AI is not evil. AI just is. We all need to adapt to its good and bad and middling impacts.
Is anything evil? Or does everything just exist, and nothing more?
Some people are evil.
Why I left Google
71–80 of 92 posts
Re: Why I left Google
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think surely the implied bit is ' enough out of step', and then the whole 'draw the rest of the owl' thing is figuring out where that line is (and what constitutes 'values') and if it's been crossed? There's so much I would do/have done differently if I had carte blanche, but it's not my startup, and no reason to think I would have done as well nevermind better, it's easy to judge from the position of not being bot…
The advice went mainly to the command role. You have a duty of care up and down. If you find you're being asked to make command decisions to underlings, despite having advocated otherwise to above, you have to ask yourself if you're in a good place making others do things you don't believe in.
Appreciate that's more nuanced then, but still I think I'd argue the ability to do exactly that is a crucial leadership skill.
Not least because how have you helped the situation by leaving it anyway?
Re: Why I left Google
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is anything evil? Or does everything just exist, and nothing more?
Some people are evil.
So we agree that humans have the capacity to be evil. Presumably, it's their actions that make them evil. In that case, do you think it would be possible for an evil human to design a device that performed one of their evil actions for them, so that the device itself was also considered evil?
Re: Why I left Google
#74A management training course I took 20 years ago said when your personal values were out of step with the company then you had to leave for your own mental health. I've thought about that a lot since.
I learned this truth in the School of Hard Knocks, and now I live by it. It's why there's a lengthy list of companies that I will never be willing to work at, and it's also why I'm in favor of probationary periods: you often can't tell if a company is out of step with your values until you start working there.
Re: Why I left Google
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people are evil.
So we agree that humans have the capacity to be evil. Presumably, it's their actions that make them evil. In that case, do you think it would be possible for an evil human to design a device that performed one of their evil actions for them, so that the device itself was also considered evil?
[deleted]
Re: Why I left Google
#76Since she said she was in charge of Google Cloud's docs:
This was my recent experience when trying to use Google GCP to deploy a simple node docker application:
1. Google search, wade though SEO spam, 3 links on companies trying to sell me deployment products built on top of GCP, 2 paywalled Medium articles, and 3 out of date blog posts. Nothing I tried worked. -3 hours
2. Go to the GCP Developer documentation and feel like I'm opening up a course. Spent 2 hours looking around and reading, can't find the right commands, and the tutorial I found is out of date and doesn't work. -2 hours
3. Come back from lunch and decide to ask Google Gemini, who promptly replies with what looks like the answer but is really just made up. I correct it, and it even admits it made up an API and command line switch, only to give me more fake info. -30 min
4. Head to ChatGPT, which couldn't give me the right info (out of date from last year and obviously scraped from prior blog posts I read). -20 min
Re: Why I left Google
#77Since she said she was in charge of Google Cloud's docs: This was my recent experience when trying to use Google GCP to deploy a simple node docker application: 1. Google search, wade though SEO spam, 3 links on companies trying to sell me deployment products built on top of GCP, 2 paywalled Medium articles, and 3 out of date blog posts. Nothing I tried worked. -3 hours 2. Go to the GCP Developer documentation and fe…
Been through similar. How did you actually end up figuring it out? The old-fashioned way I assume?
Re: Why I left Google
#78The author took a tangent so fast and so long into some theater that they didn't ever explain what his problem with AI is. I would love to hear more about it and specifically how Google changed in the last 3 years. I'd like to know what the outlook was 3 years ago and how it drifted.
Generally speaking, 3 years ago there wasn’t as much paranoia as there is now. The paranoia stems from 2 things.
1) layoffs resulting in uncertainty which in turn results in people being less civil while jockeying for position.
2) open AI being first to market with a gen AI product that stuck. It feels a lot different working at a company that feels in the lead than one trying to catch up.
The culture changed drastically between 2020 and 2024.
Re: Why I left Google
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I can just repeat this back to you: A guy went to a performance he hadn't read anything about, run by a self-described clown, and your takeaway is that it was a "performative self-help group"? A clown.
It appears like the other people in the audience knew why they were there. Perhaps the person who suggested it to the OP figured they could benefit from it, but didn't want to tell them to seek out a therapist.
So you think this guy went to a clown show because his friend thought it would be good therapy?
Re: Why I left Google
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still don't make as much as I did in advertising - a decade ago - and I live perfectly comfortably, on my own, in a two bedroom apartment, in one of the most liveable cities in the world (Melbourne) and I work for a not for profit. I don't eat as much caviar as I used to, I guess. I think there are plenty of people in the world who look upwards and consider themselves poor when they're on six figures. Maybe this ki…
I guess the takeaway is it’s okay to be idealistic, just not too idealistic that you can’t pay rent.
I think that's definitely how people who work for immoral industries frame their need to work there. In my experience, however, it isn't people working in AI who can't find another job that would allow them to pay rent.
If you're a minimum wage worker with no education and no other prospects working for an arms manufacturer - I forgive all sins.