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Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

nytimes.com

71–80 of 155 posts

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#71

I understand the vision, but how does this work on a global scale. e.g. American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't. Edit: I originally ended with "What would have happened if Germany had a nuclear bomb and America didn't?", but I think it distracted from the point I was trying to make so moving this to an edit. I'm not trying to ask "is the US the bad guy". I'm trying to ask how to balance personal an…

Is there any reason to think that autonomous weapons are a critical strategic capability? It's hard to see what an unpiloted drone can do that a remotely piloted drone can't, other than perhaps human rights violations.

You don't need modern ai for that, it's been done decades ago.

Modern tools lend themselves more to information warfare and deobfuscation.

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#72
post #68

I understand the vision, but how does this work on a global scale. e.g. American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't. Edit: I originally ended with "What would have happened if Germany had a nuclear bomb and America didn't?", but I think it distracted from the point I was trying to make so moving this to an edit. I'm not trying to ask "is the US the bad guy". I'm trying to ask how to balance personal an…

I'm going to give a shout out here to an episode of the excellent podcast Hardcore History , specifically Episode 59: The Destroyer of Worlds [1]. The development of the atomic bomb created a debate in American policy circles about how the US should react. Within a few years, the same debate occurred over developing thermonuclear weapons. The same question kept coming up: what if the enemy has these weapons and we do…

> The US sees any other global power as a potential hegemonic, imperialist power that will dominate and exploit everyone around them because, well, that's what we do.

In the Cold War, this was the correct approach, the USSR was that.

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article says, the workers didn't petition the CEO, they petitioned the head of Google AI who's already expressed solidarity with Anthropic. If they can convince Jeff Dean, I don't think Sundar necessarily gets a say; it's a lot easier to stick your head in the sand and ignore things than to fire one of your most widely respected engineers because he won't help the Pentagon build Terminator robots.

My one concern in this whole thing is that if these slightly less benevolent, but still have some morality, companies don't engage, we'll be left with companies like OAI and xAI engaging and you just know that's not going to make things better for anyone.

Which companies are these? Google and Facebook already bribed Trump under the cover of “settling” a frivolous case he personally brought forward. Tim Cook personally donated to his inauguration fund and gave him an expensive trinket. The Netflix CEO is now kissing up to him trying to get the WB acquisition approved. Even companies that are hurt by the tariffs won’t say anything bad about him. The only CEO that has spoken out against any of his policies is Chase’s CEO.

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't. How about you articulate the threat from an AI powered China to people outside of AI powered China and discuss potential methods to counter that, instead of insisting capabilities be developed just in case. >is the US the bad guy Yes >I'm trying to ask how to balance personal anti war sentiments with the realities of the world Insist on open information, ne…

The threat seems straightforward to me; information warfare.

Then the follow up question, how do you combat that? Not likely through developing similar technology.

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#75

I understand the vision, but how does this work on a global scale. e.g. American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't. Edit: I originally ended with "What would have happened if Germany had a nuclear bomb and America didn't?", but I think it distracted from the point I was trying to make so moving this to an edit. I'm not trying to ask "is the US the bad guy". I'm trying to ask how to balance personal an…

The reason it works is when you have less participants in an effort you have slower progress in that endeavor. Brilliant employees prohibiting their entire org to not support the development of bad things prevents less brilliant employees from doing bad things.

It is sort of like computers are amazing but can also be a privacy nightmare. Software engineers don’t help or coordinate with black hat hackers. So black hat hackers have a harder time refining their systems.

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There's lots of money for everyone on the way down

I wish people would seriously start looking past this... "enough" should be the goal? But maybe I'm crazy

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#77

I understand the vision, but how does this work on a global scale. e.g. American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't. Edit: I originally ended with "What would have happened if Germany had a nuclear bomb and America didn't?", but I think it distracted from the point I was trying to make so moving this to an edit. I'm not trying to ask "is the US the bad guy". I'm trying to ask how to balance personal an…

[dead]

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#78
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not answering the question.. and HN ain't US only. You can say the same for any other country... What if Japan employee refuse, but American want that anyway? What if China employee refuse, but Russia employee want that anyway? The implication are still the same -- social, culture, jurisdiction, national interest, company interest don't share the same boundary and don't align on their priorities.

I don’t think they’re refusing all military involvement. Autonomous-decision making is the problematic part.

The US military has deployed fully autonomous weapons systems since 1979. If you're worried about that then you're a little late.

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't. How about you articulate the threat from an AI powered China to people outside of AI powered China and discuss potential methods to counter that, instead of insisting capabilities be developed just in case. >is the US the bad guy Yes >I'm trying to ask how to balance personal anti war sentiments with the realities of the world Insist on open information, ne…

The threat seems straightforward to me; information warfare.

How has the threat model changed?

Keep your shit patched. You dont need LLM targeting of Drone based weapons to patch your servers.

Re: Google workers seek 'red lines' on military A.I., echoing Anthropic

#80
post #68

I understand the vision, but how does this work on a global scale. e.g. American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't. Edit: I originally ended with "What would have happened if Germany had a nuclear bomb and America didn't?", but I think it distracted from the point I was trying to make so moving this to an edit. I'm not trying to ask "is the US the bad guy". I'm trying to ask how to balance personal an…

I'm going to give a shout out here to an episode of the excellent podcast Hardcore History , specifically Episode 59: The Destroyer of Worlds [1]. The development of the atomic bomb created a debate in American policy circles about how the US should react. Within a few years, the same debate occurred over developing thermonuclear weapons. The same question kept coming up: what if the enemy has these weapons and we do…

HN really can't handle comments like these huh.
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