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

nytimes.com

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

#141

Post by arduanika »

samusiam wrote: post #129
arduanika wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What primary sources are you referring to? Come with receipts next time instead of just vitriol.

None in particular. I was talking about "primary sources" as a category. See also what I wrote here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47178573

It was a meta point. Sorry if I gave you the impression that I was weighing in on the particulars of jmyeet's essay. Rather, it was a high-level point that if you know a ton of little facts but you're only seeing half of the story, then you need to improve and broaden out your intake.

I would have the same opinion of a poster who was so one-sidedly pro-America and anti-China.

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

#142

Post by remarkEon »

nradov wrote: post #140
remarkEon wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple version: Weapons systems are quickly advancing to the point where many of them can navigate and operate independent of human control. The obvious question here is at which point do we give these platforms release authority for lethal weapons. It becomes impractical to require (or even imagine, really) there to be a human "pilot" operating every single drone when you have hundreds or thousands of them opera…

You're way behind. We gave those those platforms release authority for lethal weapons in 1979. https://www.vp4association.com/aircraft-information-2/32-2/m...

I think scale is the differentiator here. Plus people get more nervous about things that fly than things that swim.

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

#143

Post by nradov »

khafra wrote: post #90
Xeronate wrote: post #26

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.

Treaties are pointless without a practical means of monitoring and enforcement. We're fortunate that nuclear weapons programs are difficult to hide from overhead imagery, seismographs, and fallout detectors. We can't verify what code is running in a Chinese data center or missile guidance system. It's just a ridiculous notion to equate AI or autonomous weapons with nukes in any way.

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

#144

Post by nradov »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #128
baq wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s exactly why I think the principled position is naive in a tragedy of the commons situation we’re in - it isn’t a sci fi story with a happy ending, it’s the Manhattan project and 70+ years ago nazi and japanese data centers doing foundational model training would’ve been bombed to smithereens at any cost.

Are we comparing the PRC to early 40s Germany/Japan?

The PRC is comparable to early 30s Germany/Japan. We're on a dangerous course toward a devastating conflict if both sides can't reach a stable understanding.

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

#145

Post by Schmerika »

ecshafer wrote: post #35

This gets a giant eye roll from me. Are you really so naive that you thought working on AI for a giant tech company, creating software that is capable of finding deep patterns in massive amounts of data... and it wasn't going to used by the Defense / Intelligence industry? If you are so against the US government, and you are working for ANY big tech company you are aiding the Intelligence and Defense industry. Govern…

You're not entirely wrong, but maybe you could consider supporting people who move in the right direction rather than rolling your eyes at them.

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

#146

Post by archagon »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #20

Google employees must think this is pre 2024. The employer has the power and doesn’t mind laying off people who don’t tow the company line and all of the CEOs bend over and bribe the President - ie “settling” frivolous lawsuits brought by Trump himself over “censorship” when he was out of office

Time to unionize.

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

#147

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

archagon wrote: post #146
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #20

Google employees must think this is pre 2024. The employer has the power and doesn’t mind laying off people who don’t tow the company line and all of the CEOs bend over and bribe the President - ie “settling” frivolous lawsuits brought by Trump himself over “censorship” when he was out of office

Time to unionize.

Yes because the poor Google employees are so underpaid and mistreated…

Good luck trying to get Google to agree to those demands and not just tell them to kick rocks. There are plenty of people in Google offices all over the world that will gladly take their place

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

#148

Post by cheonn638 »

fuy wrote: post #123
dang wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

sorry about that, I appreciate the reminder. Sometimes it's hard to engage in conversations with obvious bots/bad actors in good faith.

[dead]

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

#149

Post by DanielHall »

Another rather peculiar point: why did the Department of War reject Anthropic and label it a supply chain risk entity, despite its "prohibited content" policy being almost identical to OpenAI's stated policy in its announcement, yet award the contract to OpenAI?

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

#150

Post by pjjpo »

Xeronate wrote: post #26

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…

Don't need to use China even, Microsoft, or Palantir, etc will continue to support the US military, likely using Google technology in the process (Guava, gRPC maybe?, k8s assuredly? etc).

Sorry but if you truly believe in technology not using in bad context, the only way to avoid it is to change careers. The issue with news like this is it's hard to actually trust the protesters, they probably are happy to clear their conscience personally while continuing to reap the benefits of living in the tech industry. Have your cake and eat it too.

Sometimes people do quit - they're probably the ones you want to hire if you care about ethics. Most don't though.

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