Google Workers Urge CEO To Pull Out of Pentagon AI Project (nytimes.com) 283
Thousands of Google employees, including dozens of senior engineers, have signed a letter protesting the company's involvement in a Pentagon program that uses artificial intelligence to interpret video imagery and could be used to improve the targeting of drone strikes (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source). From a report: The letter, which is circulating inside Google and has garnered more than 3,100 signatures, reflects a culture clash between Silicon Valley and the federal government that is likely to intensify as cutting-edge artificial intelligence is increasingly employed for military purposes. "We believe that Google should not be in the business of war," says the letter, addressed to Sundar Pichai, the company's chief executive. It asks that Google pull out of Project Maven, a Pentagon pilot program, and announce a policy that it will not "ever build warfare technology."
That kind of idealistic stance, while certainly not shared by all Google employees, comes naturally to a company whose motto is "Don't be evil," a phrase invoked in the protest letter. But it is distinctly foreign to Washington's massive defense industry and certainly to the Pentagon, where the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, has often said a central goal is to increase the "lethality" of the United States military.
That kind of idealistic stance, while certainly not shared by all Google employees, comes naturally to a company whose motto is "Don't be evil," a phrase invoked in the protest letter. But it is distinctly foreign to Washington's massive defense industry and certainly to the Pentagon, where the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, has often said a central goal is to increase the "lethality" of the United States military.
Business as usual (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead of helping them to make drone strikes more accurate, let's let the Pentagon continue to hit civilian bystanders too.
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I'm kind of surprised the engineers, of all people, don't remember the lesson from history that an AI would hopefully learn that the only winning move is not to play.
Re:Business as usual (Score:4, Insightful)
AI might come to that conclusion. Image recognition and guidance algorithms won't. We're not dealing with AI. We never are.
AI plays for itself (Score:2)
Some AIs exist, others do not. The ones that do will do so because they are fittest.
WWII carpet bombing was not better. Accurate is be (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a good point, to be balanced against the initial gut-reaction of not wanting your technology to be used militarily. Until fairly recently, war was waged by destroying the enemy *country*. Now we target individuals and small groups. We can do that now because we have accurate targeting.
In world war 2, only 20% of bombs hit within 1,000 feet of the target. Most hit within a mile radius, so the real target was something like "the west side of the city". By the gulf war, target radius was 10 meters, 30 feet. We could bomb a vehicle instead of a neighborhood.
If you are against war, it is clearly better to destroy a given vehicle than an entire neighborhood. Therefore more accurate targeting is better, it reduces deaths and injuries.
Re:WWII carpet bombing was not better. Accurate is (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that we're not at war. Or, maybe more accurately, we've always been at war with Eurasia. Improved accuracy finally realizes the dream of the US government to kill individuals from the air--in the future maybe from orbit. The concept that this is about protecting civilians is pretty laughable though.
In World War 2 if they had better targeting they would have killed more civilians, not less. The US and UK didn't firebomb Dresden and Tokyo by accident. At some level civilians were considered an acceptable target because they provided the continued means to wage war. Do you honestly think this is radically different today? Better facial recognition might improve accuracy on only killing the intended target, but are any of the intended targets not civilians? We're left with the words of US Intelligence to judge whether a person deserves execution.
I find the power and convenience of drone strikes frightening. I don't think making them better in any way is actually a real improvement.
PS - The real truth to me is the Military Industrial Complex wants the targeting because it costs money. As another poster pointed out, a small improvement in improving the targeting costs millions. Slightly better body armor costs millions more. It's all a game to drive up the cost of war because all the feigning of concern for life is good for business. At best that is secondary because clearly the goal is to kill people.
Why do you think we stopped carpet bombing? (Score:3)
> The concept that this is about protecting civilians is pretty laughable though.
>In World War 2 if they had better targeting they would have killed more civilians, not less.
> Do you honestly think this is radically different today?
Since the late 1950s we've had bombers that can carry 35 TIMES as much bomb payload as the largest bombers as WW2. A single B-52 sortie can level an area 1 mile by 2 miles. We stopped doing that the instant we got reliable precision guided bombs in the late 1970s. Why do
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In 2017, the US dropped over 32,000 bombs on Iraq/Syria.
