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

Why I Left Google DeepMind

turntrout.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 186 posts

Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind

#161

Post by sc68cal »

metalsiliconYT wrote: post #64

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?

> I would much rather have an onboard AI that can discriminate between unarmed civilians and military assets,

Has this been proven to actually occur? There have been lots of reports that similar systems in Israel that use AI, struck hundreds of targets that were civilian. They did not discriminate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-assisted_targeting_in_the_G...

Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind

#162

Post by Turn_Trout »

recitedropper wrote: post #4

Nothing but respect to TurnTrout for taking an action like this. The world needs more smart people who are willing to stand for what they feel is right, despite the pressures otherwise. Without that occurring more, our species is going to lose many impactful prisoner's dilemmas coming these next two decades. This raises my respect for AI researchers a little bit too. I have often felt that the entire industry is pret…

Thank you for your praise.

> I'd guess TurnTrout doesn't agree on that framing, otherwise he probably would not have been at Deep Mind. But clearly he and I agree on other ethical positions; I am nothing but glad to see him stick to his principles here.

FWIW I agree that creators should be compensated (but evidently it wasn't a deal-breaker for me joining). I think it's bad how little that has happened.

I joined GDM to work on AGI safety to reduce existential risk from AI. I consciously avoided work that would improve the raw capabilities of Gemini. When I joined, I made a trade-off and it's valid to disagree with my decision.

Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind

#163

Post by dare944 »

> It is also the story of something larger: how powerful people and institutions failed, one after another, to keep their AI ethics promises in the face of pressure.

I've worked at Google. These weren't promises, they were deceptions.

Google, like many companies, maintains the focus and motivation of their workforce via a stream of carefully orchestrated disinformation and half-truths. One of those half-truths is "We listen to our employees". They listen when it has no business consequence and they can tout themselves as being "good" or on the side of the workers. They don't whenever the politics or economics of the situation presents even the slightest resistance.

Kudos to the author for fighting for change. But the dark patterns in Google run too deep for them to be uprooted by a polite exchange of white papers and emails.

Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind

#164

Post by tomrod »

bigyabai wrote: post #136
tomrod wrote: post #9

If the author were to read these comments, I'd commiserate with them on the disappointment of the utopia left behind in the service of acquiring wealth and power. An abundant solarpunk future enabled and augmented by AI, hyped so well by early Google and Kurzweil, captured as capital to earn a buck for shareholders. Mad props for pushing as far as they could push.

Would you consider that AI isn't a necessary precursor to an abundant solarpunk utopia? A lot of that hype was fictional, for better or for worse. We're still struggling to proliferate the techno-utopia of digital computers, the internet, and cryptocurrency too. Each time this hype gets drummed up, the utopian stakes are raised to the nines, and the delivered technology does not bring us substantially closer to a mor…

Oh, absolutely. But it could be used right and well in a broader solarpunk framework :D

Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind

#166

Post by soundworlds »

slowin wrote: post #33

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...

So Microsoft will support Israel in killing Palestinians, but pull the accounts of International Criminal Court Prosecutors? Jesus

Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind

#167

Post by unknownfuture »

metalsiliconYT wrote: post #64

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?

> Just out of curiosity though why do people not want smart AI weapons?

Because the minute you defer decision making to a machine you eliminate human accountability.

Any time the robot is used to do something illegal or immoral, you can just say "it was a bug" or "that's not what I really meant". It enables plausible deniability.

We see this every time AI is allowed to make decisions. That robot promoted violent extremism in your feed? It misidentified a black man? It disproportionately chose men in hiring decisions? shrug Its the algorithm. Who can argue with the algorithm?

Likewise any attempt to codify liability is typically avoided at all costs because the purpose of those systems is what they do.

Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind

#168

Post by pibaker »

metalsiliconYT wrote: post #64

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?

A regime can only be as oppressive as the people following its orders. There are only so many protestors you can order your army to kill until your troops realize they are killing their own friends and family, at that point they either desert or turn their guns against you. This puts a check on what even the most evil tyrants can do. Not a perfect one, for sure, but still better than nothing.

Technology changes this by reducing the human involvement needed in killing. The Nazi gas chambers were a historical example — it turned out mowing down innocent civilians with machine guns was too mentally taxing for even devoted Nazis, so they invented a bloodless industrialized process where they can kill with greater efficiency while also sheltering the killer from the immediate effects of his actions. A win win for the Nazis, not so much for its victims.

Autonomous weapons are dangerous for this exact reason. They bypass individual moral decisions entirely. They are the perfect "just following orders" machine. They allow a small concentration of powerful people to impose force upon the populace without ever having to fear their own soldiers. It tips the balance of power massively in favor of those already powerful.

Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind

#169

Post by anon-3988 »

metalsiliconYT wrote: post #115
cogman10 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Responsibility will always have to lie with the user, but if the weapons are more advanced and safer then why is that bad? I like that autonomous vehicles like Waymo are 10x safer then human drivers, even if a 'Machine' is making decisions.

A good thought experiment for this is to replace guards at jewellery stores or banks with a robot. Which one would you feel more safe? Do you trust that the robot won't randomly shoot you if you act funny on the street?

Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind

#170

Post by recitedropper »

Turn_Trout wrote: post #162
recitedropper wrote: post #4

Nothing but respect to TurnTrout for taking an action like this. The world needs more smart people who are willing to stand for what they feel is right, despite the pressures otherwise. Without that occurring more, our species is going to lose many impactful prisoner's dilemmas coming these next two decades. This raises my respect for AI researchers a little bit too. I have often felt that the entire industry is pret…

Thank you for your praise. > I'd guess TurnTrout doesn't agree on that framing, otherwise he probably would not have been at Deep Mind. But clearly he and I agree on other ethical positions; I am nothing but glad to see him stick to his principles here. FWIW I agree that creators should be compensated (but evidently it wasn't a deal-breaker for me joining). I think it's bad how little that has happened. I joined GDM…

As your writing seems to allude to, life is an impossibly complicated series of trade-offs made with imperfect information, so I definitely wouldn't consider joining an AI frontier lab to be a priori bad. Even if I have some qualms with how the models are built.

If anything I was just trying to point out that, even with people we might disagree with, we deserve to show them recognition and respect when they make moves we do agree with.

But I doubt we disagree on much. Your writing is great, and it makes me sad to see this thread somehow disappear from the HN front page so fast. Either it triggered some internal flamewar detector--but without a flamewar--or someone didn't find it convenient.

I wish you the best of luck with your next endeavors, and look forward to seeing the value you add to this world.

Post reply on HN