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

A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 70 posts

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#41

Post by rixrax »

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…

Not are many Google employers American or European. So if I were of e.g. Russian or Chinese nationality, I would not want to partake into activity that in all likelihood can be used to advance 'wrong' interests.

On another note, how about everyone that works for Intel, or ARM or in any of the EDA companies? Or on Open Source? Should they all quit unless their comfortable being accomplice to creation of machines of mayhem? Or what about everyone that works for BoA or Wells Fargo - how can you in good faith work for the companies that have again and again shown to engage in questionable business practices? Oil companies neither have ever engaged in questionable activities in Africa and elsewhere - how can people work or them? And then there are medical, forest, make-up and, well pretty much every other major industry. Full of people who choose to put their moral obligations a side. Never mind us wearing clothes and such that are result of child labor and such.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#42

Post by liveoneggs »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #39
robin_reala wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"find the zebra" might be more confusing :)

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#43

Post by raverbashing »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #39
robin_reala wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't see what's so hard about it. Captcha descriptions are also localized but I understand why they wouldn't do USUK.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#44

Post by posix_me_less »

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…

> "and technology which improves the effectiveness of killing terrorists and enemy combatants (and thus saving American lives) is a good thing."

There are other than American lives at stake. I suppose what you say would be true, if the U.S. used the technology to kill only those universally bad terrorists and if this somehow significantly decreased the damage terrorists do around the world.

But this is fantasy. The U.S. will most probably use this technology to detect more and to kill more, with much less regard to foreign lives than to American lives. If the technology flags a building that most probably contains a terrorist, the non-terrorist people present won't matter much to a drone whose work is killing terrorists. The building with all people near it will be gone. I do not believe the U.S. government or U.S. military care about the lives of poor people who are on the other side of the world.

Drone attacks also probably aren't that good of a service to U.S. in the long term. They generate strong opposition world-wide and probably also generate new terrorists. Killing one terrorist now in this way may mean creating 10 terrorists 10 years from now.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#45

Post by posix_me_less »

grcshlep wrote: post #32
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.

> the argument that if you reduce the human cost of wars, you make wars more likely

Very good point! Drone attacks make the operators into drones themselves, detached from feeling the consequences of their actions.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#46

Post by spraak »

asdfologist wrote: post #16
spraak wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. "I'm staunchly opposed to beating my children, but understand it's unfortunate necessity under c…

So killing ISIS members is morally equivalent to beating children?

I just mean that if you're opposed to something then there aren't any times it's also a necessity. You may do it, but ultimately you view it as unnecessary. War happens, but it's unnecessary every time, even when one side initiates, it doesn't make it necessary.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#47

Post by jononor »

candiodari wrote: post #37

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 saile…

If the US army had or was easily able to build this they would probably not pay large sums of money to Google. There are still many challenges in creating scalable robust solutions using machine learning in computer vision, especially when high degrees of response time and robustness is needed.

Re: A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

#50

Post by posix_me_less »

philwelch wrote: post #38
DINKDINK wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Nonsense. Violence is still limited, in time and extent, by economic and political forces, and by the fact that soldiers still have some respect for life of other people, because they are in the field, risking their own life and seeing the injustices of war. But put them in control of a violent video game, and that may change.

> We’ve tried non-intervention before, and places like Czechoslovakia, Poland, China, and Rwanda have paid the price.

You've tried intervention, and places like Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Syria also have paid and are paying the price.

Perhaps it is not about the intervention/non-intervention, but about how you engage in the world.

> The only counter to that is precision warfare.

Only if you already decided on the warfare part. An alternative is to stop killing unknown people abroad and in so helping create new terrorists, and instead doing something about cooperation between the governments to stop the violence.

Post reply on HN