In the Dresden firebombing, over 200,000 incidiary bombs, and over 15,000 high explosive bombs were dropped. That was in just 3 days. The number of bombs we drop in a given action is WAY down due to the high precision of most modern bombs. You no longer need to carpet bomb an entire city to take out a few high-value targets. A dozen JDAMs or cruise missiles and you get the same result - destruction of your high-value target. But you also have a LOT less collateral damage and civilian death. Orders of
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Bomber Command adopted the "dehousing" campaign because at that time they couldn't reliably hit anything smaller than a city at night. The intention remained to destroy housing, not kill people, although obviously a whole lot of people would die with a city-busting campaign. The USAAF tried precision bombing, but found it really didn't work under common European weather conditions, and did a lot more area bombing. In both cases, we see an attempt at precision bombing not work, and area bombing being ado
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There is a lot to be said though for keeping war messy. If it becomes to sterile and clean then the disincentive to engage in it starts to wane. In the US we already have enough trouble reigning in war hawks that want to use military might to resolve every conflict. Being in their positions of power largely protects them and their families from the dangers of war while they get to engage in profiting from it. Personally I'd like to see every congress critter be required to serve on the front lines as a non-
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I figure after a few rounds of that they'd have little trouble finding peaceful resolutions to more conflicts.messy
Damn Straight. We have to many leaders willing to lead from behind. Let a few congress critters or members of their immediate family spend some time getting shot at. I bet some minds will be changed pretty damn quick about somethings.
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It would be distinctly unwise to put the president out there on the front lines. Replacing the commander and chief is too much work, and would cause too much disruption to the daily function of the government. Congress Critters however are relatively cheap and easy to replace, and in reality, as a group, hold most of the power in our system of government. There are enough of them though that losing a few here and there wouldn't interrupt business much.
When political leaders were required to risk themselves
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That's a bit of an oversimplification. War probably started out as conflicts over hunting grounds or other territory. Hungry people whacking each other, up close and personal. Later it was refined to some noble wanting to distract his peasants from how hungry they were, so he marched a bunch of them up to some other noble's army and they stabbed or later shot each other at close range for a bit.
WWI was the big test of the new hotness, mechanized killing. WWII added dropping bombs from airplanes in the g
Re:Business as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's it. This discussion's pretty well covered, now.
Seriously, this is exactly the dilemma. Back when I did defense work (connected distantly to attacks), nobody ever had intention of hitting civilians. It was bad intel, bad guidance, or just a plain and simple screwup. We just kept trying to be better, adding more confirmations, better cameras, better training... and slowly things got better.
None of those improvements were cheap. A small improvement in image quality might mean a few hundred million dollars in expenses, mostly in paperwork to track exactly what work happened where and how, but if it provides the critical information to prevent a single bad mission, it's worth the price.
It's not a popular opinion, but it seems to me that war is inevitable. People are always finding new means and reasons to kill each other, and they'll do it with or without my help. The best we can do as engineers is to make sure that the attacks are as precise and successful as possible, to minimize the innocent casualties.If an AI can tell the difference in 10 pixels between a firearm flash or the sun reflecting off a camera lens, I'm all in favor of it.
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People are always finding new means and reasons to kill each other, and they'll do it with or without my help. The best we can do as engineers is to make sure that the attacks are as precise and successful as possible, to minimize the innocent casualties.If an AI can tell the difference in 10 pixels between a firearm flash or the sun reflecting off a camera lens, I'm all in favor of it.
100 years ago, the belief was that war could be ended if there were only more powerful weapons. Those weapons were created, and their creators [wikipedia.org] went on to regret [wikipedia.org] creating them. [wikipedia.org] Sure, people will continue to kill each other, but they can do it without my help.
History has taught us, war is a zero sum game. The only way to win is not to play.
I became an engineer to make the world better, not to tear it apart.
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That would make it a negative sum game.
Re: Business as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
History has taught us, war is a zero sum game. The only way to win is not to play.
This is by far the stupidest comment I've read in recent history. A zero sum game is, by definition, one in which a win for one side is a proportional loss for the other. If I want to play and you don't, you lose by default.
You have to be completely ignorant of human history to decide that "not playing" is a winning move.
Re: Ahem, Swiss Neutrality (Score:2)
Right, if nobody wants to play with you, you can stay out of the game. Not much of a party trick, that one. The real question is what do you do when they insist on playing.
Re: Ahem, Swiss Neutrality (Score:2)
Seemed to work for Switzerland during the World Wars, you seem to be ignorant of them "not playing".
