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Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes

nytimes.com

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Re: Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes

#91

Post by Gud »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #81
Gud wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not very popular anymore because it kept abusing it's unique position as the #1 military power, starting wars it had no business starting, not because it is(was?) #1 as you are suggesting.

> US is not very popular anymore because it kept abusing it's unique position as the #1 military power, starting wars it had no business starting Versus China (annexed Tibet), Russia (annexing Ukraine) and Iran (banana republics across the Middle East)? People like to see themselves as edgy. It's edgy to be in the rich world and decry imperialism of America's system of allies.

Who claimed those countries have any moral high ground?

Re: Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes

#92

Post by DrillShopper »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #72
croes wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as the potato could make you think someone is a killing target. Take something like this but for kill decisions https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/09/a-courts-reporter-wrote-ab...

So you think it is wrong to allow the military to use processors in their computers used in the weapons?

Can you explain how you get that reading from the parent comment?

Re: Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes

#93

Post by AlotOfReading »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #80
AlotOfReading wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's essentially the same concept as conscientious objection. Many countries have mandatory military service. Some of those countries also recognize conscientious objector status while others do not. Do you really want people to shun military service while other nations' citizens serve? As a conscientious objector, yes. If moral and ethical considerations don't separate us from our opponents, what are we even…

> As a conscientious objector, yes. If moral and ethical considerations don't separate us from our opponents, what are we even fighting for I guess I'm a little sour about conscientious objection to war in general--versus specific conflicts--while comfortably living in and profiting from a society bathed in the peace that the credible threat of violence affords. The irony of this being that instead of a balanced targ…

We're all opposed to slavery, yet we live in societies that profit off unfree labor and modern slavery. Is it that much different?

My line in the sand is no tools of war. You're welcome to choose a different line, but your argument here applies equally to all lines.

Re: Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes

#94

Post by bhouston »

cen4 wrote: post #37
bhouston wrote: post #23

Reddit and Twitter are flooded with semi automated political bots. And it will just get worse. Given that Llama is free to use why does Mera even have to give permission, how would they know? It will reinforce the political lines of those with the most resources/motivation who can afford the most human like bots in the greatest number. No way mere humans with only a single manual account each can hope to be influenti…

First of all the whole notion that Reddit and Twitter are a source of Influence is a joke. That have not been designed to Influence people. They let you believe it cause more than anything else you want to believe it. People have been conditioned to think how many view/upvotes you get = Influence. But if the viewer who reads your post then goes and reads 100 other posts your influence is diluted by 100. Platforms don…

> But if the viewer who reads your post then goes and reads 100 other posts your influence is diluted by 100. Platforms don't show you that even though they are quite capable of showing you that.

I am specifically referring to /r/worldnews which is a top reddit, 42M members, and it is constantly pro-Israel, even though that should be a minority opinion in the world at this point -- neutral would be more accurate of where people stand.

Check out this list of the top stores this week on the topic - all the stories about Palestinians in Gaza dying are at 0 votes, you have to scroll way down:

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/search/?q=Israel&cId=8c30...

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/search/?q=Gaza&cId=d51936...

Here is a screenshot of all of the 0 vote stores, they have something in common:

https://benhouston3d.com/images/posts/reddit-worldnews-bots/...

It is like this every week. If you read Reddit r/worldnews casually, you will not read about dead Palestinians. This is definitely rigged.

Re: Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes

#95

Post by a2128 »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #25
drdaeman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joke conspiracy theory: it's all a conspiracy of mass media to paint AI as bad as they can, so when it becomes more energy-efficient it won't be able to disrupt their deceptive practices by de-hyping the headlines replacing them with impartial summaries (since all LLMs really can do are text transformations), thus upsetting the hidden attention economy. /bs :o) For real, though, is these something already out there t…

Is there a browser plugin that: 1. clicks the link 2. reads the article 3. rewrites the link title in less clickbaity terms? It seems possible.

Half of the rewritten titles will be "Review Our Privacy Agreement" and "Trial Over - Subscribe to Read Our Articles" :)

Re: Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes

#96

Post by croes »

valval wrote: post #71
croes wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they should do it by themselves at least don’t give them the permission. By doing that they are (at least morally) liable for every damage that will be done. And of course Russia, China etc. will use it and we consider them the bad guys. Maybe a bad idea to follow their lead if you want to by the good guy.

They’re not morally liable any more than the inventors of Kevlar or thermal imaging or the GPS. All technology that is useful for war will be used for war.

You have overlooked the point at which use was permitted.

It's one thing if something is used for war but another if you're okay with it.

Re: Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes

#97

Post by consteval »

largbae wrote: post #52
jmward01 wrote: post #9

There is a difference between allowing use and supporting a use case. Supporting would be, for example, adding military specific training to the model. If we were talking about a car or a tractor nobody would bat an eye. Should companies not sell potatoes to the military? To be clear, I am not a fan of developing for the military, but the idea that a TOS will stop AI being weaponized is a bit naive. Similarly, if the…

HN has a multinational audience, but for those in the US, do you really want our best and brightest to shun defense while other nations' best and brightest double down? If so, what is the outcome that you would like to see from that policy?

We're so, so, so, so far away from shunning defense I just can't take this comment seriously. Let's focus on not having multiple orders of magnitude more defense than is necessary before we doom-and-gloom about WWIII.

Re: Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes

#99

Post by ThunderBee »

bhouston wrote: post #94
cen4 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all the whole notion that Reddit and Twitter are a source of Influence is a joke. That have not been designed to Influence people. They let you believe it cause more than anything else you want to believe it. People have been conditioned to think how many view/upvotes you get = Influence. But if the viewer who reads your post then goes and reads 100 other posts your influence is diluted by 100. Platforms don…

> But if the viewer who reads your post then goes and reads 100 other posts your influence is diluted by 100. Platforms don't show you that even though they are quite capable of showing you that. I am specifically referring to /r/worldnews which is a top reddit, 42M members, and it is constantly pro-Israel, even though that should be a minority opinion in the world at this point -- neutral would be more accurate of w…

I would actually argue the opposite. r/worldnews is one of the few major subreddits that actively blocks the hordes of pro Palestinian bots.

The pro Palestinian propaganda campaign being run by US adversaries might be the most effective I’ve ever seen.

I could write a very lengthy post on this topic but it’s exceptionally rare to find anyone willing to have a discussion and not a yelling match.

Re: Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes

#100

Post by epistasis »

jowea wrote: post #90
epistasis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this thread we are talking about the US military, China, North Korea, etc. using the models, and whether anyone should give a shit about ToS. I'm not aware of AI companies violating any software ToS or the GPL, but would like to know more. (And I think that everybody should follow the GPL on software that is licensed that way, just as they should the ToS.)

There's been a big controversy over training AI on copyleft code hosted on places like GitHub and generating code which could be interpreted as a derivative work.

I have not heard discussion of that, but trying to reconstruct what it would be my guess is: AI companies with closed, non-distributed models in the clear with the GPL (but not AGPL code). But Meta would not be able to distribute their weights without also distributing the GPL code with it that went into the training? Is the controversy that it "linked" all the other source code that the model was also trained with and therefore all thus source code must be distributed too if the model weights are distributed?

I'm really curious because my best guesses sound ridiculous to me when I type them out.

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