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Google's Work with China Eroding US Military Advantage, Dunford Says

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Re: Google's Work with China Eroding US Military Advantage, Dunford Says

#72

By that token, Google publishing AI papers publicly erodes US military advantage given that China can use them to accelerate their home grown projects. Companies are opening offices in China as a recruitment drive I bet. The whole industry is trying to buy up every last data scientist. It happens that China graduates more engineers and scientists than practically anyone else and so if you want to set up an R&D lab to…

‘U.S. companies must realize that in doing business with China, "they are automatically required to have a cell of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in that company and that it's going to lead to that intellectual property from that company finding its way to the Chinese military," Dunford said. "There's a distinction without a difference between the CCP and the government and the Chinese military."’

The argument is that the Chinese government imposes conditions that the DoD could never get away with (at least not easily and publicly), and Google is playing into their hands.

Re: Google's Work with China Eroding US Military Advantage, Dunford Says

#73

By that token, Google publishing AI papers publicly erodes US military advantage given that China can use them to accelerate their home grown projects. Companies are opening offices in China as a recruitment drive I bet. The whole industry is trying to buy up every last data scientist. It happens that China graduates more engineers and scientists than practically anyone else and so if you want to set up an R&D lab to…

One of the breakthroughs in stealth aircraft came from the book of a Soviet scientist ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petr_Ufimtsev ). So it's not surprising that free sharing of information can inadvertently helping rivals.

Re: Google's Work with China Eroding US Military Advantage, Dunford Says

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Sergey Brin came to the U.S. from the Soviet Union and was the driving force behind Google pulling out of China around the early 2010s (except for Hong Kong). https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7503641/Sergey... I think your assertion needs to be backed by evidence.

For the record, I'm not asserting anything. I'm merely proposing a theory that I haven't heard many people bring up. Not everything is an argument :)

That's not an acceptable response. Your comment that immigrants coming to the U.S. are nationalists representing their ethnic homelands and operate with an anti-American bias was highly inflammatory. Many immigrants (including me) come from a background of inter-generational trauma brought on by war/famine/tyranny and very much appreciate the existence of the U.S. and democracy. I think it's fair to say we might even take it personally.

If you can't back up a statement like that with quality evidence, you shouldn't be posting in an intellectual forum. I will leave @dang / HN admins to mod.

Re: Google's Work with China Eroding US Military Advantage, Dunford Says

#76
post #45
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google refused to work on the machine vision for U.S. military drones that kill thousands of people (project maven). [1] Google's work in China is building an AI center to promote AI in general. [2] These are not the same things. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence_arms_r... [2] http://fortune.com/2017/12/13/google-china-artificial-intell...

which would be then used by the Chinese military to work on the machine vision for Chinese military drones that kill thousands of people.

Where are Chinese military drones killing thousands of people? That's Nato's prerogative

Re: Google's Work with China Eroding US Military Advantage, Dunford Says

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

does that invalidate the argument?

It is a fallacy. If having a oligopoly is bad for the economy, it doesn't matter what other countries may want to do. Why weakening your economy, to satisfy the desires of an oligopoly, will be any better?

It's not binary like that. having an oligopoly in O&G is a negative for local economies, but it allows for more effective pricing in international markets. not only does that mean more American O&G is purchased, it means less (Russian or Syrian or Venezuelan) O&G is purchased, which is a strategic goal and may be more important to American goals than competition within local markets

The same may or may not be true of search engine or other technologies, but to look at it from a black and white perspective is not helpful.

Re: Google's Work with China Eroding US Military Advantage, Dunford Says

#78

This article seems like a lot of speculating and throwing wild theories at the wall. It a big eye-catching headline with very little substance. I understand how Google's unwillingness to participate in DoD programs can impact the US military, but I don't understand the Google/China connection. Does anyone know what the "artificial intelligence venture" is referring to? Is it Dragonfly? I don't see how an exploratory…

The DoD thinks that China's military will use the technologies developed by Google@China, so the DoD is bringing attention to China's own military-industrial relationship with private sector companies (ironic, in many regards).

Since Google is from the US, the DoD is expressing a bit of "How could you do us like this, fam?" after Google's recent withdrawal from DoD projects.

What's interesting is that mega-corps, like Google, could in theory position themselves like "stateless" capitalist corporations. This is not complete a reality in the present, but it's evident the growing influence huge corporations like Google have on the US government. It's a different type of working relationship than, say, Gazprom with Russia for example.

Re: Google's Work with China Eroding US Military Advantage, Dunford Says

#79
post #21

If ever there were a reason to get politicians on the side of breaking up Google (or any other tech company), I imagine this would be it.

Wouldn't a breakup/decentralization of Google, or any American multinational for that matter, just hand Chinese tech giants a massive advantage since the Internet as it is now heavily favors large, centralized organizations? I don't see people arguing for the breakup of the tech giants across the Pacific even though they hardly have a better reputation when it comes to privacy, etc. By the way, I highly anticipate th…

To echo the point that decentralization of big tech might be an advantage to foreign powers, wouldn't multiple companies be harder to monitor in their exchange of IP across state lines?

Re: Google's Work with China Eroding US Military Advantage, Dunford Says

#80
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google also has an AI research center based in Beijing that hires Chinese employees. https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/12/google-opening-an-office-f...

If it’s anything like their old Wudaokou office, there is a huge firewall between the work done in that office and the others.

I worked in Wudaokou office before (after Google-xit). Basically access to user information (logs) would be limited from there. However you'll have no problem working on systems which not touching users directly (infrastructure / doc link analysis) etc.

Access to most of the monorepo's fine. Project stability was a problem but that exists in all small remote offices which is far away from mountain view.

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