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Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

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Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#81

Post by tomohawk »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #40
aregsar wrote: post #24

While there are good intentions here, what happens if China and Russia military get ahead of US military in this technology due to us limiting ourselves

It's very likely if there were a legitimate threat or need for the technology, employee opinion on helping the military would likely change. China and Russia are regularly highlighted as the bogeymen in these scenarios, but how many people realistically would suggest either is likely to say... invade or fire on the United States?

So, unless the US is faced with imminent invasion, they should stick their heads in the sand?

China is in the process of forcibly taking over an enormous chunk of geography in the south china sea. They have fired on and intimidated their neighbors such as Vietnam and Philippines in connection with this. They continue to undermine and isolate Taiwan. They are a big part of why N Korea has nuclear weapons and ICBMs.

Russia is illegally occupying a big chunk of Ukraine, is involved in shooting down civilian airliners, and assassinating people they don't like with chemical weapons.

At what point would it be advisable to see a trend and try to do something about it?

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#82

Post by strainer »

This sends a more powerful message than if the corporation had just avoided the work in the first place. I am hopeful and inspired by the employees stand.

Lights are shining through the cracks in the conflict dominated narrative of these times, and we have never had greater means to analyse and resolve our troubles with each other and with our environment.

Thankyou Googlers for showing up for resolution.

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#83

Post by ajross »

jds375 wrote: post #77
irq wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of downvoting cryptoz, I encourage people to counter what he said with their own replies. The majority of his statements in this post are verifiable facts. (I do not know this person, fwiw).

I agree. I’d guess that the downvoters are thinking along the lines of: - Sure it’s bad now, but the US military is made up of far more than just the president... many of which may be good, rational actors. - Just because it’s bad now doesn’t mean it won’t get better quickly (there has been a lot of pushback on the president’s agenda) - The US may still be comparatively better/benevolent than any other dominant super…

> Sure it’s bad now,

That's the thing though: it's not bad now!. Not by any historical standard, at least.

For most of our history and prehistory, right up to the past 70 years, stupid warfare has been the rule. Petty tribal disputes, armed insurrections, ethnic cleansing and suppression and random gang violence were absolutely routine for almost everyone even as recently as our great grandparent's lifetimes. Virtually everyone saw violence like this at some point. Now, in most of the world (no, not all of it, but yes: most), pretty much no one does.

And that's important. What we've been doing is working. Don't rock the boat.

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#84

Post by craftyguy »

strainer wrote: post #82

This sends a more powerful message than if the corporation had just avoided the work in the first place. I am hopeful and inspired by the employees stand. Lights are shining through the cracks in the conflict dominated narrative of these times, and we have never had greater means to analyse and resolve our troubles with each other and with our environment. Thankyou Googlers for showing up for resolution.

No it doesn't.

It still gives them between 6 months and 18 months (whenever the contract expires in 2019) to continue working on this project. They may even finish it during that timeframe. This is purely PR fluff.

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#85

Post by jds375 »

ajross wrote: post #83
jds375 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I’d guess that the downvoters are thinking along the lines of: - Sure it’s bad now, but the US military is made up of far more than just the president... many of which may be good, rational actors. - Just because it’s bad now doesn’t mean it won’t get better quickly (there has been a lot of pushback on the president’s agenda) - The US may still be comparatively better/benevolent than any other dominant super…

> Sure it’s bad now, That's the thing though: it's not bad now !. Not by any historical standard, at least. For most of our history and prehistory, right up to the past 70 years, stupid warfare has been the rule. Petty tribal disputes, armed insurrections, ethnic cleansing and suppression and random gang violence were absolutely routine for almost everyone even as recently as our great grandparent's lifetimes. Virtua…

I actually completely agree with you (Enlightenment Now by Pinker provides excellent data backing all of this up). Our collective pessimism is actually a major problem I think.

But to clarify, when I said “sure it’s bad now” I meant that in the context of the current military leadership.

Unfortunately I can’t really defend that argument much further given that I don’t necessarily agree with it (it was just speculation on potential counter-arguments).

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#86

Post by dfsegoat »

jdashg wrote: post #72
dfsegoat wrote: post #62

Anyone else have a problem with this? Someone else will be doing this work in place of Google, as it is inevitable that AI and defense will merge. So for those reasons, IMO, it is childish to quit and try to not assert some ethical control over something while you can. Maybe the next co. who fills the contract will be the one where the AI engineers who quit now work? TLDR: Get the program killed, or control it on you…

Is there an ethical approach to making drones better at killing people?

Yes according to the Red Cross, and experts in International Human Law (aka The Rules of War) - there is an obligation for people to develop these systems (or not) responsibly and TO ALWAYS KEEP A HUMAN IN THE LOOP [1].

Note Nov 2017 was the first annual meeting: the law on this is literally being determined on the fly, so simply running from it rather than providing input and working to determine limits isn't very helpful.

https://www.icrc.org/en/document/expert-meeting-lethal-auton...

https://www.un.org/disarmament/publications/occasionalpapers...

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#88

Post by esrauch »

mikeash wrote: post #76
ajross wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where I am too. I mean, war stuff is bad, it kills people, and the US certainly isn't 100% trustworthy. At the same time... there's a real don't-rock-the-boat problem here. The last 3/4 of a century of US military dominance has been notable for a decrease in military/para-military violence on an order that humanity literally has never seen. It's not zero for sure, it's not always just, we may not always be the…

For most of that time, the US had an adversary that was roughly on par militarily, ahead in some areas and behind in others. The post WWII peace isn’t built on American dominance, it’s built on MAD.

What is the post-Soviet era peace built on?

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#89

Post by smsm42 »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #41
simion314 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this was different then regular military projects because of drones, drones have a terrible reputation.

And it's not just the reputation of drones, it's taking another step towards autonomous killing machines. Robots probably wouldn't be as bad, but the other autonomous killing machines we have are pathogens, and all countries have pretty much decided it's counterproductive to develop pathogens for warfare at this point

Not all countries. Iraq has a bioweapons program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_biological_weapons_progr... at least in 80's, and probably into 90's, and there's no indication they ever decided it to be "counterproductive", even though they abandoned it out of fear for repercussions for BWC violation. USSR had bioweapons program which it never declared "counterproductive", and even though Russian as USSR successor did, it is not really confirmed the program was effectively dismantled. There are pretty credible suspicions that Iran has an advanced stage bioweapons program, and same is suspected for North Korea. In fact, check out this list by PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bioterror/glob_nf.html - may be a bit out of date, but enough to realize "all countries have pretty much decided" is unfortunately an exaggeration.

Re: Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

#90

Post by smsm42 »

dmead wrote: post #51
C50VGicCxmHC wrote: post #21

This will really hurt their enterprise cloud business. Google has shown to have a bunch of employees who will leak confidential discussions to the press and try to PR damage their employer. If you are a large company looking for a home, that is exactly the kind of environment you want to avoid. In addition, many of the large US companies have a military component. Examples are GE, Boeing, United Technologies. How man…

I fail to see the problem here. Do you understand why people would want a motto like "Don't be evil"?

They don't have it anymore. Now it's "do the right thing". What is "the right thing" of course is up to the management to decide.
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