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I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

theguardian.com

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Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#111

Post by dspeyer »

dreamfactory wrote: post #10
ck2 wrote: post #4

The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon? I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people If this question even comes up once, drones should never, ever be armed. Why is is okay to repeatedly kill the wrong person in another country? Can you imagine if that happened even just once in the USA? We need an international ban on armed…

Not to justify any of this business, but why on earth wouldn't they apply 'beyond reasonable doubt' in their own minds when summarily executing somebody in the first place?

That sort of standard works when the executor has massively more power than the executee. For the US versus an ordinary criminal, we can do it. Facing something that looks more like a war, applying standards of justice generally results in losing.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#112

Post by jusben1369 »

We need to make sure we're not being manipulated. Here the Guardian is just serving up an emotional, unsubstantiated, one sided view of this discussion. I'm not sure how this is different to much of the chest beating I'd see on Fox News. I'm not here to argue for or against the drones. Just that if we pride ourselves on being educated and critical thinkers that we apply that to all sources of data we read.

We all know war is hell. We know using weapons to attack people creates horrific, real human harm. So starting off listing the effects of weaponry on humans tells us nothing about drones. It just tells us about the horrors of war. Given this is an article about drones it should be very drone specific. Do drones increase or decrease the inevitable horrors of war? I suspect they decrease it with smaller more targeted bombs vs prior more traditional larger bombs. Today if we make a mistake we bomb the wrong home and kill everyone. 25 years ago we bombed the entire village. Maybe they increase it because we're carrying out a lot more sorties than we did prior when a jet and a pilot were needed/at risk. However, I'm not sure and this article goes nowhere close to helping with the discussion.

"The view is so pixelated it makes decisions tough" Can you imagine military people who fight/fought on the ground in real combat and order in strikes reading that? Surrounded by smoke and fire and deafening noise and hoping (or maybe not caring) that the strike they call in hits the right target/s vs all the nearby civilians also hiding and cowering in a village?

The military is aware of the impact on these operators. From a February 20013 article sighting a Defense Department study: “Remotely piloted aircraft pilots may stare at the same piece of ground for days,” said Jean Lin Otto, an epidemiologist who was a co-author of the study. “They witness the carnage. Manned aircraft pilots don’t do that. They get out of there as soon as possible.”

Lastly, imagine how you'd feel reading a similar opinion piece on Fox News from a gun ho former operator talking about all the American lives he saved by observing and taking out "the bad guys". What's even better with drones we're not losing American solider lives and dramatically reducing the number of innocent civilians killed vs how we would have approached the same problem just 25 years ago.

War is hell. The issues are complex. Trusted new sources add to the debate. Biased ones feed their viewership what they know they'll eat up and do little, maybe even damage, the search for truth.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#113

Post by cmdkeen »

fit2rule wrote: post #56
giardini wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fit2rule: "the funding for death-machines was instead being used to deliver water purification plants, schools and education packages, medical supplies - to those human beings living in the 'foreign lands' who really need it." And what happens when people who accept those plants, schools and education are killed by people who don't want them to accept those gifts from us? Back in the Vietnam era I made the same argum…

The cost of one drone would provide ample resources for a village in Afghanistan to educate itself and defend itself from other killers. Drop books not bombs!

You do realise the Taliban are specifically opposed to Western education, especially the education of women. You have groups like Boko Haram (literally "Western education is sinful").

Dropping books on villages when the security situation hasn't been established is akin to dropping landmines - anyone who picks one up and takes it home risks being killed.

There is a very good reason the Afghan campaign was about providing security in an area first then building schools, providing power, healthcare etc.

The problem is that Helmand province (especially) is so close the Pakistani border, and thus limitless reinforcements, providing the security there to do anything else is nigh on impossible.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#114

Post by ryandrake »

Killah911 wrote: post #58

I've worked on building some AI for drones for the US, and I'm fairly certain that advents in new technologies will mitigate most of the concerns in the article. It will make for a seriously scary new world, where devices like this exist at massive scale. Dictatorships will be even more brutal, and oppressors, even more oppressive. The sociopath in control of these machines will no longer have to worry about someone…

Just curious, you said you worked on building some of these systems, so how did you personally square your morals/ethics with the fact that your employment was probably helping to bring about this "seriously scary new world"?

I took a similar job once, sold on the awesome technical challenge (aeronautical mapping, gyro/sensor input, camera control, etc). But over the time I worked there, I became more and more ethically conflicted about some of the potential applications of the technology I was developing. Was it wrong to continue working on this, given the potential for it to be abused? Personally, I believe developers are a lot like doctors in that we have a power that most lay-people consider to amount to magic, and with that power comes an obligation to do no harm. On one hand, if I wasn't working on this technology, they'd just hire someone else to do it, so leaving would not stop the program. On the other hand, while one person can't have an effect, if we all made the ethical choice, it might ultimately become difficult for these types of programs to exist.

In the end I decided I wanted to be in the group that avoided such ethically questionable projects, lucked into a great opportunity to move into mobile development, and the rest is history.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#115

Post by rgbrenner »

sleepyK wrote: post #50
k-mcgrady wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "There's a high cost in both money and American lives" There's a high cost in both money and human lives - nationality should not be a consideration.

But unfortunately, it always is. American life, and American citizenship is more precious than any other life. I know it's not the same issue, but throughout the whole NSA snooping revelations, Americans have only been concerned by the legality of spying on their own citizens. All of us foreigners are fair game. This is similar. The value of an American life is much more than that of a foreigner's life.

