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Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

#551

Post by sfn42 »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #42
Retric wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while megacorps aren't fundamentally "evil" (for some definitions of evil), I think megacorps being evil is universal. It tends to be corrupt cop evil vs serial killer evil, but being willing to do anything for money has historically been categorized as evil behavior. That doesn’t mean society would be better or worse off without them, but it would be interesting to see a world where companies pay vastly higher tax…

Most suggestions of this nature fail to explain how they will deal with the problem of people just seeing there’s no point in trying for more. On a personal level, I’ve heard people from Norway describe this problem for personal income tax—at some point (notably below a typical US senior software engineer’s earnings) the amount of work you need to put in for the marginal post-tax krone is so high it’s just demotivati…

Those people are full of shit. I'm Norwegian and a software engineer. Income tax generally tops out at about 46%, if you earn $200k you'll pay around 40%, at $500k you'll pay like 46% or so and it doesnt go much higher than that even if you earn a million dollars (10 million nok).

So the difference between earning a decent salary of $80-100k and a great salary north of $150k isn't much tax-percent-wise. If you make another $1000 you take home about $500.

Also keep in mind we don't have to pay for health insurance, we don't have to pay for our kids to go to school, if we get sick and can't work we have a social security net that will take care of us indefinitely. Norway is a great place to live. The people who complain about taxes are idiots who don't know how good they have it. If you make $200k+ you're living a fucking great life, if you make $400k it's even better. Hell i used to make like $35k and I got by on that. $50k is perfectly liveable. And those people pay like 20-25%.

I'm happy to pay taxes, I'm doing great and I don't even earn that much yet. I expect to nearly double my salary within the next 5ish years. Maybe more than double.

Then you have middle class+ Norwegians with a big house, $100k+ car, sweet boat, cabin in the mountains etc complaining about taxes. Man shut up you're literally top .1% in the world you won the damn lottery.

Re: Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

#552

Post by ilbeeper »

robertlagrant wrote: post #492
ilbeeper wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, so we only want the real high risk takers, the top gamblers,to play in the big league. Those who are so rich they no way to lose their personal comfort and are blind to the personal risk - and probably are careless about anyone's else just as well

> Great, so we only want the real high risk takers, the top gamblers,to play in the big league It either takes risk of private capital or future taxpayers' taxes to create big leagues. I'd take the former over the latter.

And I prefer cold committee who measure risk and are committed to some public values. You choose silicone valley, VCs and no public healthcare. I prefer the Norwegian model.

Re: Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

#553

Post by ericmay »

AndyNemmity wrote: post #508
ericmay wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with this take is that you forget, the corporations are made up of people, so in order for the corporation to be evil you have to take into account the aggregate desires and decision making of the employees and shareholders and, frankly, call them all evil. Calling them evil is kind of a silly thing to do anyway, but you can not divorce the actions of a company from those who run and support it, and I woul…

Corporations are totalitarian systems. Just because the dictatorship has people, doesn't indicate anything about it.

It's a voluntary totalitarian system though - you don't have to work at (insert company you think is evil) so your comparison falls short.

Re: Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

#554

Post by tmnvdb »

kombine wrote: post #471
tmnvdb wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of Trump but I also feel he has not been so bad that I think that surrendering the world order to Russia and China is a rational action that minimizes suffering. That seems be an argument that is more about signalling that you really dislike Trump than about a rational consideration of all options available to us.

> I'm not a fan of Trump but I also feel he has not been so bad He literally threatened a peaceful nation (also an ally) of invasion and annexation. How worse can it get?

If he actually did it that would be far worse.

Re: Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

#556

Post by ErigmolCt »

moralestapia wrote: post #482
ErigmolCt wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real issue is that corporate incentives don't prioritize morality

Corporations are run by people, who are not amoral.

People may not be amoral, but corporate structures often incentivize behavior that prioritizes profit over morality

Re: Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

#557

Post by aprilthird2021 »

uejfiweun wrote: post #474
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the Nuremberg Defense

Lol, is that all you people can ever come up with? "I disagree, therefore you're a Nazi?" Hasn't the events of the past 6 months shown you that this dumb "gotcha" style debating doesn't work?

I couldn't do anything because of "moral considerations" my peers don't share. That's literally the Nuremberg Defense. Maybe pointing this out doesn't "work" but it is true. Do what you will with that, I'm not here to "work" on you or anything like that. You're a free person, as am I

Re: Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

#558

Post by robertlagrant »

ilbeeper wrote: post #552
robertlagrant wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Great, so we only want the real high risk takers, the top gamblers,to play in the big league It either takes risk of private capital or future taxpayers' taxes to create big leagues. I'd take the former over the latter.

And I prefer cold committee who measure risk and are committed to some public values. You choose silicone valley, VCs and no public healthcare. I prefer the Norwegian model.

It works great when the innovation happens elsewhere and is freely shared.

Re: Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

#559

Post by _Tev »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #527
reissbaker wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Russia hasn't tried to invade the EU" is quite weasel-word-y. They certainly have invaded countries in Europe , specifically Ukraine; the only reason they didn't invade countries in the European Union itself is that would trigger a war that they would face massive casualties from and inevitably lose, in part due to NATO alliances. Military power is what has kept the EU safe, and countries without strong enough milit…

While framing Ukraine as a European country is not weasel-word-y ? Would you say that the chances / motives / possibilities to invade Ukraine is remotely comparable with any other European country ? And no, Turkey for example is not a European country.

I have not seen anyone else claim that Ukraine is not an European country.

As for chance / motive to invade other European countries - for some reason Baltic states feel very threatened by Russia. Try to understand their reasons why.

Re: Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

#560

Post by beefnugs »

Etheryte wrote: post #72
causal wrote: post #27

One of my chief worries about LLMs for intelligence agencies is the ability to scale textual analysis. Previously there at least had to be an agent taking an interest in you; today an LLM could theoretically read all text you've ever touched and flag anything from legal violations to political sentiments.

This has already been possible long before LLMs came along. I also doubt that an LLM is the best tool for this at scale, if you're talking about sifting through billions of messages it gets too expensive very fast.

But now instead of a human going "yes yes after a few hours of work i have chosen the target" they can go "we did more processing on who to best blow away, and it chose 100 more names than any human ever could! efficiency!"
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