How about: The pentagon can have "AI" once it completes a single successful audit.
Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI
241–250 of 308 posts
Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
100% of the Google employees who would be working on "classified AI work" are US citizens by law.
So what, they won't be using any of the existing Google Gemini models of infra then? Because all of Google - from Gemini to the data center infra etc - has (and still is) worked on by non-US persons even - gasp - outside the US . They'll do a complete clean-room ground up bootstrap of all the research and infrastructure from zero? Seems unlikely.
You of course don't have to reinvent science, but it is in fact standard practice to do infrastructure from the literal ground up with US citizens for even unclassified government data.
Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it that this line items comes up EVERY TIME an article comes out in a knee jerk reaction - its so incredibly absolute: "Any AI researcher who continues to work here is morally compromised." It feels like a constant campaign and the posters seem so incredibly self righteous and unthoughtful.
Probably because the articles are talking about how the AI will be used in immoral ways, and that the people who know that and continue doing the work must be morally compromised. I know that there might be $several ways those highly-paid engineers might still rationalize their work. Some of them might have ideological reasons to treat entire classes of people as unworthy of life. Within the model of their ideologies…
In absoluteness you lose your credibility except when rallying people to arms.
Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI
#244This whole thing is sorta blown out of context; but it does make explosive journalism, sell a bunch of ad revenue, and give Anthropic a lot of publicity (whom I think is just amoral here). The bottom line is in the past the US government has acquired weapons/tech with deals like "it will never be used for X purpose". However, as far as my research has shown, it has never accepted deal where said weapons or tech has s…
> The bottom line is in the past the US government has acquired weapons/tech with deals like "it will never be used for X purpose". However, as far as my research has shown, it has never accepted deal where said weapons or tech has self-policing features.
Some examples of past US govt use of tech with self-policing features:
* DJI drones have historically had geofencing around restricted areas (e.g. airports, DC). Back when the US govt used DJI drones, govt users had to get unlock licenses from DJI to be able to operate in those areas: https://support.dji.com/help/content?customId=en-us034000067...
* cloud computing features like Assured Workloads place firm guardrails on e.g. what regions services can be spun up in: https://cloud.google.com/security/products/assured-workloads
* for ITAR compliance, software sold to the government will often have IP-based geofencing and lock down if it's run outside an authorized area
* I'm pretty sure the US govt uses software that has licensing enforcement
* This is sort of the opposite, but military technology exported by the US to other countries quite frequently has self-policing built in, e.g. geo-blocking of missiles and aircraft
Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
> big tech is new to the game and doesn't have an existing regulatory capture system already up and running The career officials in the Obama FTC started proceedings for an antitrust lawsuit against Google over a decade ago. The political appointees (of both parties) shut it down. It seems to me that regulatory capture has been working for Google for some time now.
I mean it's basically an extremely high-stakes version of the (possibly apocryphal) Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Most people (at least the people I've talked to, which admittedly is somewhat of a lefty bubble but I think even more generally) agree that companies getting to or close to "monopoly" status is a pretty…
> Political candidates get a lot of social credit for claiming that they're going to do exactly that. The moment that they actually get into a position where they actually could do something about it, they suddenly remember who their campaign contributors are, and can then create reasons to avoid actually solving any of these problems.
I read a good Google adjacent example of this in yesterday's NYTimes:
> Mr. Brin, a Google co-founder and one of the world’s richest people, is a longtime friend of Mr. Newsom, the California governor. Both men attended each other’s weddings. But now Mr. Brin pulled Mr. Newsom aside to a different part of the property for a serious talk. Mr. Brin told Mr. Newsom that he could not stand the state’s proposed billionaire tax... Mr. Newsom, who had never seemed inclined to support the tax, came out the next month and pledged to defeat it.
Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it morally wrong for a US citizen to work with their government?
Weird, why is it morally right for anyone to work with immoral organizations? -- That's what's in the focus, right? Whether the current government is immoral, or if government can be philosophically immoral is up to debate. But your question sounds like a deflection to me.
Heya pigpag. Your account seems to be shadowbanned, even though your comments seem normal. If you want people to be able to see your comments I reccomend creating a new account or appealing to hn@ycombinator.com
Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Sounds good! Please convince Vladimir Putin to choose civility over barbarity, then get back to us so we can discuss options.
Not sure you're aware, but the joke may be on you. It's apparently Putin who's convinced Trump and the Mullahs (not the band) to choose civility over babarity by allowing a superyacht of one of his cronies to pass through the Hormuz.[0]
Russian trolling at its finest, truly. This timeline keeps raising the bar on the absurdity quotient.
Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a private contractor, you can sign a contract to deliver pizza or bandages to US soldiers, but also put into the contract that you won't deliver lethal weapons, if that's your own ethical stance. You don't need to audit every move of the military, just the stuff you're doing at their request. And sure, maybe that just means the military decides to take their business elsewhere. But if you have confidence that your…
I think you and your parent have great arguments. Your pizza deliverer chose his battle, which was to only deliver pizza, not materiel, and is commendable. Your parent seems to want to delegate death from humans to AI, which seems to me like a simplification that won't turn out exactly like that, but the premise of deciding whether that is a battle to pick is valid. If you want to start blurring the lines between the…
The broader context of this is that Anthropic did put ethical restrictions into their contract. A bunch of AI employees industry-wide called for solidarity with Anthropic. But then OpenAI, and now Google, defected against this equilibrium and signed contracts agreeing to "any lawful use".
The GP was arguing that, first of all, it's not practically possible to put limitations on such a contract, because you can't audit everything the military does. But that argument is bunk, because not only do you not have to audit everything the military does (only what you as a contractor are asked to do), Anthropic also signed exactly such a contract, and the DoW did indeed run into those restrictions and got frustrated by it.
Their second argument, that if Google didn't agree then someone less scrupulous would take their place and exert less pushback, is also bunk. Google's pushback is as low as it gets; you can't sign a contract to do something illegal, so agreeing to any lawful use is the loosest possible contract that anybody can sign. And given that they defected in this prisoner's dilemma, they are already the less scrupulous party doing the work that Anthropic would not.
Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI
#249Who could have seen this one coming. From yesterday: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-ai-pentagon-classified-u... ("Hundreds of Google workers urge CEO to refuse classified AI work with Pentagon"). Any AI researcher who continues to work here is morally compromised.
That's not a productive stance to take, if you're trying to be good faith and an agent of progress, even assuming morality isn't realitive, and the context nuanced.
Re: Google and Pentagon reportedly agree on deal for 'any lawful' use of AI
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's kind of my point? I'm concerned by what has been made available but can't form a complete opinion and decide if I need to take action without knowing the full extent of the agreement.
Nor should you be burdened with that. This is why we elect competent (hopefully) leaders to worry about these things for us. Mob rule democracy about every national secret would mean they’re not secrets for very long!
Why should you not be burdened with that?
Surely you are responsible for the consequences of what you do, no matter how indirect? After all, we live in physical reality, not in some world of laws.
If you cause something you cause that thing. You are reponsible, even if it is through some long chain.