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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

#171

Post by soVeryTired »

p1esk wrote: post #103
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably the majority supports the ideological foundations, aims, and methods of the institutions you are speaking of. In particular the military and intelligence institutions. If they didn't, they would have been removed by vote or force some time ago. Frankly the broad majority of people in the US benefit materially in some way from their existence in ways that they might not even be fully aware of. I am not arguin…

Interesting. I have absolutely zero ethical concerns with Google building a drone which can more accurately target someone. I'm also perfectly fine with US government using those drones to kill bad guys. Now if they use it to kill good guys, then it's a problem that needs to be solved.

How does one determine who's a good guy and who's a bad guy?

I would have thought most people are somewhere in between.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#172

Post by p1esk »

soVeryTired wrote: post #171
p1esk wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I have absolutely zero ethical concerns with Google building a drone which can more accurately target someone. I'm also perfectly fine with US government using those drones to kill bad guys. Now if they use it to kill good guys, then it's a problem that needs to be solved.

How does one determine who's a good guy and who's a bad guy? I would have thought most people are somewhere in between.

So far, the people they kill are very much in line with my definition of "bad guys" (e.g. bin Laden).

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#173

Post by titzer »

wilsonnb wrote: post #102
titzer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the US military has killed nearly 4,000 people with drone strikes in Pakistan over the past decade, a country in which no formal military conflict exists, nor any formal enemy, just vague accusations of terrorist networks (and likely a bunch of political dissidents fed to them by the Pakistani government), I am really wondering where the "Pax" is coming from. Because if you do the math the odds of any give…

If you're going to say that the US has brought hell to Pakistan, you should at least back it up with some reasoning. What would Pakistan look like right now without the US killing those 4000 people? What would surrounding countries look like? Why did the US kill those people? Would any other country in the US's position have reasonably killed them? It's a complex issue that can't be summed up by saying "fuck that".

Just imagine your friends' mother was killed as collateral damage in a drone strike. Or your cousin. Or your friend in school. From a missile from an invisible unmanned machine in the sky. You don't know why. You don't if they were a terrorist or mistaken for a terrorist. They were killed by a foreign government that is colluding with your own corrupt government and you have no recourse within the law, can't even fight back. Yeah, it's like that.

Would you really like to justify killed 4000 persons of unknown status with zero legal proceedings because of...opportunity cost? Because Pakistan might look different if they weren't killed? I am not sure I could keep a straight face through that one. No. Just no.

And yes, missiles from the sky killing people: FUCK THAT. Rule of law. Round up those "terrorists" and interrogate them, charge them with crimes. I have no forgiveness for psychos on any side of this that want to push us back to barbarism.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#174

Post by soVeryTired »

p1esk wrote: post #172
soVeryTired wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one determine who's a good guy and who's a bad guy? I would have thought most people are somewhere in between.

So far, the people they kill are very much in line with my definition of "bad guys" (e.g. bin Laden).

I don't think you're really engaging with my point.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#175

Post by musage »

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…

Joseph Weizenbaum pointed out the bankruptcy of this "logic" in an interview, it's like saying every year there's bound to be rapes happening in any given big city -- so why not just go out and rape someone?

If your excuse is that someone else would do it, you are that other person.

> So the “moral” engineers have an incentive to stay and act as a front line against “immoral” actions

That may be their incentive, but in reality they also act as fig leaves. "Yeah, X is bad, but there are some good guys in there trying to do the right thing". It robs wider society of the determination with which it would defend itself otherwise.

> Military drones are here to stay

Bullshit. If the insanity isn't actively upheld it evaporates on its own. Left to their own devices, sociopaths self-destruct.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#176

Post by p1esk »

vokep wrote: post #128
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?

They probably understand others have different values. The confusion is, some values seem so self evident that its bewildering anyone with a certain level of intelligence wouldn't realize the same values. I think the answer might be that they do have the same values, but they have a different model of the world overall, which calls for different ways of achieving those values. To take this to an extreme, imagine a pe…

How can you tell that your perception of reality is more "correct" than mine?

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#177

Post by whb07 »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #164
whb07 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you as well. I truly believe that the military is for the "defense" of the U.S. Sometimes though a good defense can be a good offense. But by and large I think the 17 years spent in the middle east has been wasteful and largely unproductive. Having said that, there is a number of girls for example who are able to study past elementary school who would have never had the chance to. So maybe not all is was…

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. I think what you're saying is pretty reasonable, and I definitely agree about some of the benefits of drones. I'm not sure how effective killing terrorists actually is given that our ostensible ally in the region, Saudi Arabia, appears to tacitly support a lot of the Islamic fundamentalism that gives rise to these extremists. I think a big issue that no one knows how to addres…

Heh, is it hard to believe why I’ve gotten downvotes on this response? Lol. Anyhow, I’m not thinking of any particular religion or group of people in this case.

I think it’s all fuckery warped self interest from within the government as well. One can grow fat and happy with the billions that flow through defense.

But again, I believe that better tooling will have unforeseen positive and negative consequences. But I think it’s going to weigh more in the positives.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#178

Post by p1esk »

soVeryTired wrote: post #174
p1esk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far, the people they kill are very much in line with my definition of "bad guys" (e.g. bin Laden).

I don't think you're really engaging with my point.

Yes, most people are somewhere in between. What's your point?

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#179

Post by Clubber »

whb07 wrote: post #44
Clubber wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Shit, just look at the time Osama bin Laden could have been bombed with a tomahawk missile during Clinton’s presidency. He didn’t do it because of the potential to kill a Saudi prince he was meeting at that time. Here's an article on that very thing. It didn't mention anything about a Saudi Prince though. http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-bill-clinto... But your points are valid. Like anything, it cou…

There were many missed opportunities. But I'm mainly pointing that one out as an example of what could be done with better tech[0]. As far as your other points, I think they are all valid. In this country we still have the press to bring up rampant abuses, and other branches of the government to keep the executive in check. I suppose as long as the other branches are willing to keep each other in check, then its bett…

It was also a staggeringly different time (pre-9/11). I don't remember being as militaristic as we are today. I mean people talked hawkish, but it seemed much less likely to actually happen.

>You also have to remember that the people in the military aren't robots (not yet at least).

I'm not sure what the point is on this comment is, so excuse me if I missed it, but I would think the fact that we have real citizens in the military would be a barrier to atrocities. Putting a drone hive/squadron in the hands of just a few people seems like atrocity would be more likely to happen.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#180

Post by soVeryTired »

p1esk wrote: post #178
soVeryTired wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're really engaging with my point.

Yes, most people are somewhere in between. What's your point?

My point is that it's not at all easy to determine who's 'good' and who's 'bad'. In fact I think those are extremely simplistic labels to tag people with, expecially when discussing what could amount to summary execution.

Is an enemy combatant with a weapon a bad guy? How about an unarmed enemy combatant? How about an enemy combatant with just a knife, or a rudimentary club? How about an armed civilian who might be an enemy combatant?

Is a bank robber a bad guy? If so, do they deserve to die? How about a white-collar fraudster? How about someone running from the police? How about a mentally ill person running from the police?

This stuff is never clear cut. It's why we have courts and military tribunals. If you can't think beyond 'good guys' and 'bad guys', I don't respect your opinion.

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