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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

#601

Post by frogcoder »

fwip wrote: post #83
qsera wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>refuse to let their systems be used for war.. I don't want wars. But tell me, what would you like your country to do when conflicts arise due to want of natural resources? Would you want your country to just give up that resource your people depend on, like may be 50/50? Do you believe it will always be possible to settle on a solution in a peaceful way that works for everyone?

Personally, I'd rather that my country (USA) be taken over by China than bomb innocents in the Middle East.

Yes, there are many plus sides if USA were taken over by China.

1. You will see no protest on the street.

2. You will see no homeless on the street.

3. You will hear no more school shootings or any shooting.

4. No more tech companies conflicting with the government.

5. No one will sue the government because it's perfect.

6. All bad people will disappear.

7. Everyone sings praise of the government.

This is better than Utopia, you should pursue it.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#602

Post by ipython »

ghywertelling wrote: post #585
DavidVoid wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an old German short film called Nicht löschbares Feuer (Inextinguishable Fire, 1969)[1] that I'm fond of. It was a protest film against Napalm and how some companies wouldn't really let their employees know what they were actually working on. "I am a worker and I work in a vacuum cleaner factory. My wife could use a vacuum cleaner. That's why everyday I pick up a piece. At home I try to assemble the vacuum cl…

This question has been boiling in my brain for quite a long time. Consider a hypothetical scenario where one spy chinese or russian programmer working in Google or Meta might have siphoned off (copied and uploaded) all the important code (Monorepo) to the Mothership and all of us are now sitting ducks. I am sure, this question might have crossed your minds. I have no idea. if blueprints for the TPU chip design could…

That kinda happened already in 2009. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora

Industrial espionage also was publicly disclosed around the plans for the joint strike fighter. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/july/chinas-...

I’m sure in the classified arena there are a lot more examples.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#603

Post by Forgeties79 »

abustamam wrote: post #418
Forgeties79 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it’s common alright. Commonly used as a joke by every veteran I’ve ever met to mock try-hards.

Oh good, I've always had respect for soldiers, but never the govt. I'm glad to hear that soldiers are not buying into this name BS. Edit: not sure if you're talking about the term warfighters or dept of war. Either way, warfighters just sounds silly, regardless of how long its been in use, and dept of war also sounds silly. It's like what my 5 year old nephew would call his fictitious military agency.

Warfighter - it’s basically “oh we got a badass over here.” People who take things and themselves too seriously and chest pound about their service too much.

It’s exactly the kind of language people like Hegseth love.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#604

Post by the_af »

alex43578 wrote: post #511
etchalon wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally the justification for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Do you think a continuation of the firebombing campaign and an invasion of the Japanese home islands would have resulted in fewer deaths of civilians (particularly of the 'volunteer fighting corps')? That's to say nothing of the deaths in a potential US/USSR conflict that goes hot without the Damocles Sword of MAD...

> Do you think a continuation of the firebombing campaign and an invasion of the Japanese home islands would have resulted in fewer deaths of civilians (particularly of the 'volunteer fighting corps')?

I don't know, but there's a lot of evidence this wasn't a factor in the decision to drop the bombs on Japan. The planners for the invasion and the planners for the bombing weren't exactly talking to each other and coordinating the strategy.

They had the bomb and they were going to use it. Everything else was an a posteriori justification.

Now think what will happen with easily deployed AI-powered weapons.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#605

Post by amelius »

hglaser wrote: post #18

It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…

My guess is that Hegseth saw this tiktok showing a vision of robots deployed by the Chinese army:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/z5I8HDkrKbI

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#606

Post by bradleyjg »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #151
bradleyjg wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Iraq Not in same ballpark. There’s no Iraq generation the way there’s a Vietnam one. > Spoiler alert, a bunch of the current ones are going to be seen similarly too. No they won’t. The lack of a draft and mass domestic casualties dramatically changes the picture. Especially on the saliency axis.

There is an Iraq group but we’re just a much smaller group

I’m not trying to erase anyone’s individual experience, but it isn’t a generational defining event broadly across the U.S. population.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#607

Post by the_af »

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.

> When war becomes inevitable, we are forced to choose between morality and survival.

The kind of modern wars we're discussing now are often not about survival. Often, the initiator of the war wants dominance rather than survival.

This completely changes the equation. I do pass judgement on those who would wage war to ensure their dominance and access to resources.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#608

Post by keiferski »

refurb wrote: post #597
keiferski wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that isn’t what my comment suggests at all, on any level. I don’t think you can have intelligent ethical opinions if you disparage and ignore the field that studies ethics (philosophy.) Seems pretty straightforward to me. I think there are definitely many positions with which I disagree, but are nonetheless well-thought through and coherent. But it seems pretty clear that the people making these decisions haven’t…

> No, that isn’t what my comment suggests at all, on any level. I don’t think you can have intelligent ethical opinions if you disparage and ignore the field that studies ethics (philosophy.) You're not suggesting that, but then put up your own requirements for someone's ethics to be "valid". So in the end you are filtering others ethical choices by your own requirements. And your logic seems to work backwards: someo…

My requirements for someone's ethical opinions to be "valid" are that they don't criticize the field of ethics as useless. I guess that is a "requirement" I have, but it's a pretty nitpicking, useless distinction to make.

If someone criticizes the French language, but doesn't speak a word of French, sorry, but I don't have much respect for their opinion on French.

And no, I don't "assume they aren't well thought out," because many of these people have explicitly said philosophy is a waste of time.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#609

Post by the_af »

qsera wrote: post #232
gonzalohm wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the point of technology and engineering to find alternatives with the resources that one has?

Yes, but it takes time. Like we have solar now. People talk about how it saves environment. But I think another similar win would be reduction in dependency on oil, and countries won't have to go to war over oil. But it takes time... But it seems what technology gives, technology takes away. Because new technologies comes with its own resource requirements. And the cycle looks like it will go on...

> Yes, but it takes time.

So be it.

This doesn't excuse going to war with neighbors because you want to steal their stuff. Learn to live with yours.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#610

Post by gzread »

XorNot wrote: post #398
reaperducer wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "This doesn't fit into my mental model, so everyone else must be lying" is how you deal with things you didn't personally experience, do what you have to.

The inability to accurately cite any story about this, and the "friend of a friend" structure is what implies it's garbage. Not to mention it itself requires a conspiracy theory: "no one would do this work voluntarily" (or "all the smart people have to be tricked because they're so smart they obviously agree with me"). As though people don't just go and work at Boeing or Lockheed Martin.

It was posted on HN by the husband of the person involved. Find it yourself.
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