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Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

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Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#71

Post by ythn »

ondrae wrote: post #56
whb07 wrote: post #23

I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties. Like it or not the world is full of extremists who would like nothing more than to hurt innocent people. There is no “oh just send the cops and arrest them!” route to take. Shit, just look at the time Osama bin Laden could have been bombed with a tomahawk missile during Clint…

> Would those angry Googlers be against surgically killing Osama? They most likely don't want to work for a company involved in any killing.

Every company is involved in killing. Every industry supports the military in some way. Name an industry that the military does not utilize the technology of.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#73

Post by cmrdporcupine »

sametmax wrote: post #60
mmjaa wrote: post #17

I once worked for a large industrial group in Europe. The kind that has a bit of a piece of every little pie there is - military, transportation, etc. I was pretty happy working there .. until I got a demo from the 'defence' group. They demonstrated the willingness to push the company's technology into heinous, heinous territory. The kind of thing where a drone would be able to follow a single person in a crowd, and…

That's the thing isn't it ? They can't do anything alone. It always amazes me that those big entities exist, because they require such a huge highly educated and skilled human power. What are all those genius at the NSA thinking ? I can't imagine somebody smart enough to work here is not smart enough to understand the consequences of working there. So why are they not quitting ? Social pressure and money are part of…

Arguably the majority supports the ideological foundations, aims, and methods of the institutions you are speaking of. In particular the military and intelligence institutions. If they didn't, they would have been removed by vote or force some time ago.

Frankly the broad majority of people in the US benefit materially in some way from their existence in ways that they might not even be fully aware of.

I am not arguing this is a good thing, but I think it's a reality. Military power abroad means wealth accumulation at home.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#74

Post by dsfyu404ed »

kevindqc wrote: post #41
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can beat you to death with a hammer or stab you to death with a knife. Should we not build hammers and knives? Should hammers and knives be subject to KYC laws? Sure you can argue that it's different because those are things the common man can get whereas on the state can afford surveillance dragnets and drones but it wasn't that long ago that only the state could afford computers. Edit: Apparently I struck a nerve…

Are hammers and knives designed and bought to kill people?

Are advertising profiles designed and bought so that they state can oppress dissidents?

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#75

Post by whb07 »

sametmax wrote: post #49
whb07 wrote: post #23

I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties. Like it or not the world is full of extremists who would like nothing more than to hurt innocent people. There is no “oh just send the cops and arrest them!” route to take. Shit, just look at the time Osama bin Laden could have been bombed with a tomahawk missile during Clint…

But again this assume the people giving order to the drone are the good guys. But I never seen any good guys in my history books or in the news. Hence I always assume, when given a power to somebody, that the person doesn't have my best interest in mind. Let's all remember it's possible any of our country become one day a dictatorship. Just because we enjoyed a lot of freedom for the last decades doesn't exempt us fr…

If you can foresee what potential benefits each technological application has, then maybe i agree with you. There are plenty of examples where military applications and research has led to a bonanza of side applications which improve the human condition.

Look at the MRI imaging. They are a downstream invention that came from the development of nuclear weapons (nuclear magnetic resonance). How many lives do you think that has saved and improved in the past 70 years?

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#76

Post by walshemj »

titzer wrote: post #29
oh_sigh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If project maven worked as planned, wouldn't the USG kill fewer people?

Ironically, no. Drones enabled the US to kill 4,000 people in Pakistan--people who arguably would not have been killed without that tech.

Your assuming that other means would not have been used eg dumb bombs from b52's. Or SF teams lazing targets for PGM's

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#77

Post by brolover »

mmjaa wrote: post #17

I once worked for a large industrial group in Europe. The kind that has a bit of a piece of every little pie there is - military, transportation, etc. I was pretty happy working there .. until I got a demo from the 'defence' group. They demonstrated the willingness to push the company's technology into heinous, heinous territory. The kind of thing where a drone would be able to follow a single person in a crowd, and…

I'm not surprised. After finishing my degree, I went to optimize a couple of production lines. I didn't get much detail and thought it was for plastic/glass bottles (filling liquids and moving them around - many tiny grabbers, simple movement, not that wide tracks).

After about 2 months of work, and after the production line got parallelized and speed drastically increased I went to see it work.

What I saw shocked me and I immediatelly quit. It was a production line for handling of female and male young and grown chicks. Debeaking, throat slitting. I was absolutely shocked how none of the superiors told me exactly which product was being handled.

After seeing the horrific product of my work I quit.

Since then, I'm not surprised, given what horrors we do to living animals, that we are ready to do them to each other.

I doubted the meaning of my work at university, what did I do? Spend 4 years at college to create killing machines? I didn't think I'd ever do that.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#78

Post by vidarh »

whb07 wrote: post #23

I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties. Like it or not the world is full of extremists who would like nothing more than to hurt innocent people. There is no “oh just send the cops and arrest them!” route to take. Shit, just look at the time Osama bin Laden could have been bombed with a tomahawk missile during Clint…

> Like it or not the world is full of extremists who would like nothing more than to hurt innocent people.

And some of them are parts of governments.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#79

Post by pera »

whb07 wrote: post #23

I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties. Like it or not the world is full of extremists who would like nothing more than to hurt innocent people. There is no “oh just send the cops and arrest them!” route to take. Shit, just look at the time Osama bin Laden could have been bombed with a tomahawk missile during Clint…

> I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties.

I am not sure why some people instantly assumes that the whole purpose of making drones more autonomous is to make them more precise: historically, the DoD/US military have made virtually zero efforts to even try to reduce civilian "casualties".

Maybe I am too cynical, but I genuinely think that the military is only willing to invest in technology that would help them expand current and future operations, disregarding the impact that these will have in the civilian population of foreign territories... probably because it's orders of magnitude cheaper to just pay someone to write a public statement denying every statistics published by neutral NGOs around the world.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#80

Post by craftyguy »

ythn wrote: post #71
ondrae wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would those angry Googlers be against surgically killing Osama? They most likely don't want to work for a company involved in any killing.

Every company is involved in killing. Every industry supports the military in some way. Name an industry that the military does not utilize the technology of.

There's a big difference between tangentially supporting the military because your widget (e.g. toothbrushes) is used by them and many others, and making a full on weapon system for them, and only them.
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