Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 1001 posts

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#251

Post by ForRealsies »

criley2 wrote: post #101
tclancy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point but it also treats life as a zero sum game that's played in a steady-state arena where the threat of Tartars over the next hill is ever present. That's a good way to prevent progress and to defend yourself perfectly against the Last War but one would think the last 30 years of terrorism would have shown us the flaw in that. Put another way: who benefits from $Giant_New_Military_Platform like new f…

The Tartars are over the hills. Democracy is in decline. Authoritarianism is on the mega-rise. The state of democracy is bad and looking worse, and if the Brexit/Trump trend of destroying the EU and breaking up the Atlantic Alliance bear just a bit more fruit, you may find that these "Tartars" are a lot closer to you than you once believed. You call me blind to the future by looking at the past, but quite frankly, yo…

You assume the EU was created for Democracy purposes?

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#252

Post by friedman23 »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #214
jcwayne wrote: post #165

Serious question for those who agree with this petition. Which country's military would you like to see be the most technologically advanced in 20 years?

I'd vote for Belgium. More seriously: the US has nuclear weapons, rendering them safe from any direct confrontation with enemies challenging them technologically. They have a conventional military 10x the size needed for the sort of intervention that actually succeeded in the past (the Balkans, the first Gulf war). The rather unsuccessful wars (Afghanistan, Iraq) were lost not for technological reasons or any other d…

>I'd vote for Belgium.

I always laugh when people suggest these meek tiny European states should be in charge of running the world and how much more civilized they are. The reality is that these countries aren't meek by choice and we already know from history what a country like Belgium would do if given a tiny sliver of power.

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#253

Post by sseth »

jcwayne wrote: post #165

Serious question for those who agree with this petition. Which country's military would you like to see be the most technologically advanced in 20 years?

As an Indian, I hope it is the USA. At the end of the day, it has to be a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural democracy or I fear for what the world will become. And I say that even while agreeing that many military actions the US has taken in the past have been terrible.

Note : I do not agree with the petition, but the question was too tempting.

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#254

Post by stale2002 »

friedman23 wrote: post #243
stale2002 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren't going to go to war with Russia, despite the propaganda that everyone is spreading. Wars between nuclear countries don't happen any more.

The reason we aren't going to war with Russia is because Russian leaders know that it is impossible to win a war against the current US military. The reason it's impossible to win a war against the current US military is because the US has spent an obscene amount of money building it for decades. If the US military were not capable of defending Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics would be under Russian ru…

No, it is because of the nukes.

Nukes prevent any war from happening between any powerful nation.

If we spent 1 tenth the amount on our military, we'd still have the power to blow up the entire world X times over.

I just think that if you have the ability to destroy the entire world, then that's a powerful enough military and you don't need anything more for defense.

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#255

Post by Asdfbla »

jcwayne wrote: post #165

Serious question for those who agree with this petition. Which country's military would you like to see be the most technologically advanced in 20 years?

There's certainly enough opportunity to work for a more peaceful world instead - scenarios where two large military powers clash should probably better be avoided anyway, so it's probably even a more productive use of one's time than optimizing for yet another variant of mutually assured destruction.

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#256

Post by dragonwriter »

stale2002 wrote: post #249
sseth wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well "governments" already have nuclear bombs, aircraft carriers, drones and what have you. It's not some new concept. You can take it as given that regimes you will never want to live under will be putting their best people in using AI for military purposes. It's dangerous to imagine one is sitting on some moral high ground by refusing to work for the military. We all owe our freedom to previous generations of scien…

If we already have nukes, why would we need anything else? Nukes prevent any war from happening between any powerful nation. The only use for the other types of weapons is to participate in some other civil war in another country that we shouldn't be in. So no, I don't care if we "fall behind" because we still have nukes and those are enough to protect us in the conflicts that matter.

> Nukes prevent any war from happening between any powerful nation.

So, in the universe you are writing from, the Kargil War would have been an impossibility?

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#257

Post by pera »

nyxtom wrote: post #75

I for one would rather have a drone strike program that actually actively avoids civilian casualties as much as possible. There are certainly gray areas here as far as the use of that program from a political standpoint (whether the strikes are warranted or whether it is part of regime changes). On the other hand, by not helping the military become more efficient we also risk losing existing lives (our own and civili…

The DoD is not interested in using their budget to reduce their number of civilian "casualties".

Their only intention here is to scale up their drone programs.

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#258

Post by 13of40 »

InitialLastName wrote: post #215
orf wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the 2a just a "well armed malitia"? Maybe an RPG is more than well armed, but encryption?

"well-regulated militia," but it's pretty much an open question how much that actually has to do with the right described in the second clause. Gun rights activists tend to down-play that first bit, as it implies a collective perspective that they find conceptually incompatible with unlimited individual gun ownership rights.

My state constitution clarifies it as "The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state..."

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#259

Post by goldenkey »

rdtsc wrote: post #206
tc313 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but I’m pretty sure the second amendment only applies to guns; you can’t walk around with an RPG on your shoulder.

It depends how you look at it. What was the purpose. Presumably after fighting in the Revolutionary War the goal was not to give people hunting privileges, they had something else in mind. From that point of view, maybe RPGs should be allowed, but so should attack helicopters, surveillance capabilities, private spy satellites, etc. > IANAL but I’m pretty sure the second amendment only applies to guns; you can’t walk…

That flamethrower is awesome. What use does a flamethrower have though besides burning buildings, that a normal gun wouldn't?

Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project

#260

Post by gaius »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #214
jcwayne wrote: post #165

Serious question for those who agree with this petition. Which country's military would you like to see be the most technologically advanced in 20 years?

I'd vote for Belgium. More seriously: the US has nuclear weapons, rendering them safe from any direct confrontation with enemies challenging them technologically. They have a conventional military 10x the size needed for the sort of intervention that actually succeeded in the past (the Balkans, the first Gulf war). The rather unsuccessful wars (Afghanistan, Iraq) were lost not for technological reasons or any other d…

I'd vote for Belgium.

Belgian atrocities in the Congo suggests that would be a very, very poor choice

Post reply on HN