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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

#151

Post by VikingCoder »

nyolfen wrote: post #138
VikingCoder wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you guarantee the technology won't fall into enemy hands? Can you guarantee our government won't initiate illegal aggression? Won't subvert democracies? Won't have another Gulf of Tonkin? Won't target the families of terrorists, as our current President has suggested? No, you can't guarantee those things. Guns don't kill people, people do. And people are sometimes evil, and sometimes break the law, and sometimes…

can you guarantee that this technology won’t be independently developed by a hostile foreign power? barring catastrophy, it’s close to 100% inevitable that militaries will become largely autonomized in the coming decades.

If I were given the choice, I would support a country that has a track record that I am proud of.

Since I have serious reservations about the track record of the United States, I have to wonder if the people I consider the worst are more likely to establish dominance faster than some other country that I like better.

Maybe I should be working to establish the dominance of the country I think is some combination of the best, and the most likely to win that race (if I and my peers were to help them.)

Or, I could acknowledge that the United States is the most likely to establish dominance, and I should be working my ass off to ensure the US will be the best version of itself that it could be.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#152

Post by pandaman »

refurb wrote: post #147
relics443 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that there are people out there with values that differ from yours? It's not wildly impossible, regardless of what the screaming minority would have you believe. Maybe they don't have a problem with working on such projects, because they agree with their end goal?

I'm glad someone made this comment. It blows me away when people think their set of values is the only "right" way to think and anyone else who has a different set of values is obviously damaged or doing it unwillingly.

There is nothing extraordinary or even unusual in this. It's basic tribalism: my tribe is made from virtuous people who are also smart and beautiful, the enemy tribe, on the other hand, consists of deformed degenerates with the room temperature IQ.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#153

Post by walshemj »

astrodust wrote: post #47
walshemj wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like those "fertilizer plants" that a certain European company sold to sadam ?

There's an extraordinarily fine line between agricultural fertilizers and industrial explosives.

I was thinking more along the lines of chemical weapons.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#154

Post by sametmax »

refurb wrote: post #147
relics443 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that there are people out there with values that differ from yours? It's not wildly impossible, regardless of what the screaming minority would have you believe. Maybe they don't have a problem with working on such projects, because they agree with their end goal?

I'm glad someone made this comment. It blows me away when people think their set of values is the only "right" way to think and anyone else who has a different set of values is obviously damaged or doing it unwillingly.

Well, let's say suddenly you learn a community of elite thinkers eat babies and think it's good way to control population.

You'd be baffled, wouldn't you ?

It's not a matter of morality, of good or bad, or right or wrong.

I understand the difference exists. It just feels so alien to me I can't get to form the mental model that helps me understand what thinking lead to this behavior.

Also, read the other comments, we answered your points already.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#155

Post by sametmax »

pandaman wrote: post #152
refurb wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad someone made this comment. It blows me away when people think their set of values is the only "right" way to think and anyone else who has a different set of values is obviously damaged or doing it unwillingly.

There is nothing extraordinary or even unusual in this. It's basic tribalism: my tribe is made from virtuous people who are also smart and beautiful, the enemy tribe, on the other hand, consists of deformed degenerates with the room temperature IQ.

No you see you imply that I've given a value to the people here. Which is not at all what I said.

I exactly said I can't understand the line of thinking that leads to the decision. That's pretty much all.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#156

Post by rixrax »

sametmax wrote: post #60
mmjaa wrote: post #17

I once worked for a large industrial group in Europe. The kind that has a bit of a piece of every little pie there is - military, transportation, etc. I was pretty happy working there .. until I got a demo from the 'defence' group. They demonstrated the willingness to push the company's technology into heinous, heinous territory. The kind of thing where a drone would be able to follow a single person in a crowd, and…

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…

What about all the open source? I'l hazard that that quite a few instruments of war and mayhem run on FOSS. Is there a moral dilemma there? Should FOSS licenses make provisions for the type of use packages can be used for (I believe they should)?

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#157

Post by buckminster »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #12
option2 wrote: post #2

Kudos to those who is ready to stand for their principles. If you are at G and thinking whether you should resign or not, remembers this - the market for AI talent is super hot. You will immediately find lots of great and challenging AI work pushing humanity forward

Corollary: plenty of skilled engineers with fewer moralistic constraints will jump at the chance to do interesting work for high pay. For a company as large and wealthy as Google, they can continue to raise offer salaries until they are adequately staffed. There is a school of thought that recommends “moral” people doing “immoral” work because if those people left then other “immoral” people will take those jobs and…

But now the "immoral" people are no longer doing whatever immoral thing they were doing before going to Google. Fewer immoral things are being done. It is a win.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#158

Post by refurb »

sametmax wrote: post #154
refurb wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad someone made this comment. It blows me away when people think their set of values is the only "right" way to think and anyone else who has a different set of values is obviously damaged or doing it unwillingly.

Well, let's say suddenly you learn a community of elite thinkers eat babies and think it's good way to control population. You'd be baffled, wouldn't you ? It's not a matter of morality, of good or bad, or right or wrong. I understand the difference exists. It just feels so alien to me I can't get to form the mental model that helps me understand what thinking lead to this behavior. Also, read the other comments, we…

you learn a community of elite thinkers eat babies

Maybe I'm not reading this correctly, but you're saying that if anyone holds an opinion different than yours your reaction is the same as if they thought "eating babies" was OK?

Things aren't that black and white. People can hold opinions different than your and you can withhold judgement.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#159

Post by nunya213 »

vkou wrote: post #136
nunya213 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evil would be intentionally targeting civilians. You are simply deluded.

So, as long as I'm thinking good thoughts, when I'm doing something evil, I am not evil?

Your thoughts don't matter, your intent does.

The whole "The Military is like so evil maaaaan" shit is so 1969, grow up.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#160

Post by nunya213 »

peterwwillis wrote: post #141
nunya213 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evil would be intentionally targeting civilians. You are simply deluded.

They are intentionally bombing targets when they don't know who the target is . They don't know if it's a civilian, but they kill 'em anyway. 87% of the time.

That's not what I said, that's what you are saying, without evidence to back it up I might add. I doubt you are privy to military briefings where they make these decisions. Your argument is quite childlike.
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