Until they are forced to play - do you imagine, for even a second, if Germany had won WW2 that the concluding Nazis would have respected Switzerland's neutrality and been content with controlling nearly all of europe? To the Nazis, I imagine, leaving Switzerland alone was a calculated decision to save them for last, since they posed no threat to the nazis, why waste energy engaging them early in the battle?
Re: Business as usual (Score:2)
Collectively, not playing is the only way to win.
That would be grand if we were a collective. We are not.
There is something of a realisation (in the West, at least) that we're all basically the same. Whatever colour you are, whatever gender you are, wherever in the world you are - we're all basically the same.
In superficial traits, sure. In all the ways that matter? Hells no. Unless you think that Hitler and Einstein are basically the same, in which case go fuck yourself.
With that in mind, in a war, why are you killing the guy next door?
Because he wants to kill me, control me, and/or take my stuff.
What is achieved by dong so?
If I win I get to keep my stuff and enjoy my freedom. If he wins he gets my stuff and gets to control me or kill me.
More particularly, what is achieved in doing so that couldn't be achieved in other ways?
As soon as you find "other ways" to keep an invading army from taking over there's a Nobel Peace Prize with
Re:Business as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the U.S. and Soviet Union never went to direct war against each other, and that the eventual resolution to the Cold War was based on economics and politics, it seems to have worked. If you look at all the wars since Nagasaki was bombed, they've between two non-nuclear states, or between a nuclear state and a non-nuclear state. The nuclear states have steadfastly avoided direct war against each other. Even when one forcibly invades and annexes territory [wikipedia.org] which belongs to a non-nuclear state that other nuclear states have sworn to defend (ironically in exchange for giving up their nukes).
War is a zero sum game. But choosing not to play does not mean you're no longer a player - it does not raise an invincible shield around you. You simply get attacked and conquered by someone who plays, and the effect of your choice is nullified when you cease to exist. Your assets and resources get transferred to your conquerer. Choosing not to play doesn't mean you don't participate in the zero sum the game; it means you end up guaranteed to in the negative half of the zero sum game. It's like thermodynamics. Everyone likes to dream of all the things that are possible if you could simply quit the game. But the reality is that you're not allowed to quit. Even if every country and every person on Earth disarmed, all it would take is for one person to sharpen a stick and mug someone with it to start the process all over again.
War exists because of a simple economic reality - it's often cheaper to simply take assets and resources from your neighbors rather than work to build them up yourself. If you abstain from preparing for war, you do nothing to change that fundamental economic incentive. The way to avoid war is to make it more expensive for someone to take your assets and resources from you, than they stand to gain by taking them.
From an engineering perspective, you strive to make the world a better place, and to protect the better place you've made. If your government chooses to misuse the tools you've created to wage unjust wars, then the solution to that is a political modification of your government, not abstention. Abstention means someone who doesn't share your ideals invades and takes everything you've created for themselves.
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This is good stuff, and should be modded up for that.
It clearly shows how pacifism while in theory works, but in practice fails. And why rather than quitting, you should try to make changes.
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Source: http://www.pbs.org/video/putin... [pbs.org]
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which belongs to a non-nuclear state that other nuclear states have sworn to defend
Are you talking about the Budapest Memorandum? No where in there does it say that any of the signatories are sworn to defend the Ukraine:
1. Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty and the existing borders.
2. Refrain from the threat or use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
3. Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine in order to influence its politics.
4. Seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance t
Re: Business as usual (Score:2)
Please, stop with the "Russians threw the election" meme.
Can't you admit that:
A) Hillary tried a new kind of campaign
B) Hillary already lost one presidential campaign
C) Hillary was a horrible 'retail' candidate
D) Hillary prioritized fundraising over visiting several states in general campaign
E) Hillary was under active investigation personally during campaign for previous bad choices
F) Hillary faced a strong anti-Hillary headwind from her 30 years in the public eye
But instead you discount all that and argue
Duh, so is pooping, and eating (Score:2)
>War is not inevitable. Most wars are deliberately caused and/or fueled by people with something to gain.
Meals are deliberately caused by people who have something to gain (they are hungry). Inevitably, people will continue to eat. Chanting or putting your head in the sand won't change that.
I'm about to go to the restroom, because I'm uncomfortable right now. I have something to gain from heading to the restroom. Pooping is inevitable; people will keep doing it.
