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A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

arstechnica.com

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Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#31

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

davesque wrote: post #19
manfredo wrote: post #12

> "If ethical action on the part of tech companies requires consideration of who might benefit from a technology and who might be harmed," the letter reads, "we can say with certainty that no topic deserves more sober reflection—no technology has higher stakes—than algorithms meant to target and kill at a distance and without public accountability,” My understanding from the reading I've done is that this project is…

I don't think that's an argument. The truth is, even if the particular applications of AI to tasks like this are innocuous in this case, they're less than a stone's throw away from things that aren't. Uses like this for technology are a perfect example of things we (we, the tech community, who have always prided ourselves on being more fair and ethical than the rest of the world) all promised we would never do . Ther…

Are you also against end-to-end encrypted messaging? Telegram is used extensively by ISIS - who does actual evil and deliberately targets civilians.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#32

Post by grcshlep »

davidf18 wrote: post #13

I wonder how many of those Googler's who objected to the development of weapon systems have served in combat positions fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan? I'm guessing not many which is a reason why it is important for firms such as Google to prioritize the hiring of combat vets (besides the fact that they risked their lives to serve our country). For those who have not served in combat or lost a friend or relative that…

I'm thinking that they have a problem with the military, period, and don't think soldiers should have been in Iraq etc in the first place. Its an issue of trust.

And then you have the argument that if you reduce the human cost of wars, you make wars more likely.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#33

Post by jpzisme »

davidf18 wrote: post #13

I wonder how many of those Googler's who objected to the development of weapon systems have served in combat positions fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan? I'm guessing not many which is a reason why it is important for firms such as Google to prioritize the hiring of combat vets (besides the fact that they risked their lives to serve our country). For those who have not served in combat or lost a friend or relative that…

This is a very good comment and perspective. I am not a vet and don't have anything close to the experiences that it seems that you have. That being said, many of my friends and roommates from college are in active duty military positions, and it's scary to hear when they're being deployed.

Even though a program like this might save some lives in the short term, training machines that don't have empathy and can be programmed for whatever means to kill seems like a Pandora's Box that we should be damn sure we want to open before actually doing so.

Also, my apologies for the less-than-respectful replies that you are getting. You should not be chastised for respectfully sharing an important opinion, and their behavior is unbecoming of what we should expect of American citizens.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#35

Post by neolefty »

robin_reala wrote: post #25
davidf18 wrote: post #13

I wonder how many of those Googler's who objected to the development of weapon systems have served in combat positions fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan? I'm guessing not many which is a reason why it is important for firms such as Google to prioritize the hiring of combat vets (besides the fact that they risked their lives to serve our country). For those who have not served in combat or lost a friend or relative that…

Unfortunately they’re also very effective at killing foreign nationals with nothing to do with any conflict. And if you reply with the weasel words “collateral damage” then, with all due respect, fuck you. (Sorry dang, I’ll take any downvotes as deserved, but this comment is unacceptable in my eyes).

How much of your objection has to do with the technology, and how much with the conflict itself?

In other words, which question is more appealing:

* Given that we're in this conflict, what should we do?

* How can we prevent these kinds of conflicts in the future?

Those are very different conversations. Personally I'm more focused on the second one. But we have to take care of the first one too. And it's messy.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#36

Post by davidf18 »

jpzisme wrote: post #33
davidf18 wrote: post #13

I wonder how many of those Googler's who objected to the development of weapon systems have served in combat positions fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan? I'm guessing not many which is a reason why it is important for firms such as Google to prioritize the hiring of combat vets (besides the fact that they risked their lives to serve our country). For those who have not served in combat or lost a friend or relative that…

This is a very good comment and perspective. I am not a vet and don't have anything close to the experiences that it seems that you have. That being said, many of my friends and roommates from college are in active duty military positions, and it's scary to hear when they're being deployed. Even though a program like this might save some lives in the short term, training machines that don't have empathy and can be pr…

I am not a vet but I escaped being a terrorist attack victim in Israel when I fortunately stepped into a store just a moment before the attack.

