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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

#971

Post by sangnoir »

supertrope wrote: post #967
kevinmchugh wrote: post #942

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Richard Gatling thought his most famous invention would cause wars to be shorter and less brutal. More deaths faster would mean faster surrenders, he thought. He is a weapons inventor who thought he was doing something ethical. Instead, he made war and death cheaper. He made it more likely. In his lifetime, machine guns were deployed asymmetrically, making it cheaper for colonial empires to kill large numbers of the…

Alfred Nobel thought so too with dynamite. "Perhaps my factories will put an end to war sooner than your congresses: on the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second, all civilised nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops."

It appears this is repeating trope- these inventors of highly effective killing machines did not consider that the increased rate of killing would be matched by an increase in mobilizing cannon-fodder.

Some genius in the near-future will probably make the same inaccurate prediction about autonomous killerbots, or more likely realistically, cyber-warfare (I hate that term): "Shutting down hospitals, power plants and other critical infrastructure will make wars shorter"

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

#972

Post by dang »

deft wrote: post #782
abalone wrote: post #195

I completely support the employees but it is criminal that this NYT article does not mention the extensive roots of Silicon Valley in Pentagon funding. SV as a whole is substantially a creation of military spending. Just recently in the AI space: - Siri was spun out of a Pentagon project -- look up SRI International and CALO. Its purpose: a "soldier’s servant".[1] - Autonomous driving is a direct evolution of Pentago…

Libertarianism is an ideology that relies on mental gymnastics.

Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. It leads to generic flamewars which are basically all the same and therefore off topic here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#973

Post by dang »

kiliantics wrote: post #716
pfarnsworth wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm making almost $400,000 total compensation and I'm happily working on things that I love. I don't need a union to tax me and force me to pay dues to do absolutely nothing that will benefit me, besides pay themselves well. On top of that, having a union start representing itself as a political force will definitely upset me. I may be against the militarization of Google, but what if I weren't? What if I supported i…

You are exactly the kind of scum that would support militarisation if it handed you a cheque with the right amount. I wouldn't be sad (or organise with my union against it) if a drone vaporised you.

Personal attacks are not allowed on HN, regardless of how wrong or annoying another comment may be. We ban accounts that do this, so would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not do this again?

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

#974

Post by dang »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #769
kiliantics wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are exactly the kind of scum that would support militarisation if it handed you a cheque with the right amount. I wouldn't be sad (or organise with my union against it) if a drone vaporised you.

You're exactly the kind of scum that caused Trump to be elected.

You can't post like this to HN, regardless of how badly another commenter behaved. We've had to warn you about this kind of thing in the past, unfortunately. If you keep doing it, we're going to have to ban you, so please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and abide by the rules from now on.

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

#975

Post by jadedhacker »

airstrike wrote: post #322
jadedhacker wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power is more complex than the direct application of violence. Corporate relationships with governments can induce them, and often have induced, violent reactions against people harming a company's interests.

That does not a country make.

Which do you care more about? Power and who has it or the label "country"?

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

#976

Post by gurkendoktor »

komali2 wrote: post #464
shitgoose wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

after removing insulting remarks, ataturk's comments looks like this (which i personally agree with): Globalism == lack of agency, the end of voting and elections. Universal education == total indoctrination and ideological consistency of the collectivistic variety. Universal healthcare == the end of individual choice, individual responsibility, all new extensive taxing regimes, the destruction of the individual on m…

Thank you for taking the time to find and share the points. I'd like to rebuke : >Globalism == lack of agency, end of voting and elections If federalism didn't lead to this, why would globalism? What even is globalism? I am skeptical of this because "globalism" seems to be used as a catch-all alt-right bogeyman lately. >universal education == total indoctrination, ideological consistency Universal access to education…

Not the author of the dead post, and definitely not a fan of the alt-right, but the term globalism immediately resonated with me when I first heard it:

> What's the end game, for people that believe these things? Endless culture war? A galaxy-spanning human civilization that still has their "I'm an American and you're Chinese" safe little lines?

