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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

#571

Post by SahAssar »

harimau777 wrote: post #247
richmarr wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you meant to imply that the 2nd amendment is a fundamental human right but if so I think that's a bit of a stretch. 'Fundamental rights' (under US law) I think is defensible as fundamental is treated as an alias for constitutional so guns are in. 'Fundamental human rights' to me implies broad and fundamental applicability, i.e. the UN declarations and covenants on human rights, which don't iterate gun…

I'd argue that fundamental human rights means rights that exist inherently regardless of whether the UN or any given country recognizes them. My feeling is that people have a right to self defense, which would require them to have access to some effective weapon. In theory that could be a club or blade rather than a firearm; however, currently firearms are the only (somewhat) socially acceptable weapon to carry in th…

You have a right to not be harmed, but that does not give you the right to harm others.

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

#572

Post by jpttsn »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #424
nickpinkston wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is when you write off your culpability to do more because "At least I did something" via virtue signaling. So no, it's not wrong to virtue signal necessarily, but often is seen as an empty gesture by people who don't talk/act towards the actual problems.

It's an intellectually dishonest argument, because it actually uses someone's profession of good intentions, accepts them , and then somehow turns it against the speaker. As used on the internet, it's also useless because it always assumes the speaker doesn't actually act on their believes, and there usually is no way for them to prove their willingness to act on their believes. It also ignores that even just stating…

Reliable signals are as a rule expensive.

In decrying “virtue signaling”, I think critics express “talk is cheap” not just “talk can be false.”

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

#573

Post by jpttsn »

confounded wrote: post #511
pfarnsworth wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reason why we SHOULDN'T unionize. It means that workers could potentially be politicized and forced to be a part of things that they don't believe in. Maybe right now we may agree with not militarizing our company, but what if the union starts supporting ideas that you're fundamentally against?

Can you explain the mechanics of that happening? Do you have any personal experience of unionized work? Employees having more of a say about what they work on though collective bargaining, resulting in employees having less of a say on what they work on, seems unlikely to me.

It’s confusing because you think of “employees” as a unit while gp thinks of individual “employee”s as units.

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

#574

Post by geodel »

walshemj wrote: post #351
vesrah wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CoL and benefits need to be figured into your assertion

Yes right trouble is this is often used by hr to try and explain why they don't pay market rate. Doesn't really explain why google pays less in London UK for that google does in low col states in the states. And I don't think Lockheed and BAE pay their engineers as much as FANG companies do and they certainly don't out compete on benefits.

Exactly right. Somehow people keep explaining high salaries of FANG in terms of cities/area in US. Truth is more likely that these companies have immense market cap and profitability and being helmed by first generation liberal entrepreneurs they are happy with sharing benefits.

IBM, Cisco or any other typical IT company pays 120-150K salaries in bay area and not much of profit sharing/ equity.

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

#575

Post by chrisseaton »

kiliantics wrote: post #484

And this is why tech workers need to unionise. This petition is a weak statement that probably will have no effect. Unless these workers could pose a real threat to Google by threatening a strike action, Google has no need to change anything. Furthermore, if the workers really stood by their moral convictions, they'd use their collective power to tackle the issue more directly than by just appealing to Google. Compan…

> A union at Google could threaten to effectively halt all institutional operations of governments or other companies in order to influence their actions.

But this seems an amoral thing to do, to me! A small group of unelected, unaccountable and non-diverse people abusing their relative power to try to force a democratically elected government or private company to do something? Why would anyone want that?

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

#576

Post by dkhenry »

tlb wrote: post #108
sqdbps wrote: post #2

"As Google defends its contracts from internal dissent, its competitors have not been shy about publicizing their own work on defense projects. Amazon touts its image recognition work with the Department of Defense, and Microsoft has promoted the fact that its cloud technology won a contract to handle classified information for every branch of the military and defense agencies." Google should stop hiring activists an…

A large fraction of the world's best engineers don't want to be associated with military projects. So companies have a choice to hire them and not do military projects, or not hire them and do them. When I was running a robot company, I made the decision to not do military projects (mostly for personal reasons) and it helped me hire some great people that I couldn't have otherwise.

[citation needed] on why you think there is a large fraction of the worlds best engineers that don't want to be associated with military projects. It has been my experience that the best engineers want to work on hard problems and solve the worlds pressing needs, that sometimes puts them right in the middle of military projects. For instance almost every modern technological breakthrough has been accomplished by or for a military project, and most large technology companies have done work with the military ( and not just modern technology, historically all the big engineering firms helped with military technology ).

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

#577

Post by heavyheavy »

rahulmehta95 wrote: post #14

This may be an uncomfortable fact but people have surprisingly short memories: the military funded the majority of the early advances in systems, networking, and cryptography (and especially as a large part of the latter subject area, invested heavily in fundamental, theoretical research). Not saying that I disagree with the employees' opinion, just that DoD/Pentagon involvement in artificial intelligence research sh…

The military was also responsible for the miserable state of nuclear power in the United States.

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

#578

Post by jpttsn »

fancyfacebook wrote: post #569
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, they know few to none of these petitioners will quit. 3,000 petition signatures will do nothing. 3,000 resignations would, but Googlers aren't going to pass up on the high paychecks, three five-star meals a day, and massages in the office based on moral grounds. (In the same vein, Google's NetPAC has been quietly donating the max to Republicans like Paul Ryan and Steve Scalise, while most of their engineers o…

I know multiple people who work at Google that are quitting because of this. Lots of people have lines in the sand when it comes to violence and military work, but those lines are deep for a reason and they don't really want to talk about them so you'd never know.

That’s convenient.

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

#579

Post by paulryanrogers »

harimau777 wrote: post #556
rebuilder wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of a single right that exists inherently. Where does such a right originate? For every right that most people hold evident, you'll find people who disagree. This is why rights are codified in laws and agreements.

My belief is that natural rights are defined by God and therefore exist regardless of whether people agree with them or not. Sort of the rights equivalent of divine command theory.

IME there are as many interpretations of divine law as there are individuals who believe in a god.

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

#580

Post by jpttsn »

jonlucc wrote: post #125
nyxtom wrote: post #75

I for one would rather have a drone strike program that actually actively avoids civilian casualties as much as possible. There are certainly gray areas here as far as the use of that program from a political standpoint (whether the strikes are warranted or whether it is part of regime changes). On the other hand, by not helping the military become more efficient we also risk losing existing lives (our own and civili…

I'm fairly sure the push-back to this kind of point is thus: if you make it less costly (in the form of "civilian" lives, money, or whatever measure) to do drone strikes, more people are killed overall. Our government hasn't exactly been good about reporting casualties from strikes or careful in targeting (a group of people gathered outside of a city may just be considered up-to-no-good and bombed).

So they’re already careless, but with better targeting they would be even worse? How does that work?
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