I do know many Israelis and almost all of them are required to serve in the military. One person I know shot a terrorist who targeted a bus with a machine gun.

I know many Israelis work for firms such as Google and I wonder how many of them feel that we shouldn't be developing technology to defend American troops.

Unlike in Israel, much of military service in the US can be a class issue -- many go into the military to pay for a college education. It might truly be ironic and sad if Israelis were more interested in saving American military lives than Americans are.

We owe it to our fellow Americans in the military to develop our great American technology to help protect them. Perhaps those that disagree should spend some time with combat troops overseas, but of course that isn't possible.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#37

Post by candiodari »

I don't get this. This is about tracking humans. If you're worried about AIs tracking humans through areal cameras ... let me put your mind at ease : this is "tutorial" level stuff.

Granted. There's getting it to demoable state, and there's getting it to work under all conditions, getting it stable, getting it tested, and so on and so forth.

But still, this is not exactly state of the art anymore. This ship has sailed. Over and done. Genie cannot be put into the bottle. The US army has this option now, and very soon essentially any professional military will have it. A quick course on AI will enable you to do this, and I assume that the US military has enough such people available.

Same with tracking specific people in (high-res) cams. There's a computational cost, but this has been done and described so many times. If anybody wants to build a network of cameras that can track specific people by their faces, there's nothing stopping them at this point.

So why get all worked up about this ? What's the big deal ?

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#38

Post by philwelch »

DINKDINK wrote: post #11
debt wrote: post #6

I'm staunchly opposed to war, but understand it's unfortunate necessity under certain extreme circumstances. If these types of projects make war machines more precise overall, they may actually decrease overall collateral damage and reduce the total time war is waged which could cause less lives to be lost during war. Until us humans can collectively overcome the various problems that cause war, might be worth it for…

Your argument is: "By making war more efficient/effective, we will reduce its use." Say a government only has nuclear bombs in its arsenal and they really want an enemy of the state dead. Do you think they're willing to nuke an entire city to kill one person? Now imagine a government has electronic kill switches. Imagine it being almost like The Matrix, they can just flip your life off at the flick of a button. Do yo…

Violence is already endless. It’s just a matter of moral vanity whether or not you feel better about not being personally involved.

We’ve tried non-intervention before, and places like Czechoslovakia, Poland, China, and Rwanda have paid the price. And the adversaries we have faced, from Hitler to Daesh, would not hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction as we would. The reason asymmetric warfare works is that the terrorist is willing to stoop to levels that we are not. The only counter to that is precision warfare.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#39

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

robin_reala wrote: post #24
romaniv wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, original Recaptcha was about OCR of books that weren't readable. I'm not sure why anyone uses it right now. Like you said, it's obvious where it's going. Not to mention that it's increasingly annoying for users.

And completely accessible. RECAPTCHA is basically impossible to use if you need a screen reader or have any sort of visual impairment. Hell, I’ve have problems as a EU resident due to differences between street signs between here and the US.

Yep. “Click on the images containing a crosswalk.” I’m British. That’s not a word we use.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#40

Post by neuralRiot »

philwelch wrote: post #30
davesque wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's an argument. The truth is, even if the particular applications of AI to tasks like this are innocuous in this case, they're less than a stone's throw away from things that aren't. Uses like this for technology are a perfect example of things we (we, the tech community, who have always prided ourselves on being more fair and ethical than the rest of the world) all promised we would never do . Ther…

It's really challenging to unpack this kind of dogmatic argument. Are you a pacifist in general? Are you against violence and military intervention in every conceivable case, up to and including Rwanda or WWII? Do you think it's good for relatively liberal and democratic countries to have less military capability than relatively authoritarian countries? The cause of human rights, freedom, dignity, and survival would…

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