The difference between war and pooping i
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>> Wars will continue as long as nations exist.
> Probably true. I guess I support one world government after all.
Large countries almost invariably have civil wars. There larger the government, the bigger the stakes. People will always have different desires, which leads to power struggles. Power struggles writ large are war.
Perhaps the ideal, the scenario with the least amount of war (given the realities of human nature), is to have separate, autonomous areas where people can pretty much do their
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Nope. In 1982, Argentina attacked the Falklands/Malvinas, despite the fact that Britain was a nuclear power that could wipe out most Argentinian cities quite easily. That was one war not deterred by nukes.
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They are hitting innocent bystanders because they do not care. That will continue. They just want to be sure to hit the actual target as well.
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Instead of helping them to make drone strikes more accurate, let's let the Pentagon continue to hit civilian bystanders too.
I suspect Jevons paradox may also apply to drones.
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It is a valid personal choice that you have zero right to contest in any way. Upon a life balance basis, contributing more to life than you consume from it. Contributing to engineering specifically designed to kill, to rapaciously consume life, just killing it to kill it and diminish your life's worth to induce a completely undesirable negative balance. Your engineering potentially killing millions and placing that negative burden upon your spirit, is a self destructive obscenity and any living being as a i
Re: Business as usual (Score:2)
The googl E employees are 'good people's if and only if they actually resign their jobs if Google doesn't capitulate to their demands, otherwise they are toothless SJW who put the appearance of seeming virtuous ahead of actually being virtuous.
Re:Google rapidly self-destructing. U.S. gov viole (Score:5, Insightful)
That article could have made some great points if it backed up any of its assertions with facts and data, and avoided terms like "white patriarchy" as its scapegoat.
WRONG. U.S. military causes more war than anyone (Score:3, Informative)
Here is former senior CIA officer Michael Scheuer explaining the concept of "blowback."
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DAt6Pf7jZjA
The U.S. government's interventionist foreign policy has sparked countless wars and inspired nearly every major Islamic terrorist movement in modern history. The military is the most expensive, destructive big government program of all. If you value peace and safety, BRING THE TROOPS HOME.
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Re: WRONG. U.S. military causes more war than anyo (Score:3, Interesting)
You clearly know nothing about foreign affairs. Look up Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), as well as the work of Chalmers Johnson and Robert Pape.
The military is the biggest of all big government programs. Nothing wastes more money than the military, not to mention the human cost.
It is impossible to claim to be for "limited government" and simultaneously be an imperial warmonger.
As Randolph Bourne said, "War is the health of the state."
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Where in the Constitution does it allow the USA government to be the world police?
Congress has not the guts to issue a declaration of war since Pearl Harbor.
All three branches of government have abdicated their responsibility to oversee a military-industrial complex run amuck.
What next? Sending troops and predators to the Mexican border?
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"What next? Sending troops and predators to the Mexican border?"
Yes, this is next. A permeable border is a strategic flaw that can lead to military incursion, but is more likely to be the source of economic and cultural warfare which will weaken, divide, and subvert a country. Any sensible country which possesses the economic and military wherewithal to defend their borders will do so.
It remains to be seen if the US will ever have such sensibility in its people and leaders.
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"What next? Sending troops and predators to the Mexican border?"
There's a thought. Let's just make the souther boarder, or both borders, game preserves with lots of lions, tigers, and bears. Perhaps stock our sea borders with sharks (and lasers).
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Take your own advice.
Monroe only thought the US owned half the world.
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Would anyone prefer to send their kids into a battlefield, rather than robots?
Probably not. So having an army of people who are someones kids makes a nation much more reluctant to engage in war. Seems like a good thing to me. The less painful war is, the bigger the temptation to play with all the shiny toys.
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Re: Business as usual (Score:2)
Because your allies need weapons too. Duh.
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This would be to increase analysis thus decreasing collateral damage. That is a good thing (except save that highly accurate stuff might increase a tendency to use it, but I doubt that is their point.)
A better question is the development of that kind of capability at all, as it makes it easier for a smaller cabal to rule with their robots.
