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Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI

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Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI

#151

Post by threepts »

Ritewut wrote: post #68
cdrnsf wrote: post #29

Lawful is meaningless in the context of the Trump administration. Should Google waver (which they won't), they'll be declared a supply chain risk or otherwise bullied into submission.

Google holds immense power in their position. Trump can make their life very difficult but Google can make life for Trump very difficult as well. They have no need to kneel, they are choosing to.

Google simply cannot justify this power struggle, it can doesn't mean it will. It got to the top by kissing the ring and that's how they stay at the top.

Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI

#152

Post by [deleted] »

conartist6 wrote: post #134
cooper_ganglia wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should probably give this a second look: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If speaking vigorously in defense of morality is wrong, I guess that's something I'll just have to live with.

[deleted]

Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI

#154

Post by Barrin92 »

ripvanwinkle wrote: post #104
Barrin92 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you answered your own implicit question. You have a choice who you sell your work to, you don't have a choice what your taxes do. Seems pretty straight forward why the former elicits more push back. The government forces you to pay taxes it doesn't force you to build them tools of surveillance or weapons.

IF the feds are a sufficiently large market your viability as a business might depend on keeping them happy. btw i am not making a judgement call on the ai usage issue itself, just saying that this and taxes are more equivalent than it might seem

>IF the feds are a sufficiently large market your viability as a business

sure if you're Lockheed you might be screwed, but that's not the case for Google. Military contracts, or even government contracts as a whole are a tiny fraction of the King Kong Sized gorilla that is Google.

The fact that Anthropic puts up a fight but OpenAI/Microsoft and Google don't I find hard to characterize as anything other than pathetic. These guys could, if the wanted to, afford a lawyer or to two to push back on the administration. They do that pretty successfully with their taxes in most places btw.

Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI

#156

Post by xp84 »

impulser_ wrote: post #66
ceejayoz wrote: post #3

Who defines "lawful" if Google and the Pentagon disagree? > The classified deal apparently doesn’t allow Google to veto how the government will use its AI models. Seems concerning?

No it doesn't at all. Private corporations shouldn't be telling the government what it can and can't do. That's the job of the people. You want private corporation overriding your vote?

Agree. It seems on the surface convenient right now when people think the company (or rank and file employees?) are on their political “team” but they’d get less comfortable when oil companies or other “bad” companies dictate terms to the government. “We’ll provide fuel for the military if and only if you overturn the leader of $COUNTRY”

(Yes, I recognize that past military entanglements do read as favors for Big Oil, but that’s more because lobbyists directly purchased the corrupt and useless Congress)

Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI

#158

Post by yibg »

gigatree wrote: post #129
tyre wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not, but legal is not the same as ethical. For a long time, and probably still, it was legal for the US to torture enemy combatants. It was never ethical.

You’d need some shared ethical/moral framework to make that claim, which doesn’t really seem to exist anymore

You don't need a shared moral framework to come to a personal moral conclusion.

Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI

#159

Post by t-3 »

nradov wrote: post #130
Forgeties79 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we are wrong to express any opposition or desire to maybe raise the bar here? Aren’t we supposed to be “the good guys”? Or should we just accept a role as the menace of the world, wildly throwing its weight around whenever we have an unscrupulous president?

Those questions are moot. There are situations where it's simply impossible to have a human in the loop because reaction time is too slow or the environment is too dangerous or communication links are unreliable. Russia is deploying fully autonomous weapons to attack Ukraine today and they will be selling those weapons (or licensing the technology) to their allies. There is no option to stop. And let's please not hav…

There's always an option to stop. We can choose civility over barbarity, stop trying to kill people over 1000+ year old dick waving contests, and stop threatening each other with doomsday weapons because your grandpa shot my grandpa. Just because our leaders are too stupid and cowardly doesn't mean there's no option.

Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI

#160

Post by xp84 »

tdb7893 wrote: post #11
ceejayoz wrote: post #3

Who defines "lawful" if Google and the Pentagon disagree? > The classified deal apparently doesn’t allow Google to veto how the government will use its AI models. Seems concerning?

Especially concerning with the how creative the executive branch can be when it comes to what laws mean. With little oversight, it seems guaranteed that it will be used for unlawful activities (despite whatever tortured argument some lawyer will have put into a memo somewhere).

Yeah, they’re really bad! Seems like it might be time to try convincing people to vote for someone else! Democrats haven’t tried that play since 2012, preferring the “scorn and insult anyone outside your base” strategy that’s worked so well since.
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