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

931–940 of 1001 posts

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

#931

Post by nickpinkston »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #424
nickpinkston wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is when you write off your culpability to do more because "At least I did something" via virtue signaling. So no, it's not wrong to virtue signal necessarily, but often is seen as an empty gesture by people who don't talk/act towards the actual problems.

It's an intellectually dishonest argument, because it actually uses someone's profession of good intentions, accepts them , and then somehow turns it against the speaker. As used on the internet, it's also useless because it always assumes the speaker doesn't actually act on their believes, and there usually is no way for them to prove their willingness to act on their believes. It also ignores that even just stating…

Yea, I don't think virtue signaling is always wrong, but I think there is wrong virtue signaling.

A lot of the vitriol on the internet is destructive virtue signaling using holier than thou approaches that alienate people close to your position, this causes division, not unity, and is one of the key issues on the Left - i.e. the Left attacking itself over minutiae as the Right marches on.

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

#932

Post by JorgeGT »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #890
ByThyGrace wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point being that "killer drones" are by sole purpose immoral. You can hardly find a humanitarian use for them, while network protocols are pretty much amoral. You can use them for bad, but also for good. Please excuse my manichaeism.

Technology is often of dual use - one mans killer drone is another mans life saver. A similar device could be used to get injured people out of harms way, or to deliver aid/medicine/whatever.

Accurately dropping a flotation device onto drowning swimmers for instance: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-drone-rescue/dr...

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

#933

Post by geodel »

jstanley wrote: post #784
killjoywashere wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Same reason most people work on jobs they hate. Gotta work for money to live.

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

#935

Post by wu-ikkyu »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #898
flamedoge wrote: post #891

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineers, like most human beings, are free to waste their talent. It wouldn't be nice to demand some kind of moral responsibility from engineers just because they can do more. How they live would be up to them, and free market solution would be far better terms under which they would be convinced to do more.

Yes, we're all free to choose, which might include doing things that are overtly immoral (as in the parent discussion). My question was whether it's just as immoral a choice to not use one's potential to help people as it is to use one's talent to overtly harm people.

>My question was whether it's just as immoral a choice to not use one's potential to help people as it is to use one's talent to overtly harm people.

Is the answer to that not obvious? It's the difference between negligence and pre-meditation/mens rea.

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

#936

Post by solutron »

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?

For the scope of this audience, I don't think it's necessarily a question of who's more responsible than the other. You're right, all the parties you've mentioned are just as culpable for their role in wrong-doing, even if it's abstracted or removed from implementation. As engineers though, we're in the unique position of being the gate-keeper between ideas, "visions" if you will (in the parlance of our times), and fruition. We're a gatekeeper between reality and the delusional musings afforded to people who aren't the engineers. We can say, "Fuck no, that should literally not exist or be built in any way", and do it loudly to stop the other parties from realizing their abusive vision. Or under dire circumstances, we can sabotage systems that need to be broken if it's too late to stop them from being created.

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

#937

Post by scarmig »

ninkendo wrote: post #854
scarmig wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USSR's "territorial lust" was aided and abetted by FDR and Churchill and guaranteed by their militaries. They divvied up Europe into spheres of influence at Yalta, and the US and UK were perfectly happy to gift Stalin Eastern Europe to further their own geopolitical objectives. I'm by no means equating the three, but it's ahistorical to present the American military as an idealistic organization that exists to ba…

Honestly, would you have done things differently, if you were Churchill or FDR? In the 20th century we had already gone through a war so terrible it was called the war to end all wars, until 20 years later when we made it look small by comparison. The deaths in WW2 accounted for 3% of the entire population of the world. And we hadn't even invented the atomic bomb until the very end. After WW2 we were on the precipice…

Their choice was entirely reasonable. War is rarely the right answer.

It's just kind of silly to portray the American military as "standing up to Stalin" because Americans are taught Stalin equals evil and America equals good and ipso facto America must have stood up to Stalin.

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

#938

Post by Kalium »

betolink wrote: post #796
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just a reminder: you are writing this over the internet - that one was funded by the pentagon too (darpanet) http://ccr.sigcomm.org/archive/1995/jan95/ccr-9501-clark.pdf Here they say that the design of the internet was very much determined by the military priorities of the project (Telcos had different priorities so they came up with OSI where the link layer is supposed to be reliable, as opposed to DARPANET/IP, whe…

There is a huge difference between creating a network protocol and designing autonomous killer drones.

You're absolutely right! There's a huge difference. One is a general solution to the general problem of how to move data around in an organized fashion and the other is a specific solution to the specific problem of wanting murderbots.

That said, the approach of some of the commentors here is that the only acceptable approach is to refuse to work on anything that could ever be "weaponized". It's possible that the distinction you've so clearly and correctly pointed to could stand to be more compatible with this stance.

Autonomous murderbots are highly likely to depend on network protocols, among other things.

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

#940

Post by stevenwoo »

booblik wrote: post #151

So it says it will improve drone strike accuracy. Isn’t it a good thing? I mean there are currently a lot of civilian casualties from drone strikes, but that doesn’t stop anyone from using them anyway. Wouldn’t at least improving accuracy make thinks better in some regard?

Most of the civilian deaths stem from inaccurate intelligence as far as I know and the most accurate intelligence comes from humans on the ground, not videos from a drone. It's also the source of misleading intelligence, like people targeting their local enemies, not actual enemies we want to target, so there's no foolproof way all the time to guarantee the right casualty if they are not out in public all the time without getting up close and personal.
Post reply on HN