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

nytimes.com

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

#821

Post by matuszeg »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #776
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…

> incredibly valid for Silicon Valley engineers these days If one could engineer a solution to save lives, but instead uses his/her talents to build the nth iteration of, say, a food delivery app, does he/she bear any ethical culpability? Because it seems the bigger challenge for engineers is not avoiding overt evil, but in the opportunity cost of spending their time on work of significantly lesser consequence than t…

So youre saying we need another messaging app?

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

#822

Post by Gatsky »

sseth wrote: post #135

Do we really want to test a theory that we can have a repeat of the 1930s when the democracies fell far behind an autocratic regime in the arms race, and again the autocratic regimes will not win? Democracies are in retreat around the world, and I only hope we wake up before it is too late. The military-industrial complex may have become far bigger and perhaps in some ways a burden, but the world is a dangerous place…

This is sadly correct.

Pacifism isn't viable when some of the biggest countries in the world are run by totalitarian regimes. Objections to participating in the military industrial complex are a luxury of countries verging on global irrelevance. The proclivities of the West to engage in self-flagellation over these issues are well known to and exploited by less liberal regimes. If only it were not so, but I don't know what the alternative is, just as the physicists in the Manhattan project saw no alternative.

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

#823

Post by confounded »

didibus wrote: post #792
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…

Why would the engineers be more burdened with the ethics of their creation over the investors, founders, managements, lawyers, execs, CEOs and government policy makers who all contributed to, promoted and made happen its fabrication by engineers?

> investors, founders, managements, lawyers, execs, CEOs and government policy makers

Power, corruption and lies.

Those people often stand to personally (financially) benefit from unethical business decisions. Engineers have to think through all the dirty consequences, and still draw pretty much the same salary.

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

#824

Post by pteredactyl »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #789
ajross wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Agreed. Thanks for sharing links. There's also an assumption that military necessarily equals evil. Do you think everyone who works for the NSA is out to curb our civil rights? It's not possible. And in fact, it's what a lot of people who work for the government or military believe in protecting.

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

#825

Post by Gatsky »

MikkoFinell wrote: post #372
sseth wrote: post #135

Do we really want to test a theory that we can have a repeat of the 1930s when the democracies fell far behind an autocratic regime in the arms race, and again the autocratic regimes will not win? Democracies are in retreat around the world, and I only hope we wake up before it is too late. The military-industrial complex may have become far bigger and perhaps in some ways a burden, but the world is a dangerous place…

The world is currently the least dangerous it's ever been in history, and all data and all trends point that it will be even less dangerous in the future. Sorry but you're simply wrong.

The problem with this argument is that Pinker could have written the same book in 1930.

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

#826

Post by bobthepanda »

Demiurge wrote: post #820
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…

The engineers in both cases are not essential to the outcomes. Engineers or craftsmen, or any other workers execute tasks put forth to them by society that gave them birth and education. Any person in the society has some influence, but clearly more influence is the hands of the leaders and organizers. But, there is power in organizing, or unionizing, for collective bargaining.

That defense didn’t work at Nuremberg.

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

#827

Post by 75dvtwin »

humanrebar wrote: post #486
tc313 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but I’m pretty sure the second amendment only applies to guns; you can’t walk around with an RPG on your shoulder.

There's a school of thought that the word "arms" in the Constitution might have referred mainly to sidearms, not to canons, catapults, warships, etc. The theory is that there were other words like "artillery" to describe larger weapons.

>"Justice Scalia also wrote: “It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service — M-16 rifles and the like — may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.”

[1] https://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/justice-scal...

I think for a weapon to be 'compliant' with US's second amendment a couple of criteria must be met

a) must be in current wide use in military

b) must be capable of being carried by a single person (which is why tanks and fighter jets will not qualify) This follows form 'individual' focus of the bill of right.

c) must be capable to aim it at a single person (which is why explosive or RPGs would not qualify). This follows from the notion that Bill of Right in general, does not condone collateral damage or collateral effect. As this is Individual's right, and therefore presumes individual's responsibility.

I also find this linguistic analysis of what 'bear arms' meant in 1791s, interesting/educational [2] http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=255

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

#828

Post by microcolonel »

pteredactyl wrote: post #809
microcolonel wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason Rome was so influential was its military. Ditto for the US. I think people often have that twisted. A lot of the U.S.'s expansion is cultural, not military. That is to say: people liked what they were doing, and became a fan. Think: music, movies, and to some extent, literature, and now you might add software and consumer electronics to that list. And even when looking at Rome, can you imagine how much h…

Yea, but how much cultural influence comes back to the military? Internet? Darpa. Hollywood? CIA pitches/vets certain scripts. Modern art? A CIA weapon during the cold war. The list goes on and on.

American music and movies, until recently, did not originate in any large part from CIA psy-ops. Popular software products like the ones produced by Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. don't really have much to do with the defense industry, at least beyond military being the first major customers for computers.

Defense spending is a small parasite on an enormous private market for cultural and consumer products, of which the U.S. is and was a major exporter, respectively.

Added:

Defense agencies drive innovation because they have external constraints which force them to try to procure things which haven't yet been invented. It's similar to the way that automobile races are used to drive auto innovation. Necessity is the mother of invention, and necessity is not unique to defense, but defense necessities tend to produce extreme engineering efforts.

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

#829

Post by dweekly »

cmontella wrote: post #761
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…

As a roboticist at the beginning of my career working on drones, I decided then and there that I would never make "bombs", a metaphor I used to mean anything that could be weaponized. I realized a lot of the work I was doing was funded by DARPA, and I was very cognizant about my research being used in this way. And like Dr. Kearns suggests, it's not entirely black and white. Would my path planning algorithm be used t…

As an engineer, founder, and investor I'll note that there's an ethical mandate for investors as well; when I started drone.vc I committed as a Quaker to not investing in "offensive" technologies.

Separately, RE: bringing internet to new places, there's reasonable evidence to show that introducing broadband lifts GDP[1], so whatever you may think of Facebook, giving people high-speed connectivity to the whole Internet is probably a net positive. Disclaimer: I helped start Facebook's Connectivity Lab but no longer work there.

[1] http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/391452529895999/WDR16-BP-Exp...

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

#830

Post by cmontella »

Demiurge wrote: post #820
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…

The engineers in both cases are not essential to the outcomes. Engineers or craftsmen, or any other workers execute tasks put forth to them by society that gave them birth and education. Any person in the society has some influence, but clearly more influence is the hands of the leaders and organizers. But, there is power in organizing, or unionizing, for collective bargaining.

This reminds me of the movie "Cube", which is about a sadistic torture chamber built by accident through a network of government sub-contractors who each built some innocuous part of the thing, which was then assembled through layers of opaque bureaucracy. It's a terrible film, but I always thought that premise was hilarious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_(film)

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