If you want to do good in the world: You are not alone!
Its not easy to do at this moment in time, but be patient, consistent, and spread your attitude to others.
Why I Left Google DeepMind
31–40 of 64 posts
Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind
#32ICYMI
Previously on the author's source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48925271
Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind
#33The virtue signaling is too much on this article. It could have been a well-written piece, but they had to make it about moral grandstanding.
“Virtue signaling” is when you don’t take meaningful action. The article author went out of their way to take meaningful action.
Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind
#34The virtue signaling is too much on this article. It could have been a well-written piece, but they had to make it about moral grandstanding.
“Virtue signaling” is when you don’t take meaningful action. The article author went out of their way to take meaningful action.
I'm like the Japanese soldier who kept fighting into the 1970s on this, but actually signalling is about taking costly action. When people call something virtue signalling what they usually mean is that it's cheap talk, but this is wrong. The whole point of signalling is that it's costly. A more correct application of virtue signalling would be something like those people who contort their lives to genuinely try to produce zero garbage. This is a truly costly action, but it is signalling in the sense that it is more about showing that one cares by being effortful than actually doing something effectual.
Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind
#35Great show of principles and character, +1000 to the author.
What can we "regular people" do?
My approach, which is very inconvenient, is to try as much as possible to not feed my consumer spending money to tech giants. In some cases I fail at this (e.g., my wife and I will always buy a family membership for YouTube Plus with music; we still order some things online from Amazon) but I make an effort.
I have been an AI practitioner for over 40 years and I want to use the very best AI coding agents, etc., but I am forcing myself to just use access to cheaper open weight models from smaller US inferencing companies (my last $$ subscription runs out in a few days).
Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind
#36Very long to read, but highly principled. I feel his desperation. Powerful people can too easily do little, and ignore their consciences. I appreciate he named those he spoke to; it came across as fair, and makes them accountable for what they did or did not do.
>Powerful people can too easily do little, and ignore their consciences.
IOW:
>Congress remains a potted plant in the corner.
Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind
#37I am outraged to find gambling in this casino! What sort of ethics bubble was the author living in to believe that Google was anything but solely focused on achieving shareholder value?
I don't know the author, but I do know that it's very much possible to work for organizations whose values and ethics are extremely compromised, and to mindfully participate in their work because you can also do a lot of good for a lot of people while you're there.
It's a complicated cost/benefit tradeoff: are the opportunities for world-improvement available with the resources of an ethically compromised organization worth the world-damage done by your participation (either your presence alone lending legitimacy/size to the org, or by work you may be called upon to do that directly or indirectly does harm)?
If you think there is a simple answer to that, you're wrong.
Like, sure, a lot of people delude themselves into thinking they're not doing harm because they like money or hate change. That's bad, and separate from what I'm describing above: that you can work for a deeply flawed org and accept the cost of your participation in those flaws in return for benefits that you can others can achieve with the resources offered by that same flawed org.
Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Virtue signaling” is when you don’t take meaningful action. The article author went out of their way to take meaningful action.
I'm like the Japanese soldier who kept fighting into the 1970s on this, but actually signalling is about taking costly action. When people call something virtue signalling what they usually mean is that it's cheap talk, but this is wrong. The whole point of signalling is that it's costly. A more correct application of virtue signalling would be something like those people who contort their lives to genuinely try to p…
> When people call something virtue signalling what they usually mean is that it's cheap talk, but this is wrong. The whole point of signalling is that it's costly.
What? Signaling is not costly. It’s literally a display, a signal.
Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind
#39You (the org) brought fire to the masses. How that fire is used (to build or burn the cities) is not for you do decide Stand by and share your ethics concern. But this isn't misalignment. A lot of AI use cases will be constraint/reigned in through governance evolution at every scale
Comparing it to fire isn’t really an apt comparison. You developed the nuclear bomb. Would you give free access to every human on the planet to do with it as they see fit? Or would you demand responsible guardrails from the start? AI companies want it both ways. This will both redefine humanity as we know it, but also nobody should try to enforce any guardrails. Why? Because it might hurt profits. Either it’s snake o…
I mean, does enabling ICE to be more effective actually represent a harm? ICE has authority to do the things it’s doing. The courts are the appropriate venue to check that authority. Two agents murdering citizens is a criminal matter completely unrelated to Google’s relationship with DHS.
It feels like AI empowering scams and facilitating post-truth is more harm.
Re: Why I Left Google DeepMind
#40I am not sure how to square the posts that AI is a bubble with the ones that say AI is so terrible; lately I am somewhat inclined to especially believe the former.