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Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

nytimes.com

101–110 of 155 posts

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#101
post #90

I understand the vision, but how does this work on a global scale. e.g. American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't. Edit: I originally ended with "What would have happened if Germany had a nuclear bomb and America didn't?", but I think it distracted from the point I was trying to make so moving this to an edit. I'm not trying to ask "is the US the bad guy". I'm trying to ask how to balance personal an…

Do the same thing we did with the nuclear arms race: Treaties to limit and control it. Obviously, we would have had more political leverage if our leaders had started working on a treaty before they crossed enough moral red lines to start a tech revolt, but we did not elect the sort of leaders that would do that.

The obvious countries sign those treaties for political reasons. There are countries officially pretending they don’t have any nuclear warheads, but it is well known by everyone they have plenty and a capacity to deliver them. They sandbag for political, but also for religious reasons and that’s scary.

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#102
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every change starts with a few people, and then it grows your opinion is defense contracts are bad my opinion is defense contracts are good who is correct? probably me since 99.9% of Googlers won’t leave over this

[flagged]

We've banned the other account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines, but - WTF? I don't want to ban you because it doesn't look like you have a habit of posting like this, but please don't do this kind of thing here again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#103
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always this comment, saying that its useless to possibly govern or resist advancement or development or use of weapons capable of indiscriminate killing. If the world actually worked like they believe it does, if restraint were just not possible, the world would have been destroyed at least 3 documented times over. Don't listen to them.

United States 1945 Soviet Union 1949 United Kingdom 1952 France 1960 China 1964 Israel 1966 India 1974 South Africa 1979 Pakistan 1998 North Korea 2006 also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency also, see what Ukraine and Iran got for their "restraint".

What are you trying to say exactly?

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every change starts with a few people, and then it grows your opinion is defense contracts are bad my opinion is defense contracts are good who is correct? probably me since 99.9% of Googlers won’t leave over this

Why is there any controversy about defending one's nation being "good" or "bad"? I can not believe what I am reading here, and how the single comment supporting defending one's country is so heavily downvoted. Qatar has poisoned Western online communities such that all defence of the United States is considered taboo? I don't even live in the US and I am frightened by what I see here.

[dead]

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#105

I understand the vision, but how does this work on a global scale. e.g. American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't. Edit: I originally ended with "What would have happened if Germany had a nuclear bomb and America didn't?", but I think it distracted from the point I was trying to make so moving this to an edit. I'm not trying to ask "is the US the bad guy". I'm trying to ask how to balance personal an…

Not to worry, xAI would do it even if Google didn't. Also, Anthropic didn't actually refuse to work on all military stuff. They have some conditions, which isn't the same thing.

Anthropic has conditions, the Pentagon has billions of carrots and millions of sticks.

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#106

I understand the vision, but how does this work on a global scale. e.g. American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't. Edit: I originally ended with "What would have happened if Germany had a nuclear bomb and America didn't?", but I think it distracted from the point I was trying to make so moving this to an edit. I'm not trying to ask "is the US the bad guy". I'm trying to ask how to balance personal an…

Is there any reason to think that autonomous weapons are a critical strategic capability? It's hard to see what an unpiloted drone can do that a remotely piloted drone can't, other than perhaps human rights violations.

It can turn around and bomb you.

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#107
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

United States 1945 Soviet Union 1949 United Kingdom 1952 France 1960 China 1964 Israel 1966 India 1974 South Africa 1979 Pakistan 1998 North Korea 2006 also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency also, see what Ukraine and Iran got for their "restraint".

What are you trying to say exactly?

that development and advancement of nuclear weapons had not, in fact, been contained.

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#108
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you trying to say exactly?

that development and advancement of nuclear weapons had not, in fact, been contained.

How do you know that the list wouldn't have been longer otherwise?

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#109
post #10

I remember they successfully got Google out of a military contract in the first admin (and briefly vilified by the right for that). that's not going to work now. Workers have a lot less power and the CEO is buddies with Trump

As the article says, the workers didn't petition the CEO, they petitioned the head of Google AI who's already expressed solidarity with Anthropic. If they can convince Jeff Dean, I don't think Sundar necessarily gets a say; it's a lot easier to stick your head in the sand and ignore things than to fire one of your most widely respected engineers because he won't help the Pentagon build Terminator robots.

> If they can convince Jeff Dean, I don't think Sundar necessarily gets a say

It's Demis they need to convince, not Jeff Dean.

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#110

I understand the vision, but how does this work on a global scale. e.g. American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't. Edit: I originally ended with "What would have happened if Germany had a nuclear bomb and America didn't?", but I think it distracted from the point I was trying to make so moving this to an edit. I'm not trying to ask "is the US the bad guy". I'm trying to ask how to balance personal an…

>American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't. How about you articulate the threat from an AI powered China to people outside of AI powered China and discuss potential methods to counter that, instead of insisting capabilities be developed just in case. >is the US the bad guy Yes >I'm trying to ask how to balance personal anti war sentiments with the realities of the world Insist on open information, ne…

I think you've missed the point.

PRC isn't going to do any of the things you are asking for, and no one expects them to. The threat of an AI powered China is really obvious to me, but apparently the idea of "IP theft and industrial sabotage, but at scale with AI agents instead of human meat sacks" is hard to clearly articulate.

One method, beyond AI powered kill chains, to counter an AI powered China is of course strategic weapons.

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