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Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

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Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#101

Post by istjohn »

carlosrg wrote: post #5

> runs contrary to Google's ethos -- the mantra "don't be evil" has long been at the heart of Google's principles Thinking that the military of your own country is "evil" seems a bit puerile to me. Watching too many movies and TV shows can have that effect.

You seem to be suggesting that the fact of one's residency in a country should influence one's moral evaluation of that country, that there should be a different set of standards applied to one's own country than a foreign country. I believe that standards of good and evil should be applied uniformly to all nation states. If anything, one should hold one's own country to a higher standard since you have the most hope of influencing your own nation's behavior.

Arguably, it is precisely the inability to consider international conflict from a vantage point outside a nationalist worldview that is the root cause of all external wars.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#102

Post by wilsonnb »

titzer wrote: post #25
flyinglizard wrote: post #8

I wouldn’t say that developing military hardware necessarily negates the “don’t be evil” principal (especially if the developed articles are dual use, for both military and civilian applications). The western world, our principals and values have prospered for more than half a century in Pax Americana afforded, in a large part, by the prosperous US Military Industrial Complex. I totally get the objection to developin…

Given that the US military has killed nearly 4,000 people with drone strikes in Pakistan over the past decade, a country in which no formal military conflict exists, nor any formal enemy, just vague accusations of terrorist networks (and likely a bunch of political dissidents fed to them by the Pakistani government), I am really wondering where the "Pax" is coming from. Because if you do the math the odds of any give…

If you're going to say that the US has brought hell to Pakistan, you should at least back it up with some reasoning. What would Pakistan look like right now without the US killing those 4000 people? What would surrounding countries look like? Why did the US kill those people? Would any other country in the US's position have reasonably killed them?

It's a complex issue that can't be summed up by saying "fuck that".

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#103

Post by p1esk »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #73
sametmax wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing isn't it ? They can't do anything alone. It always amazes me that those big entities exist, because they require such a huge highly educated and skilled human power. What are all those genius at the NSA thinking ? I can't imagine somebody smart enough to work here is not smart enough to understand the consequences of working there. So why are they not quitting ? Social pressure and money are part of…

Arguably the majority supports the ideological foundations, aims, and methods of the institutions you are speaking of. In particular the military and intelligence institutions. If they didn't, they would have been removed by vote or force some time ago. Frankly the broad majority of people in the US benefit materially in some way from their existence in ways that they might not even be fully aware of. I am not arguin…

Interesting. I have absolutely zero ethical concerns with Google building a drone which can more accurately target someone. I'm also perfectly fine with US government using those drones to kill bad guys.

Now if they use it to kill good guys, then it's a problem that needs to be solved.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#104

Post by ImSkeptical »

briffle wrote: post #21
option_greek wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because F16s are developed in USA and used only by US military ? /s

F16's are used in many countries. They were developed in the US, but many, many countries use them (some of our NATO partners since the beginning) Since they were first developed, NATO partners: Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway Other European countries as soon as the mid-80's: Croatia, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania Middle east since the mid/late 80's: Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, Jo…

I believe that's the point of the comment you are replying to. You may develop weapons believing in the goodness of your country's military, but those weapons may come into the hands of people with more dubious moral positions.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#105

Post by sametmax »

whb07 wrote: post #75
sametmax wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But again this assume the people giving order to the drone are the good guys. But I never seen any good guys in my history books or in the news. Hence I always assume, when given a power to somebody, that the person doesn't have my best interest in mind. Let's all remember it's possible any of our country become one day a dictatorship. Just because we enjoyed a lot of freedom for the last decades doesn't exempt us fr…

If you can foresee what potential benefits each technological application has, then maybe i agree with you. There are plenty of examples where military applications and research has led to a bonanza of side applications which improve the human condition. Look at the MRI imaging. They are a downstream invention that came from the development of nuclear weapons (nuclear magnetic resonance). How many lives do you think…

We could have gotten nuclear tech without the will to kill people. There are smart scientists outside of the military, and a need for power plants. Which everybody agree would have been built with safer tech without the need for the bomb.

Now the problem is never the tech, as usual. It's that the society we are living is not constructed in a way that can prevent the tech from being abused.

We are talking about a country that attacked Irak while lying out the WMD and against the vote of the majority of the world, killing countless people for no proven result and living a country still in ruin decades after that.

I'm not really trusting with the governments we have.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#106

Post by jowiar »

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #88
anthony_romeo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were to try and kill me with a knife, your life is on the line as well. If you try to kill me with a drone, your risk is only the money and time spent on the drone. There is quite a difference.

I'm unclear as to what the moral difference is. It's more moral to kill someone if they can fight back? Then why are we giving our soldiers tanks? Guns? Fighter jets? Knives? Why not just send them in with their fists. This line of reasoning has no rational basis.

The difference is the cost to yourself, or people you care about, when you want someone dead. Popular sentiment turned against the Vietnam war in the US because Americans were coming home dead, not because of the Vietnamese that we were killing. When we eliminate the cost of war, we make it more likely to enter one, and stay in one.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#107

Post by posix_me_less »

walshemj wrote: post #76
titzer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, no. Drones enabled the US to kill 4,000 people in Pakistan--people who arguably would not have been killed without that tech.

Your assuming that other means would not have been used eg dumb bombs from b52's. Or SF teams lazing targets for PGM's

Which is a very plausible assumption, considering dropping traditional bombs is much more inconvenient for the killers. With drone attacks, the cost and political fallout is minimal. And with more meal available, the appetite grows - the killers will use the new capabilities to do more killing.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#108

Post by wilsonnb »

peterwwillis wrote: post #27
carlosrg wrote: post #5

> runs contrary to Google's ethos -- the mantra "don't be evil" has long been at the heart of Google's principles Thinking that the military of your own country is "evil" seems a bit puerile to me. Watching too many movies and TV shows can have that effect.

For years we have known that US drone strikes can very accurately kill anonymous people - often civilians (such as women and children): "Every independent investigation of the strikes has found far more civilian casualties than administration officials admit. Gradually, it has become clear that when operators in Nevada fire missiles into remote tribal territories on the other side of the world, they often do not know…

Well, you should have a problem with calling them evil based on a few actions that you consider evil without taking all of the other things the US has done into account.

Doing one evil thing doesn't necessarily make someone evil. Doing a few evil things doesn't necessarily make someone evil either.

If a doctor who has saved thousands kills one person, are they evil? What if that person was a convicted child rapist? What if it was in self defense? What if killing them would save a thousand more? What if killing them would save 10,000 more but the doctor doesn't care about that and would have killed them anyways?

Deciding whether a single person is good or evil is a very complex process. Deciding whether a country or a military is good or evil is enormously more complex and needs to take a lot more into account that you just did.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#109

Post by Lionsion »

flurdy wrote: post #72

I am worried we are not too far away from this becoming a reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM

That video seems to have been copied everywhere, and the copy you linked to seems to be on a fringe UFO conspiracy channel.

As far as I can tell, this is the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA

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