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Where things stand with the Department of War

anthropic.com

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Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#501

Post by GJim »

somenameforme wrote: post #472
ashdksnndck wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that big of a coincidence that the countries that superpowers want to conquer, and need defending, are neighbors to the superpowers.

"Need" defending? I couldn't care less who rules Ukraine, Taiwan, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iran, and these countless other places half-way around the world. It's not like China taking over Taiwan will have any impact on semiconductors. They're happy to play merchant to the world, independent of allegiance. E.g. - Ukraine complains about China supplying Russia with tech for their drones, while failing to recognize t…

> I couldn't care less who rules Ukraine, Taiwan, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iran

Oh you will. You most certainly will.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#502

Post by Alan_Writer »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #360
jadar wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

All of our current leaders as using God to justify their terrible actions. So religion doesn’t seem to be very good at teaching morals either.

This happened throughout history, not just now. Religion is used as an instrument, but does not necessarily reflect the underlying meaning.

There's only hunger for power. Man's essence.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#503

Post by cousin_it »

singron wrote: post #235
randerson wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetically if we had a choice between sending in humans to war or sending in fully autonomous drones that make decisions on par with humans, the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members at risk. Obviously anyone who has used LLMs know they are not on par with humans. There also needs to be an accountability framework for when software makes the wrong decision. Who gets fi…

It's sort of like the opposite of this idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fisher_(academic)#Preven... > Fisher [...] suggested implanting the nuclear launch codes in a volunteer. If the President of the United States wanted to activate nuclear weapons, he would be required to kill the volunteer to retrieve the codes. >> [...] The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the P…

That's so idealistic. We should know by now the reality of power and what kind of people end up in power. Anyone who could climb all the way to the top would kill the volunteer without a second thought, and then go smile on TV.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#504

Post by moogly »

discreteevent wrote: post #500
moogly wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My, the world has changed. Has it though? I'd say it's morphed, not changed. This is still, underneath it all, Hanseatic League and East India Company domination style colonialism, but adapted to and shaped by the digital age. The US has pretty much all throughout its history had its military-industrial complex and warfare as an economic motor too, and in view of this, it's inevitable that software gets integrated.…

Be careful with this "they are all the same" logic. As an empire, I would rather have the WWII to 2016 USA than the current one and the current one to Russia.

You're quite right that there are degrees in hell.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#505

Post by [deleted] »

dotancohen wrote: post #383
jmward01 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War is not moral. It may be necessary, but it is never moral. The only best choice is to fight at every turn making war easy. Our adversaries will, or likely already have, gone the autonomous route. We should be doing everything we can to put major blockers on this similar to efforts to block chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The logical end of autonomous targeting and weapons is near instant mass killing dec…

> War is not moral. It may be necessary, but it is never moral. This is the right answer. When war becomes inevitable, we are forced to choose between morality and survival. I pass no judgement on those who choose survival.

[deleted]

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#506

Post by Alan_Writer »

srean wrote: post #496
tovej wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to strongly disagree. I've met people who have never been in touch with organized religion. They generally have excellent ethical frameworks. I've also read the bible, it does not have a consistent moral or ethical framework. How can it be that areligious people have ethics if they need god for ethics? Ethics is all about being human, it does not require a god, and it does not require anyone to understand even…

Bible is quite permissive of killing if it's in the name of god. Genocide is quite a recurring theme.

Even God told Abraham to kill his own son. Like, really?

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#507

Post by pawkaman84 »

keiferski wrote: post #488
WalterBright wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Then I don’t understand the point of your initial comment or what you’re trying to say.

He was trying to say that "making money in a free-market" is fundamentally linked to creating value for someone. It wasn't the 'money' word that you should have focused on, but the 'value'.

On average this way of creating value bottoms-up has undoubtedly produced the largest human flourishing in the history of our species. It has unlocked human creativity and has lifted millions of people from poverty. It is the best system we have been yet able to create. If you disagree - point me to an alternative (even if theoretical).

Of course, as in the case of averages, there is variance. Sure, greed, illegal money making is bad, but the total net benefit is overwhelmingly positive.

I think your blind spot is that you implicitly attribute no ethical value to 'money making'. For you they're disconnected. In fact, it's the oppositve - there is a lot of ethics in money making.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#509

Post by keiferski »

pawkaman84 wrote: post #507
keiferski wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I don’t understand the point of your initial comment or what you’re trying to say.

He was trying to say that "making money in a free-market" is fundamentally linked to creating value for someone. It wasn't the 'money' word that you should have focused on, but the 'value'. On average this way of creating value bottoms-up has undoubtedly produced the largest human flourishing in the history of our species. It has unlocked human creativity and has lifted millions of people from poverty. It is the best…

Here’s what I don’t get, and why these comments irritate me. They are just opportunities for someone to inject their ideological arguments about something that has little to do with the actual comment.

I didn’t say anything about capitalism being a bad system, nor did I say making money is inherently bad.

I said in the absence of ethical study, making money is treated as a default good. It seems pretty obvious to me that it isn’t a default good.

I’m completely uninterested in arguing about whether the profit motive has led to good societal outcomes, because a) in general I agree with that and b) it has literally nothing to do with my comment.

My original comment was just lamenting that tech leaders don’t study ethics, and therefore they just default to thinking that making money is always a good thing, no matter the consequences, no matter what values get ignored. In many situations, making money does indeed lead to good ethical situations. But my comment is about them not even bothering to ask that question in the first place. That’s all.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#510

Post by srean »

Alan_Writer wrote: post #506
srean wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bible is quite permissive of killing if it's in the name of god. Genocide is quite a recurring theme.

Even God told Abraham to kill his own son. Like, really?

Not unlike a cartel head that rules by a mix of fear and gaslighting.

Many religious texts, not just the Bible start making a lot of sense when looked at like psyops.

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