Of course our government leads the charge in creating a panopticon with little more than a checkbox, "You did bother to get a warrant, right?" to catch a few criminals, a
Re: Business as usual (Score:2)
The USA is not involved in any defensive wars right now
Points to the southern border of the US...
there is no reason to support an active military during what should be a time of peace.
not
Right, because we can spin-up any appropriate size military response in a moment's notice when under attack, right? That's like saying there's no need to invest and maintain a backup datacenter to support your corporation when there's no emergency - just keep a Sunguard brochure in your top desk drawer and when disaster strikes, just call them up and order up a backup datacenter solution when you need it.
SMH
Update from Google (Score:5, Funny)
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We need more virtue signaling from them
Can you please outline how you envision more virtue signaling from them without getting into outright illegal territory?
Yet... (Score:2, Insightful)
They apparently have no problem with their employer providing anonymized telephone service to illegal telemarketers.
comes naturally (Score:3, Insightful)
Naturally
You don't have to really make that interpretation on your own.
See we have these helpful smart people to tell us how to form opinions.
In addition to figuring out how to search web pages what else would any engineer naturally learn really good?
The military does evil things.
Of course !!
Please don't bother disagreeing with this. We are all very mentally exhausted from all the smart things we do all the time. Rubix cube pagaentry and all that takes its toll, so don't be an insensitive clod.
Killing is evil. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Killing is evil. (Score:4, Insightful)
Right now the tools that we have at our disposal not only kill the intended target, but typically a few other people who may not need killing or are perhaps completely innocent such that no one could claim that they deserve any rebuke, let alone death. Unfortunately that collateral damage doesn't do enough to outweight the benefit from killing those who need to be killed. Improving our tools would allow us to spare those innocents from an unfortunate fate. One could just as well argue that refusing to make a better tool that would reduce collateral damage is morally evil.
Perhaps in the future we'll have even better tools and it won't be necessary to kill anyone at all, but that does us little good in the here and now, and we're unlikely to make an immediate leap to that point without the same kind of gradual and incremental improvement that drives humanity forward.
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"Otherwise you could extend the same logic to conclude the jailing people indefinitely is inherently evil as well."
It is. Sometimes it may be necessary as "the lesser of two evils" as the GP pointed out. It's something you might do if there's no other option.
Even then, countries with modern justice systems have found that in the vast majority of cases it's better to rehabilitate prisoners.
Re: Killing is evil. (Score:2)
Like norway, where a mass murderer gets 15 years for killing dozens of children at a summer camp?
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Christians believe that God can never commit evil.
Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi. [wikipedia.org]
For some reason this story made me think of this: (Score:5, Funny)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Writi... [reddit.com]
(worth a short read and funny as heck)
Here's an idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
(Just sayin..) If you don't like what the company you work for does, it might be time to find a new place to work... Just tell HR on your way out the door why you are leaving. Trust me, it will have a bigger impact than this PR campaign to shame your employer into refusing business that you don't personally like, with the added bonus that it won't run the risk of getting you branded a troublemaker or having to get fired. It's never a good idea to bite the hand that feeds you.
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Quitting would be a reasonable third step, but it's pretty stupid to quit as a first step. First complain, then petition, then quit. If an employee quits first, then they're not giving management a chance to respond/react and improve the situation.
Also, if all the people opposed to the project quit, then no one at Google will be opposed to the project and it will continue. Quitting first just gives the company a clear path to keep doing what they are doing.
When something like this comes up it is important t
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If you don't like what the company you work for does, it might be time to find a new place to work...
Are you kidding? That takes effort. I'd much rather just sign a piece of paper that someone else wrote.
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If you don't like what the company you work for does, it might be time to find a new place to work...
Are you kidding? That takes effort. I'd much rather just sign a piece of paper that someone else wrote.
Sure, I would too... But I'm going to insist that this paper is a good check made out to me before I sign and cash it.
I'm certainly NOT going to create a negative PR campaign with my current employer as its target... Mainly because those pay checks would likely stop (and I do like to feed my family). ALSO if you worked for my company and did this, you'd be escorted from the premises with your personal items and the promise that your last paycheck will be in the mail and a note in your file that says you wo
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Yeah I know, I was just being facetious. The point is I'm willing to bet that the 3100 people don't actually give a damn. Or maybe 3099 of them don't, one of them actually bothered to write it, so they care.
Re: Here's an idea... (Score:2)
Except they won't resign. The reason they signed the letter is to take the place of them actually resigning.
They arrogantly simultaneously believe that Google can't function without them and that only Google can do the work requested by the military, therefore if they can prevent goog or from doing the work they can save the world from more accurate bombs AND keep their six-figure paychevks, win-win!