If we didn't have several superpowers on this planet, but only one unified government instead, what would whistleblowers do? Right now Snowden can fly to Russia, and Chinese dissidents can voice their opinions in the West. In a truly globalized world, there'd be nowhere to run.

We try to maximize competition and avoid monopolies and cartels in our economy. Why should we aim straight for the opposite when it comes to our governments?

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

#977

Post by philwelch »

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…

To me, the salient point of that analogy is that the engineer designed execution chambers for Nazis. The engineers who designed the Sherman tank, the Garand rifle, or the Spitfire fighter plane also built weapons, weapons that killed people, but the judgment of history is that those people needed to be killed and thank God for the engineers who made that possible.

So, there are two aspects of that: first, do you trust the people you're designing a weapon for to use it for justifiable purposes, and second, how does the weapon itself influence whether it can be used for just or unjust reasons? Gas chambers, for example, can only be used to kill someone whom you are already able to coerce into entering it; its only use is to murder a helpless prisoner. A Spitfire or Hurricane can shoot down bombers but not necessarily do that much damage on the ground. Orwell had an interesting perspective on this question: "Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows, and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak."

I really don't have answers. The stance of, "weapons equals bad, therefore it's wrong to ever help design weapons" is a pacifist notion, and maybe that appeals to you, but if you're not a pacifist, it becomes a complicated question with certain political ramifications.

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

#978

Post by bb88 »

bitL wrote: post #947
bb88 wrote: post #871

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2018, the following statements are true: 1. If you're on an active battlefield, both sides have already agreed that killing people is morally justified. 2. If the enemy is shooting at you, he is not interested in the ethics of killing someone on a battlefield. 3. If ethics helped wars end, there would be a US Army 27th Ethics Brigade to parachute in, but there's not and probably never will be. If on a battlefield,…

What's the point of life if you are forced to be evil, unquestionably and irrevocably? Why so many vets have PTSD and end up doing crazy things?

You have it backwatds.

If someone wasn't willing to kill someone else on your country's behalf, most likely you wouldn't have the freedom to ask that question.

Edited to add:

The metaphysical question you posted might be better phrased to ask:

What's the point of life if someone else is willing to extinguish it?

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

#979

Post by richardw »

pteredactyl wrote: post #831
richardw wrote: post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither Ford nor the Right Brothers were military. Xerox PARC wasn't. Tesla isn't. Innovation doesn't need defense support, innovation will come anyway. We just choose to allocate much of our resources to the military so that's where it gets spent. Later we can claim it as a win for defense. A happy surprise benefit of trying to kill each other. All you need is people, time and money. Profit. Many years ago I choose…

To your knowledge. Yes, you need time money and profit. Agreed. But if those things go against the military's goals, or you're unable to convince them otherwise, you're in trouble. At a certain scale you need to have the nod of those in power. It's a fact of reality on this earth. I'm not saying it's good or bad. And I don't know how millions being lifted out of poverty, 10000 miles of high-speed rail in ten years, a…

> to your knowledge

Well yeah but good luck proving PARC was a secret defense contractor. We can cherry pick examples of tech or benefits all day. A few good defense ones doesn't mean defense is good.

You can have an oppressive government and still have a lot of good come out of it. China is amazing. Their people still aren't free. In fact you can have a murderous military and still have benefits to humanity emerge. The military is still there to kill people and I'd rather not be part of that.

Projects were chosen as examples of countries that are American rivals, for effect and the benefit of US readers. Fun well-funded Chinese research projects might one day kill you. I would be as unhappy working on a defense project for any country, including my own. the point was "someone on the other side might have the same justifications".

We'd all be better off if the world sent more defense money to other parts of our lives. It's not the defense aspect that makes the projects good or possible, it's that defense has our money. Send the money directly to tech or research, same benefits would emerge.

We can't change our countries' budgets but we can stop idolising the military as funder. Sure DARPA but they hooked up a few universities. Pics of cats and porn (probably not military but good luck proving otherwise) took us the rest of the way.

> Black and white vibes

Play the ball not the man

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

#980

Post by bassman9000 »

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.

why? it was created so we could have reliable communications in the event of a total nuclear war, that is, an enabler
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