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Where things stand with the Department of War

anthropic.com

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Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#131

Post by testaburger »

tedd4u wrote: post #108
hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

[flagged]

CBC news (canadian outlet) released an investigation on this yesterday, and found:

> While the facility was functioning as a school, CBC News has confirmed a previous New York Times report stating the building was once part of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-school-bombing-investigat...

Assuming AI was used for finding targets, perhaps the training data was out of date?

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#132

Post by reaperducer »

moron4hire wrote: post #109
jiggawatts wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the story of someone's woman working for a research lab to improve the computer-controlled automatic emergency landings of planes with total power failure. ... or so she was told. She was unknowingly designing glide-bomb avionics.

I feel like these stories are apocryphal. I mean, I can't say for certain that no US DoD research program used subterfuge to trick the performers into working on The Most Racist Bomb. But I can say that in 20 years I've never seen a dearth of people ready, willing, able, and actively participating with full knowledge that they are creating The Fastest Bomb and The Sneakiest Bom and The Biggest Bomb Without Actually G…

I feel like these stories are apocryphal.

They're not. But if it makes you feel better to believe that, everyone has their own coping mechanism.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#133

Post by AnbdgK »

unethical_ban wrote: post #94
randerson wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetically if we had a choice between sending in humans to war or sending in fully autonomous drones that make decisions on par with humans, the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members at risk. Obviously anyone who has used LLMs know they are not on par with humans. There also needs to be an accountability framework for when software makes the wrong decision. Who gets fi…

Isn't this the moral hazard of war as it becomes more of a distance sport? That powerful governments can order the razing of cities and assassinate leaders with ease? We need to do it because our enemies are doing it, in any case.

I do not think that anyone but the US and Israel have assassinated leaders in the last 30 years. I also question their autonomous drone advancement. Russia and China did not have the means to help Venezuela and they do not have the means to help Iran.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#136

Post by qsera »

senadir wrote: post #85
qsera wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>refuse to let their systems be used for war.. I don't want wars. But tell me, what would you like your country to do when conflicts arise due to want of natural resources? Would you want your country to just give up that resource your people depend on, like may be 50/50? Do you believe it will always be possible to settle on a solution in a peaceful way that works for everyone?

[flagged]

If the country wage wars for bad reasons, that is another problem that probably should be fixed elsewhere, or you should leave that country and be somewhere who government you can fully get behind.

> defending your country

I am afraid that this does not always have to be an incoming attack. What if some country has a resource that your country badly needs, without which your people will suffer badly and imagine the same is true with the other country. How much of an hit on economic and QoL are you willing to sustain before you ask your government to go out there and get the required resource by force.

I totally get that war is profitable, and most of the wars cannot be justified. But ideas like this sounds like sabotaging your own country and thus your own existence.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#137

Post by dmd »

jiggawatts wrote: post #48
ryandrake wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. (spoiler alert) Wasn't this one of the plot points of the Val Kilmer movie Real Genius ? They had to trick the students into creating a weapon by siloing them off from each other and having them build individual but related components? How far…

Reminds me of the story of someone's woman working for a research lab to improve the computer-controlled automatic emergency landings of planes with total power failure. ... or so she was told. She was unknowingly designing glide-bomb avionics.

“someone’s woman”?

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#138

Post by globalnode »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #134
globalnode wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

waves to the censors

You realize that’s a narrative you made up in your head right? There is no evidence that it played out like that at all.

They've boasted that that's how it works. Doesnt matter, seems the parent comment has been "removed", lol.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#139

Post by metalcrow »

hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

What tech companies were these? I was younger in 2007 but i feel like i would remember if companies were openly refusing to participate in war.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#140

Post by agigao »

Around 10 years ago, in college, in Calculus class I had a very ambitious classmate, wanted to go to DARPA and work on Robotics. I asked if he was thinking it through solely from technical perspective or considering ethics side as well. Clearly, he didn't understand the question and I directly inquired - what if the code you write or autonomous machine you contribute to used for killing? His response - that's not my problem.

After spending couple of years studying in the US, I came to conclusion that executives and board members in industry doesn't care about society or humans, even universities don't push students towards critical thinking and ethics, and all has turned into a vocational training, turning humans into crafting tools.

The same time, at Harvard, I attended VR innovation week and the last panel discussion of the day was Ethics and Law, which was discussed by Law Professor, a journalist and a moderator and was attended a handful of people. I inquired why founders, CEOs or developers weren't in part of the discussion or in attendance? Moderator responded that they couldn't find them qualified enough to take part in the discussion. The discussion basically was - how product companies build affects the society? Laws aren't founders problem, that's what lawyers are for, and ethics - who cares, right?

This frenzy, this rat race towards next billion dollar company at any cost, has tore down the fabric of the society to the individual thinking level; or more like not thinking, just wanting and needing.

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