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
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You know it's condescending bullshit like that which helped Trump win, right?
Yup, and it's a damn good thing he did.
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Well, he said "...my company...", so asking for the source sounds like you didn't actually read his post.
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Pay me 500k a year and I don't care if you help out the government. It's why you get paid the 500k, to focus on the job and not partisan political issues. If you pay taxes, you helped fund the Pentagon AI project more than being a part of Google's workforce.
Too late... (Score:3)
They gave up on the whole "don't be evil" schtick a long time ago...
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A good thing (Score:2)
uses artificial intelligence to interpret video imagery and could be used to improve the targeting of drone strikes
Isn't improved targeting a good thing? Like, kill the bad guys not civilians?
Globalism is as globalism does (Score:4, Insightful)
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Makes you all look like children.
You make some valid points. However, calling people "snowflakes" makes you look pretty childish yourself. Otherwise, thank you for your comments.
Skynet anyone?? (Score:2)
I mean really have any of the brass hats seen any of those movies/series??
besides its never a good idea to build your replacement before you have an Exit Plan
on the bright side... (Score:2)
If google were to stop working on all these projects for the feds, they'd be less subject to the equal employment opportunity record-keeping spotlight they are currently under.
<tinfoil>By giving up some small federal contract, they get to keep discriminating? Genius!</tinfoil>
And the SJW parade marches on (Score:5, Interesting)
As a conservative, I have to admit I pretty much poo-pooh'd the Left's paranoia being victimized by big data and government; TBTH I assumed it would probably end up being my side that was going to be doing any of the oppressive stuff so I was probably ok.
But how the tables have turned: now the Leftists at Google have made me actually start to get nervous about how they're going to use my data - my searches, my friends, the things I think are important - against me "for my own good" of course.
I watch Demolition Ranch and occasionally watch gun reviews on Youtube. Has google accumulated a "crazy ass gun fanatic" file on me, and thus decided to single me out for special watching, filtering what I'm going to get from searches or even Cambridge Analytica-style aggressive, 'therapeutic' propaganda to "correct" my clearly aberrant leanings?
Thanks google, for making me think like the paranoid nutballs I generally mock.
Because we have no enemies! (Score:2)
Because we have no enemies — only friends, whose grievances we've failed to address so far. Let's elect another Obama to make the entire world love us once again.
Precise weapon is a human weapon.
Too much peace (Score:2)
Which nation would these fine Googlers prefer have the most advanced AI, if not the US?
The motto has changed (Score:3)
As much as I'd like to support this... (Score:2)
I know that Russia or China getting weapons grade AI would be a disaster, and they're *not* going to be constrained by moral hand-wringing.
It's better to be able to fight and not have to (Score:5, Insightful)
My father is a US Marine, retired. One thing he told me that was instilled into him by the corps that has always stuck in my mind is "never start a fight, but if you find yourself in one be damned sure you finish it." I want the men and women who serve our country and our allies to be able to come home and the end of the day and hug their spouses and children. And, if that means that we give them the tools to do their job then I will be happy to help them get those tools.
I would be incredibly happy if we never again had to send men and women off to fight a war. And, I really would like to see the day when no one goes off to war. But, as long as there are bad people in this world who try to hurt people, dictators, despots, petty warlords, etc... then we need a military that can protect us and sometimes goes abroad to stop the bad people over there before they can come here and hurt people.
As for why we keep getting embroiled in wars much of it stems from a post WWII mentality developed by the US and the UK. If you've never read Churchill's writings I encourage you to. He may be a bit full of himself, but he laid out a lot of WWII and the immediate aftermath quite well and you will learn a lot of at least what he thought during the war years. But, he calls out that the US and UK looked at the war and never wanted something like it to happen again. They saw a rising threat in the old Soviet Union especially after the Soviets didn't retreat from the European countries they "liberated" during the war. And, those leaders decided the best defense was a strong offense.
So we keep seeking out conflicts while they hopefully remain "smaller" and before they can grow into something the likes of WWII. We keep trying to contain threats and neutralize them before they can become another Pearl Harbor or a Poland. Yes, that means we fight. Yes, that means some people die. But, better fewer people while a conflict can remain relatively small than after it has grown beyond hopes of containment and impacts too many people.
