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Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

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Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#91

Post by BookmarkSaver »

dragonwriter wrote: post #26
whb07 wrote: post #23

I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties. Like it or not the world is full of extremists who would like nothing more than to hurt innocent people. There is no “oh just send the cops and arrest them!” route to take. Shit, just look at the time Osama bin Laden could have been bombed with a tomahawk missile during Clint…

> I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties. It would reduce collateral casualties per target attacked, which would make the drones easier to use with looser target selection criteria, which might both increase number of targets attacked and increase the number and ratio of incorrect-target-selection casualties. The l…

Ok... but even accounting for civilian casualties due to increased use of drones, civilian victims (and overall casualties) of US military operations has done nothing but drop as technology improves.

This is just throwing in an unfounded qualitative thought, not an actual empirical argument against precision weapons.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#93

Post by nunya213 »

peterwwillis wrote: post #27
carlosrg wrote: post #5

> runs contrary to Google's ethos -- the mantra "don't be evil" has long been at the heart of Google's principles Thinking that the military of your own country is "evil" seems a bit puerile to me. Watching too many movies and TV shows can have that effect.

For years we have known that US drone strikes can very accurately kill anonymous people - often civilians (such as women and children): "Every independent investigation of the strikes has found far more civilian casualties than administration officials admit. Gradually, it has become clear that when operators in Nevada fire missiles into remote tribal territories on the other side of the world, they often do not know…

Evil would be intentionally targeting civilians. You are simply deluded.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#94

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

tormeh wrote: post #40
mmjaa wrote: post #17

I once worked for a large industrial group in Europe. The kind that has a bit of a piece of every little pie there is - military, transportation, etc. I was pretty happy working there .. until I got a demo from the 'defence' group. They demonstrated the willingness to push the company's technology into heinous, heinous territory. The kind of thing where a drone would be able to follow a single person in a crowd, and…

>and sell them to any country in the world This is never true. No government will allow its companies (and in this context that's how it's seen) to sell weapons to countries they don't approve of. That said, apparently the defense industry is often irresponsible at best.

Even if a firm in country A can sell only to group of countries X, another firm in country B might be able to sell to group of countries Y. All you really need is a few companies with overlapping markets to eventually bring such tech to the entire world.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#95

Post by [deleted] »

whb07 wrote: post #23

I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties. Like it or not the world is full of extremists who would like nothing more than to hurt innocent people. There is no “oh just send the cops and arrest them!” route to take. Shit, just look at the time Osama bin Laden could have been bombed with a tomahawk missile during Clint…

[deleted]

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#97

Post by BookmarkSaver »

pera wrote: post #79
whb07 wrote: post #23

I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties. Like it or not the world is full of extremists who would like nothing more than to hurt innocent people. There is no “oh just send the cops and arrest them!” route to take. Shit, just look at the time Osama bin Laden could have been bombed with a tomahawk missile during Clint…

> I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties. I am not sure why some people instantly assumes that the whole purpose of making drones more autonomous is to make them more precise: historically, the DoD/US military have made virtually zero efforts to even try to reduce civilian "casualties". Maybe I am too cynical, but…

>I am not sure why some people instantly assumes that the whole purpose of making drones more autonomous is to make them more precise: historically, the DoD/US military have made virtually zero efforts to even try to reduce civilian "casualties".

????

That's not even close to true. On any level. You are confusing the inevitable willingness to tolerate civilian casualties with an outright disregard. Civilian casualties have consequences, and they are avoided. Not strictly, but it is a cynical fantasy to imagine that there is a complete disregard for civilians.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#98

Post by sametmax »

relics443 wrote: post #82
sametmax wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing isn't it ? They can't do anything alone. It always amazes me that those big entities exist, because they require such a huge highly educated and skilled human power. What are all those genius at the NSA thinking ? I can't imagine somebody smart enough to work here is not smart enough to understand the consequences of working there. So why are they not quitting ? Social pressure and money are part of…

Have you considered that there are people out there with values that differ from yours? It's not wildly impossible, regardless of what the screaming minority would have you believe. Maybe they don't have a problem with working on such projects, because they agree with their end goal?

Ocam's razor, so yes.

I learned very young there are differences, like I literally (NOT figurative at all) couldn't see the motivation behind destroying school equipment, drawing on walls, etc. While for some, it's fun.

But even after all those years, it's just so hard to wrap my head around that.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#99

Post by posix_me_less »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #12
option2 wrote: post #2

Kudos to those who is ready to stand for their principles. If you are at G and thinking whether you should resign or not, remembers this - the market for AI talent is super hot. You will immediately find lots of great and challenging AI work pushing humanity forward

Corollary: plenty of skilled engineers with fewer moralistic constraints will jump at the chance to do interesting work for high pay. For a company as large and wealthy as Google, they can continue to raise offer salaries until they are adequately staffed. There is a school of thought that recommends “moral” people doing “immoral” work because if those people left then other “immoral” people will take those jobs and…

> "So the “moral” engineers have an incentive to stay and act as a front line against “immoral” actions, or at least have an insider’s position for whistleblowing."

This is true if the engineer is in such a position of power within the company that he can effectively influence things towards the ethical goal. Most of typical for-profit corporation engineers who care about that ethical goal have no such position. If they strongly disagree with what they contribute to, the best decision for them and the ethical goal is to quit.

Re: Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project

#100

Post by sametmax »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #73
sametmax wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing isn't it ? They can't do anything alone. It always amazes me that those big entities exist, because they require such a huge highly educated and skilled human power. What are all those genius at the NSA thinking ? I can't imagine somebody smart enough to work here is not smart enough to understand the consequences of working there. So why are they not quitting ? Social pressure and money are part of…

Arguably the majority supports the ideological foundations, aims, and methods of the institutions you are speaking of. In particular the military and intelligence institutions. If they didn't, they would have been removed by vote or force some time ago. Frankly the broad majority of people in the US benefit materially in some way from their existence in ways that they might not even be fully aware of. I am not arguin…

> Frankly the broad majority of people in the US benefit materially in some way from their existence in ways that they might not even be fully aware of.

No argument here, having a strong bully in the room is good for you when he is on your side.

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