. and its support for other western countries in Europe that eventually freed them from the grip of the Nazis and later from being counter-occupied by the USSR crushing its way westward. This potential invasion was stopped mainly by a U.S. supported presence in the west.

Whatever Hitler's inspirations for the management of his genocide, it was uniquely his in a way that nobody could sanely blame on the United States.

Finally, your picking a specific, Bush-era rendition programs as an example of recent barbarism in Europe, vs an entire, full-scale fucking war started by the Putin government in the east is laughable as an example of barbarism being more the fault of the Americans and their domination in Europe.

Re: He created Oculus headsets as a teenager, now he makes AI weapons for Ukraine

#125

Post by impossiblefork »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #124
impossiblefork wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does absolutely not ring true for Europe. Even for WWII, Hitler was a specifically German character, and it wasn't as if though he lacked opponents, so he didn't even represent all of Germany, and he was actually inspired by the US and by Turkey rather than by European thought. The US has actually been the source of some very recent and significant barbarism in Europe, for example, the torture that happened at Bro…

You must be incredibly blind to basic modern history to not see exactly how it does ring true for Europe. It was specifically the U.S. and its support for other western countries in Europe that eventually freed them from the grip of the Nazis and later from being counter-occupied by the USSR crushing its way westward. This potential invasion was stopped mainly by a U.S. supported presence in the west. Whatever Hitler…

>You must be incredibly blind to basic modern history to not see exactly how it does ring true for Europe. It was specifically the U.S. and its support for other western countries in Europe that eventually freed them from the grip of the Nazis and later from being counter-occupied by the USSR crushing its way westward. This potential invasion was stopped mainly by a U.S. supported presence in the west.

What freed them from the grip of the Nazis was the destruction of large numbers of Nazis forces in the Soviet Union. Stalingrad alone involved greater losses for Germany than on the entire western front.

>Whatever Hitler's inspirations for the management of his genocide, it was uniquely his in a way that nobody could sanely blame on the United States.

That's not an absolutely unreasonable view, but do take the same view of Turkey's part?

>Finally, your picking a specific, Bush-era rendition programs as an example of recent barbarism in Europe, vs an entire, full-scale fucking war started by the Putin government in the east is laughable as an example of barbarism being more the fault of the Americans and their domination in Europe.

This happened a couple of years ago. The torturers and planners almost certainly still work at the CIA. Many of the lower-level participants probably aren't older than 45.

These people were here in Sweden, torturing people that had been handed over after an explicit promise to the Swedish government that they wouldn't be tortured.

I picked this particular act because it figuratively almost happened almost right in front of me-- in places that I regularly visit. If I'd been at the flight school at Bromma and happened to be there at the right time I could potentially have seen it with my own eyes.

Russia being bad does not mean that the US has a place in Europe, or should have influence here, or is something civilisation-promoting. I see the US as an active destabiliser of certain countries and quite untrustworthy. When the US was done with Iraq there were probably more Syriacs in Sweden than there.

Re: He created Oculus headsets as a teenager, now he makes AI weapons for Ukraine

#126

Post by fullspectrumdev »

I’ve still not seen any actual proper evidence of Andruils tech being fielded in Ukraine, and I’m in touch with a rather large number of people on drone and EW teams over there.

It’s become kind of a joke of sorts - we see slick promo stuff for Luckeys shit in the press, but we never see the goods.

Re: He created Oculus headsets as a teenager, now he makes AI weapons for Ukraine

#127

Post by adrian_b »

nradov wrote: post #82
karaterobot wrote: post #77

> However, in this emerging industry of AI weapons, critics say a lot of bugs still need to be worked out. The 21st century is shaping up to be pretty terrifying.

More terrifying than the 13th century?

"Terror" is used frequently to mean fear of something that may happen in the future, as opposed to "horror", which is used to refer to a sensation caused by something bad that has already happened.

If these restricted meanings are used, then the 13th century would be horrifying, not terrifying, when remembering it now, and it could be argued that the present is more terrifying than many moments in the past, because at those moments, even if people were afraid of something bad happening, they did not expect anything that could bring a global destruction from which nobody could escape.

Nevertheless, even if there are many reasons that make the present much more terrifying than 10 years ago, from climate change to more and more monopolistic economies to non-negligible risk of nuclear war, most people were much more terrified during the fifties and early sixties of the 20th century, when the risk of nuclear war seemed much higher and the memories of the horrors of WWII were still strong.

Re: He created Oculus headsets as a teenager, now he makes AI weapons for Ukraine

#128

Post by codingrightnow »

Manuel_D wrote: post #116
itsoktocry wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI weapons seems like a bad bad idea. AI weapons seems like an inevitability.

"AI" weapons have existed for the better part of a century. The first generation sidewinder missile autonomously homed in on a target. It's logic was simple, and it needed a bright exhaust plume to seek, but it's an autonomously guided munition nonetheless. Making a quadcopter with a claymore strapped to it home in on enemy troops using image recognition and visible spectrum cameras isn't fundamentally all that diffe…

In one example, there (most likely) aren't any innocent civilians hanging around. In the other there will certainly be innocent civilians on the other end.

Re: He created Oculus headsets as a teenager, now he makes AI weapons for Ukraine

#129

Post by tim333 »

canadianfella wrote: post #107
tim333 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary to that viewpoint I think there is much to be said for separating peaceful non military companies from military ones. Some reasons: Google FB etc are inherently global. Military is inherently regional. Mixing military and civilian tends to cause messes. See Boeing doing military stuff and now their planes and ISS shuttles don't work. Also so Cheney transferring the military biodefense budget to Fauci and the…

> See Boeing doing military stuff and now their planes and ISS shuttles don't work. Explain please. How does one lead to the other? > Also so Cheney transferring the military biodefense budget to Fauci and the NIH and now we have lab leaks and covid That’s a bold claim.

By the way re covid there's some of the story here from the chair of the Lancet covid comission https://youtu.be/JS-3QssVPeg?t=6495

I mean it's not conclusively proven, but probable.

Re: He created Oculus headsets as a teenager, now he makes AI weapons for Ukraine

#130

Post by Manuel_D »

codingrightnow wrote: post #128
Manuel_D wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"AI" weapons have existed for the better part of a century. The first generation sidewinder missile autonomously homed in on a target. It's logic was simple, and it needed a bright exhaust plume to seek, but it's an autonomously guided munition nonetheless. Making a quadcopter with a claymore strapped to it home in on enemy troops using image recognition and visible spectrum cameras isn't fundamentally all that diffe…

In one example, there (most likely) aren't any innocent civilians hanging around. In the other there will certainly be innocent civilians on the other end.

Are there many civilians in the trenches of eastern Ukraine? Again, the discourse around AI weapons seems to consistently neglect the fact that these are already being deployed.
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