"We learn karate so that we don't have to use karate." Those are some of the first words my sensei in college ever said to my class in college. I think it's a very apt statement. We learn to fight, so that hopefully we never have to fight. Because if the other guy knows that we can and will fight back he might just not want to fight us at all. I know very few men and women in the military who want to get shot at or die. I know quite a few who want to go home to their spouses and their children and be proud of what they do and not be haunted by nightmares or suffer PTSD. Let's make sure they have the tools to do their jobs so that they can come home, and that they don't have to fight, or at least if they have to that they can limit who gets hurt.
Re:It's better to be able to fight and not have to (Score:4, Informative)
Problem is, with the possible exception of Afghanistan, US foreign policy since the resolution of that Pearl Harbour thing has basically been about starting an almost continuous string of fights.
Re:It's better to be able to fight and not have to (Score:4, Informative)
Though the US has definitely been too cavalier about throwing its military around since WWII, I can think of two counterexamples to your statement. The Korean War in the 50's was started by an invasion of the South by N. Korea, which was a USSR client at the time.
The 'first' Gulf War in the 90's was started by an invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.
You can argue whether the US should have intervened in either, but the US didn't start either one and especially in the case of Korea didn't want that fight at the time given how quickly the S. Korea/US/UN forces were so quickly overwhelmed at the beginning.
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Not even Afghanistan. [theguardian.com] Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laddin if the USG presented some evidence that he was guilty of what they were accusing him of doing. But, like the successful weapons inspections going on in Iraq, this was ignored in favor an an illegal invasion.
They do start fights, and they create despots (Score:2)
That's a nice sentiment but it runs in the face of actual US actions. The US does start wars. They used 9/11 as a pretense to invade two countries. They sabotaged and deposed democratically elected governments. This last point especially makes the pearl clutching over supposed foreign interference in the last American election impossibly naive, and is a form of American myth making that both political wings refuse to deviate from.
The reference to Pearl Harbor in particular is very illustrative. It was exact
Re: They do start fights, and they create despots (Score:2)
Japan was already willing to make peace, as their cities had already been reduced to rubble by conventional bombing.
The U.S. Demanded something more than "make peace", we sought, and secured, unconditional surrender of Japan - Japan wanted a time-out to re-arm.
At the end of WW2, before their unconditional surrender, Japan resorted to arming grandmothers with pitchforks, and using pilots in suicide missions, and soldiers in the field were blowing themselves up to avoid surrendering to US forces. The Japanese were not willing to surrender, they were willing to stop being killed.
Where was the Japanese offer of unconditional
Lethality != Evil (Score:2)
Go back to 'dumb bombs' that are targeted on where we think the Bad Guys -might- be?
Adopt the indiscriminate attacks on civilians that are so common to our "less restrained" opposition?
If wars must be fought, and thousands of years of history say they will be, then let them be fought as cleanly and effectively as possible. It is indeed the mission of any military to kill people and break things
The engineers have a choice (Score:2)
If the prospect of working for a company engaged in some activity that they find offensive, then they can leave that employer.
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Unless is profitable, OR something that people in Red states enjoy doing like shooting guns or calling someone that looks like a woman a woman. Then it's OK to drop the ban hammer on them.
That is not true (Score:2)
Your reference starts off with the statement '"Don't be evil" is the motto of Google's corporate code of conduct. You've gotten confused by the media.
Google still exists as a subsidiary of Alphabet. Both have a "Code of Conduct" publicly published in their investor relations site.
Alphabet's Code of Conduct [abc.xyz] uses the phrase "do the right thing" in the lede. It is not in quotes to suggest that it should be their motto, but the media has written about it as such and, incorrectly, called it a change in Google's
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When the drone fires its missile do you want it to have a 5% chance of hitting civilians or 1% chance. Once you realize you don't get to decide if the missile is fired you will realize spending money to ensure fewer civilian casualties makes sense.
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Bright college kids were tricked into developing a targeting system for the military. They hacked the weapon during a demonstration and had it fire the laser into their advisor's house, which comically popped a houseful of pop corn.
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We've had various licenses that did that. But they never became part of the GPL or BSD licenses. IIRC, one license said you couldn't use the code on anything connected to nuclear devices. I think that one came from MicroSoft, though, so it was hardly open source.
Personally, I generally prefer Free Software over Open Source, though you could call Free Software a subset of Open Source.