111–120 of 186 posts
I haven't finished reading, but I should note for the group that the author doesn't represent the Anthropic situation accurately. Emil Michael, the undersecretary of war/defense for research and engineering went on the All-In podcast (1) and explained, for quite some time, exactly what happened. You should go listen to it (2). In essence, in the negotiations, Dario kept coming back saying "well, if you need it, call…
I haven't finished reading, but I should note for the group that the author doesn't represent the Anthropic situation accurately. Emil Michael, the undersecretary of war/defense for research and engineering went on the All-In podcast (1) and explained, for quite some time, exactly what happened. You should go listen to it (2). In essence, in the negotiations, Dario kept coming back saying "well, if you need it, call…
Keep in mind that Emil Michael's job at Uber was to slander and destroy their political enemies. What makes you think he hasn't continued exactly as before?
I haven't finished reading, but I should note for the group that the author doesn't represent the Anthropic situation accurately. Emil Michael, the undersecretary of war/defense for research and engineering went on the All-In podcast (1) and explained, for quite some time, exactly what happened. You should go listen to it (2). In essence, in the negotiations, Dario kept coming back saying "well, if you need it, call…
Even if they disagreed, this was clearly retaliatory for not capitulating. The government could have just decided to go with a different provider.
Respect for sticking to your beliefs. Just out of curiosity though why do people not want smart AI weapons? I would much rather have an onboard AI that can discriminate between unarmed civilians and military assets, seems irresponsible to not... Is a dumb sea mine that blows up everything somehow better than a smart sea mine that knows to not blow up sometimes?
"You're absolutely right, that wasn't a military target—it was actually a girls school. It won't happen again!" I realize that's not a great argument and was definitely tongue-in-cheek, but given there's still a lot of debate about the accuracy of AI for far more mundane tasks, my personal perspective is that until we have LLMs and such that are truly, demonstrably far more accurate than humans, with true reasoning a…
Respect for sticking to your beliefs. Just out of curiosity though why do people not want smart AI weapons? I would much rather have an onboard AI that can discriminate between unarmed civilians and military assets, seems irresponsible to not... Is a dumb sea mine that blows up everything somehow better than a smart sea mine that knows to not blow up sometimes?
Mainly I don't want them because I don't want a machine instantly making life or death judgements. It might be fine if it mostly informs a human who ultimately pulls the trigger, but having that failsafe is important in keeping machines from going on killing sprees. I also want people to be held accountable when they do unjustified killings. AI weapons make it FAR too easy to simply pass off a killing as a "woopsie d…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Search for Anduril drone failures in Ukraine and several Lattice software failures. And perhaps capitalize "I". How is Maven working in Iran?
Thats like saying cars wont work because they get flat tires
[0] https://www.techtimes.com/articles/320165/20260711/army-ar-g... [1] https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/anduril-s-autonomous-weapon...
Props to the author. I left Microsoft due to their work with Israel to spy on Palestinians and record all of their phone conversations (in addition to other IDF collaborations). They ended up walking some of it back, but Satya was complicit. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/25/microsoft-bloc...
I salute you for your morality. If most people did this, those companies would change their position very quickly. After all, they only think about money.
But, as I learned more I was filled with a deep sadness and shame. It was tearing me apart. Every day I got up to go to work and was getting sick to my stomach.
Now I just feel lost. I spent my life building a career in this industry and it feels like I have nowhere else to turn. Microsoft is not the only company actively complicit with horrible crimes and human rights violations. I've loved technology since as far back as I can remember, but looking back with the knowledge I have now, I just feel dirty. I honestly don't even know what to do at this point, I do have a job now but when I look at who funded us, it's every bit as bad as working at Microsoft. I feel like I need to walk away from it all and start a food truck or something.
This is a long post about someone who has very obviously just gotten into politics. It is good for people to try and see how to impart change. Here are some constructive critical questions for the author: 1. Why no mention of No Tech For Apartheid or Google Workers United, who have been doing similar work for years? 2. What about all of the other police, DHS, and military contracts Google has been a part of? Did this…
Your comment seems to be whataboutism. The article was not an essay trying to prove that he knows the secret to being maximally effective at politics, or whatever it seems you were expecting?
I did not know about TurnTrout till now and thanks to HN community now I know. I am beyond impressed as to how he lives by his principles. I don't think I have this kind of courgae or confidence and thankfully I don't work for Google or have to quit it. On the other hand we have smart people who have choose to work for companies like Palantir and are proud of it.
The author will have experienced every logical fallacy and TurnTrout has done well to document his efforts, rather than just the crimes of his adversaries.
A calling of conscience is hard to articulate initially, it is conscientious objection, to the war machine and the system of finance that necessitates the empire that needs the war machine.
The author starts off with a high degree of authority in that he actually worked for Google Deepmind, however, nobody will listen to him, so he has to seek higher authority to carry the truth forward. But he could have gone to the pope, anyone short of Jesus Christ (freshly teleported back) and it will be a no, everywhere.
Logic and reason does not help when insanity and money have taken over, which tends to happen during wartime.
The conscientious objector may not believe in god, however, they will consider themselves answerable, 'vain' enough to care about their legacy. There is that desire not to be found out, doing the 'devil's work', generally in workplaces where everyone is glad to get on with the 'devil's work'.
Why do so few people make a stand? Why didn't hordes of five-eyes people walk out the day after Snowden did his good deeds?
It varies by individual, however, the author is vegan, which means he has already 'dared to be Daniel, dared to stand alone', albeit only in a lunch queue in a meat eating world. This requires living according to principles, and serves as target practice for war-time conscientious objection.
Also important is a certain level of independence, the guy with a mortgage and a couple of kids, underwater on the car, with maxed out credit cards cannot conscientiously object. Nor can the guy counting down the last few years to retirement, and then the very young lack the articulation.
Only a few have the 'warchest' to embark on an open-ended single-person campaign to confront power with the truth. We owe a lot to these people, particularly the 'failed whistleblowers' that don't make it to 'whistleblower' status, because the media then makes the story about their situation, not what they conscientiously objected to. Props and respect to the author for documenting his journey and taking the first step.
Note the 'first step' is classic 'hero's journey', where the call is initially rejected, but then a journey into the extraordinary world is made, where the challenge is to bring back what is good from the extraordinary world to the ordinary world, for the benefit of all.