Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

781–790 of 1001 posts

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

#781

Post by deft »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #757
betolink wrote: post #731

From the movie "Flash of Genius" about Robert Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper: "I can't think of a job or a career where the understanding of ethics is more important than engineering," Dr. Kearns continues. "Who designed the artificial aortic heart valve? An engineer did that. Who designed the gas chambers at Auschwitz? An engineer did that, too. One man was responsible for helping save ten…

>"One man was responsible for helping save tens of thousands of lives. Another man helped kill millions." In the case of Fritz Haber, it's the same man who saved billions from hunger and killed millions by prolonging World War-I. Excellent article on the same - https://medium.com/the-mission/the-tragedy-of-fritz-haber-th... Sometimes, the decision isn't clear as black & white; especially when you mix nationalism & pa…

That's totally different. He chose to kill the people and did it intentionally out of hate / pride for his country. This thread and the posted link are discussing whether something is immoral or not. He knew it would kill a ton of people and designed it to on purpose. That situation is totally black and white.

Mass intentional killing is wrong, pretty much everyone agrees with that.

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

#782

Post by deft »

abalone wrote: post #195

I completely support the employees but it is criminal that this NYT article does not mention the extensive roots of Silicon Valley in Pentagon funding. SV as a whole is substantially a creation of military spending. Just recently in the AI space: - Siri was spun out of a Pentagon project -- look up SRI International and CALO. Its purpose: a "soldier’s servant".[1] - Autonomous driving is a direct evolution of Pentago…

Libertarianism is an ideology that relies on mental gymnastics.

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

#783

Post by abalone »

TuringNYC wrote: post #767
random4369 wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SV as a whole is substantially a creation of military spending. This is a national budget problem. If you're in the tech world long enough, it becomes pretty clear that the only way to get Big funding is through military affiliation. This puts a huge selective bias on what kind of technology projects actually get big funding, and further it prevents the benefits of those projects from reaching the community for yea…

Doesn't the recent (last 10yrs) VC splash do that? Hard to tell numbers since military spending has so many routes, but i'd love to see numbers on the two channels.

No, they are not parallel channels. Generally speaking high tech develops over a multi decade timeframe. Govt agencies like DARPA play a lead role in the earliest phase (often measured in double digit years). VCs pick outputs that have commercial potential and pour money into the sector.

That’s why it’s wrong to just compare the absolute amounts invested — it’s when it’s invested.

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

#784

Post by jstanley »

killjoywashere wrote: post #760
hyperdunc wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether military AI endsup being closer to a heart valve or a gas chamber, it's going to be built first by some nation. But there is space for ethical contemplation during an arms race.

Absolutely. As consequentialist first move, let me suggest that a first order principle for the US military is "Sweat now or bleed later". Better to work your ass off to develop superior tactics, discipline, and technology now than die later. No one hates war more than soldiers.

If soldiers hate war so much why do they join up?

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

#785

Post by ghostcluster »

betolink wrote: post #756
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason Rome was so influential was its military. Ditto for the US. Are you sure it's a good idea to become less influential on the world stage?

Is having killing machines with no human in the loop a good idea? because that's the way this is going. We don't need Skynet to have a dystopian future.

Is it ok to not have them and allow an adversary who does develop them to overwhelm your nation's outdated defenses and less efficient tactics, as Germany did with its tank blitzkriegs and diversion around the Maginot line?

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

#786

Post by dba7dba »

abalone wrote: post #195

I completely support the employees but it is criminal that this NYT article does not mention the extensive roots of Silicon Valley in Pentagon funding. SV as a whole is substantially a creation of military spending. Just recently in the AI space: - Siri was spun out of a Pentagon project -- look up SRI International and CALO. Its purpose: a "soldier’s servant".[1] - Autonomous driving is a direct evolution of Pentago…

Internet was a creation of DARPA. And that D stands for Defense.

I believe the silicon research/production that started Silicon Valley was for military needs. Military paid for it.

First Computer of US and Britain? It was funded and created during war for military purposes.

And what about China and Russia? Will THEY stop AI research just because Google employees demand it?

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

#787

Post by mashedvikings »

yuhong wrote: post #9

My favorite: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/eric-schmidt-... I wonder if Eric Schmidt left Google because of this.

Not sure if the article claims Eric Schmidt was ousted. But Schmidt has worked for the pentagon since 2016 http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/02/technology/eric-schmidt-pent...

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

#788

Post by mashedvikings »

cjhanks wrote: post #623

So it is ethical to track hundreds of millions of people to manipulate them for profit. But unethical to defend power plants in the United States?

It's also unethical to solve world hunger by feeding the poor to the hungry. If defending is done not by installing firewalls, but by spying on everyone in case they do something bad, you have a huge problem.

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

#789

Post by StanislavPetrov »

ajross wrote: post #729
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Military spending on bay area R&D has been more or less insignificant for the entirety of the internet era. This is ridiculously false. SV receives billions of dollars from the Pentagon, the CIA, and a variety of other government agencies annually. Here is just one example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-09/peter-thi...

You're having a Dr. Evil moment. "Billions of dollars" doesn't go very far in this context. Apple Computer's revenue alone was two orders of magnitude higher than that. Military spending is noise relative to consumer revenue in the valley.

Sorry, you just aren't informed on the matter. Not only does the military, CIA and other agencies pour billions in R&D development to SV, the CIA has run a hedge fund for almost 20 years that has significant ownership in hundreds of SV companies.

Here is a list of 219 tech companies owned in whole or part by the CIA hedge fund (just the ones they let us know about):

https://www.iqt.org/portfolio/

Here is their logo, which speaks for itself:

https://www.iqt.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/About-venn-di...

The CIA hedge fund and billions in R&D money are in addition to an unknown portion of the "black budget" controlled by various spy agencies, which is over $80 billion dollars this year.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/28/trump-admin...

The truth is that the tech industry is brimming with money from the military and spy agencies - and this is just what we know about.

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

#790

Post by confounded »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #773
confounded wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but by definition most employees will be in the majority on most employee issues. Few things are perfect, many things are useful. If your stance is consistently counter to that of other Google employees, then you probably have bigger problems with working at Google than the existence of a union. Being in a union doesn’t preclude you from shopping around; if working on drone assasinations is personally important…

You're missing the point. What if the Google union decides to put their weight behind Trump, because he gives tax incentives to search engine companies? And if you're vehemently against Trump and his policies, then where does that leave you? Your tax dues are now being spent on supporting a political campaign that you firmly don't support. And that's the point. Unions are nothing but friction, especially for industri…

Thanks (sincerely) for giving your angle and engaging with my questions. I’m a relatively recent import to the US, so I haven’t had many of these conversations with Americans in tech before. Your worries sound very unlikely and theoretical to me, but I don’t imagine they’re uncommon among US tech workers.
Post reply on HN