Americans should be more concerned about the NSA spying on US citizens than on foreigners. Here's why:

When the US government decides a US citizen's communication patterns makes him a terrorist, the US government is free to knock down their door in the middle of the night and whisk them off to Guantanamo, and NO ONE except the US government can do anything to stop them.

When the US government decides a foreigner is a terrorist, they have to ASK your government to cooperate, and if they don't, the US has to be ready to go to war to kill/capture him.

The difference between the NSA spying on an American and a foreigner is that only the foreigner has a government that can protect them from the US government.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#116

Post by mikeash »

sleepyK wrote: post #66
reinhardt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this question even comes up once, drones should never, ever be armed. A little perspective could prevent such knee-jerk reactions. The ambiguity of drone targets is still miles ahead from basically blind carpet bombing a whole area that was (and still often is) the rule for the last century or so of modern warfare.

The thing is, the convenience of drones has made it much easier for countries to carry out strikes without any regard to the damage they will cause. In the past, the possibility of your soldiers dying on the ground was a huge deterrent to frivolous strikes. Today, drones conduct major strikes without paying any heed to international borders. Drones conduct missions nobody would have imagined possible a few years back…

Isn't that an aspect of air strikes in general, manned or unmanned, not something specific to drones?

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#117

Post by cmdkeen »

fit2rule wrote: post #27
yeukhon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More often than not, you'll find that the 'official killers' really don't care about human life - or else they wouldn't be devoting their time on earth to the singular purpose of killing, maiming, destroying life. That's not true. Many joined the military because they believe in their version of patriotism. They are also trained to adopt to utilitarianism as much as possible. The part they are missing when they fol…

You've identified the problem - deonotology - but not the solution. Anyone who kills for a living, is violating the most basic rules of human life, that have been taught us since we rose from this Earth: life is sacred. You can't educate a dead man.

"the most basic rules of human life, that have been taught us since we rose from this Earth"

That is just fundamentally untrue. The notion that all life is sacred and killing for a living is wrong is a very, very modern notion.

Members of the military kill because it needs to happen. They would rather be members of a professional, trained force that means the number of total dead is minimised to the greatest extent possible. Modern wars by professional soldiers kill very few, both soldiers and non combatants, compared to the wars of conscripts and untrained masses.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#118

Post by frostmatthew »

BrandonRead wrote: post #98

Does anybody think there is space for a "CS Students against Weaponry" alliance? I go to Umass Amherst, and there are tons of people who end up working for Raytheon upon graduation. Sure, the 100k / yr is quite tempting when you just came from community college and a retail job just years before, but perhaps some education may stop students from agreeing to internships and careers at Raytheon, etc. It's oftentimes go…

> It's oftentimes good students who are mostly oblivious to why their skills are being exploited.

I'm not sure I agree with that, but if that's what you think it doesn't make sense to try and keep the "good" students away from military contractors. If they're going to build weapons (that use/require code) I'd rather they have the best developers available. Hiring bad programmers certainly isn't going to decrease civilian casualties.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#119

Post by classicsnoot »

sneak wrote: post #83
sleepyK wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But unfortunately, it always is. American life, and American citizenship is more precious than any other life. I know it's not the same issue, but throughout the whole NSA snooping revelations, Americans have only been concerned by the legality of spying on their own citizens. All of us foreigners are fair game. This is similar. The value of an American life is much more than that of a foreigner's life.

> All of us foreigners are fair game Americans feel this way, sure. But Americans are only 4% of humans, and soon 100% of humans will be on the Internet. This worldview is not an economic survival trait. I suggest relaxing, brewing some tea, and waiting for this to play out in the global market. Either they'll change, or they'll go out of business.

7000000000 300000000 I never got passed pre-algebra, but i am having a hard time getting to 4%. I fully acknowledge i am shit at maths, but i would love an explanation (completely serious; i have heard this "4%" malarkey a few times now). I know these numbers are estimations at best, but they seem accepted so: >China: 1.3-1.5 billions >India: 1.3-1.4 billions >EU: 400 millions >US: 400 millions >sum total, all nations: 7.1 billions [1]

I know this may seem like semantic silliness, but here of all places i expect accuracy within region. to the larger point, at this time, american minds are more valuable in terms of conviction, as it is our country that is so reckless in regards to others, be it in the realms of security, supply lines, manufacturing, etc. This is no an inherent value; the most important dude at the party is always the person with the weed. It is not because she is better than her peers, it is because of her relationship to here peers in the context of what they want and what she has. Before you charge up your righteous indignation cannons, this "importance" along with all the times i must sit through a harangue about why i need to be more respectful/appreciative of the greatest nation on earth drives me, and many other americans, completely nuts. i fucking hate it, but when i travel, my brothers and sisters from overseas will only let me be a shitty american. some of us over here are paying attention, you know.

pass the tea, mate. this whole coffee thing needs to end as well.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#120

Post by mikeash »

fit2rule wrote: post #17
neals wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem very opinionated about this. I haven't given this as much thought as you have, but I think that doing something to protect your society from evil must count for something. Do you really see it as black and white as you describe it?

Yes, I do. The reason is because I think that anyone whose job it is to murder, maim, kill - officially, with sanction from the state - and who chooses to do this as a career is a very, very sick individual. We do not need a military that can deliver a bomb on some individuals head at the drop of a whim - we need an organization that makes peace , for the state, far more.

"...we need an organization that makes peace, for the state, far more."

What does such an organization look like, and how does it work?

It's very easy to say that we should just stop killing people and instead make peace. It's extremely difficult to put forth a realistic plan that accomplishes that.

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