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

nytimes.com

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

#321

Post by drak0n1c »

tclancy wrote: post #21
jryan49 wrote: post #4

Maybe if they were more accurate they would kill less people?

Maybe if they're more accurate the marginal cost of killing people in other parts of the world will go down even more so we'll be even less likely to reflect on whether the fact we can easily use robots to kill people on the other side of the world who have no way of responding symmetrically might come back to bite us in the ass?

Symmetrical war isn't a good thing either, it's far worse - death tolls are much higher for both sides and wars last longer. See WW1. Sure, question why and when war is necessary - but when a war needs to be fought I don't think making war more symmetrical would be appreciated by anyone and result in less "coming back to bite us in the ass".

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

#322

Post by airstrike »

jadedhacker wrote: post #115
airstrike wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries aren’t defined by the size of their economy but, at the very least, the monopoly of violence. Google doesn’t hold such a monopoly and likely never will...

Power is more complex than the direct application of violence. Corporate relationships with governments can induce them, and often have induced, violent reactions against people harming a company's interests.

That does not a country make.

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

#323

Post by panzagl »

adventured wrote: post #78
scarmig wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...the US military never clashed with Stalin's military AFAIK. Even in the Korean war, the USSR only provided supplies. That standing up to Hitler also involved a peer partnership with the USSR's military.

Before Stalin died, he believed that a conflict with the US was imminent. There was blatantly a hot war brewing between the US and the USSR along the borders of the West/East divide in Europe. The comment's grandparent could have just as well been defending Western Europe from Stalin's USSR territorial lust. They didn't stop moving west just to be polite. That vast military stand-off, which became the cold war, was a…

Our industry was literally born from the Cold War, yet now everyone wants to pretend it didn't exist. The Cold War was not just rhetoric and flag-waving. Even outside of Korea/Vietnam/Afghanistan there was continual military activity and those engaged in it took it as seriously as if the world could end.

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

#324

Post by vkou »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #224
Darthy wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to life-or-death questions, we should make informed decisions. "Just trust me" fundamentally lacks any valuable information that furthers the discussion. In addition, "just trust me" also endangers less clear thinking people to sway based on emotion instead of well-founded cold hard facts.

The reality of Defense/Intelligence is that you do have to just trust some of us.

The same defense/intelligence that has lied its pants off for how long... Gosh, I don't know when to begin.

You are working on a morally bankrupt program for a morally deficient organization, large parts of which have zero concern for human life. And you tell us to blindly trust you?

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

#326

Post by shemnon42 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #8

Oh boy. Being on the inside of Maven, I can't tell you how confused these Googlers are.

R.I.P. your TS/SCI clearance. Identifying yourself as part of any project on the internet is quite possibly the #1 no-no, certainly the #1 internet no-no. In fact, this makes me wonder if you really know anything at all.

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

#327

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#328

Post by otterley »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #87
otterley wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not going to explain for the rest of us, what was the point of this comment?

To communicate that the people on the inside of Google who are making these protestations are grossly uninformed about the Google-Maven relationship. Choose to believe me or not. My background is all out there for people to see.

Your background isn't nearly as useful as the facts. You're the one who started this thread, but it's completely unsubstantiated. If people aren't going to believe Sundar Pichai (CEO) without evidence, why should anyone believe you?

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

#329

Post by khawkins »

tclancy wrote: post #21
jryan49 wrote: post #4

Maybe if they were more accurate they would kill less people?

Maybe if they're more accurate the marginal cost of killing people in other parts of the world will go down even more so we'll be even less likely to reflect on whether the fact we can easily use robots to kill people on the other side of the world who have no way of responding symmetrically might come back to bite us in the ass?

But now you're arguing that we need to kill more innocents in order to drum up support for political change. That's cutting off your own nose to spite your face.

Drone strikes aren't going away, especially since there is widespread support among the American public for them (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-...). Thus, we should pursue both fronts: making drone strikes more safe, but also informing the public about the potential shortfalls and dangers of using such technologies.

The idea that making technology more sophisticated will inevitably increase its usage is a fallacy. Nuclear weapons technology improved substantially over the 20th century, and yet it still hasn't been used since 1945.

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

#330

Post by panzagl »

3pt14159 wrote: post #150
chiefalchemist wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funding come from the DoD because any other appropriate entity is financially starved because the DoD gets so much money. The latest budget provides them: $700,000,000,000 Or as Obama said in the 2016 State of the Union: "We spend more on defense than the next 8 nations COMBINED." Keep in mind, most of that 8 are allies. I struggle to see why we should be praising a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Spending on its own isn't the only measure. The US is incredibly wasteful with its military spending where other countries with better political systems are more savvy. Plus the US has to invent 80% of the tech in the first place, something that costs 10x what it does to replicate it.

While the US military is wasteful, I don't think you'll find a military that is enormously less wasteful. After all, the largest line item in the DOD budget by far is salaries.
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