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

• sqdbps 9y ago
  "As Google defends its contracts from internal dissent, its competitors have not been shy about publicizing their own work on defense projects. Amazon touts its image recognition work with the Department of Defense, and Microsoft has promoted the fact that its cloud technology won a contract to handle classified information for every branch of the military and defense agencies." Google should stop hiring activists and start hiring pragmatists.
  • tzakrajs 9y ago
    "Google won't take a defense contract and has shed defense projects in the past" was a common theme at Google. Recruiters and employees actively advertised this as a feature of Google's not being evil.
    • sqdbps 9y ago
      They should stop doing that. I mean who's stopping China from using AI powered military robots? they should think about the bigger picture. Also I think they should invoke AI powered military robots in recruiting, what's cooler than that?!
      • wz1000 9y ago
        "Don't say that he's hypocritical Rather say that he's apolitical Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department, says says Werner von Braun" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro
        • deleted 9y ago
          [deleted]
      • komali2 9y ago
        Realistically... how does this affect a senior AI programmer? I'd argue the more skilled and, well, rich, you become, the less national borders really matter. Unless you're patriotic, I guess. >What's cooler than that Speak for yourself! I would find that disgusting. A given company's culture doesn't have to appeal to everyone, it wouldn't be much of a culture if it did.
      • opportune 9y ago
        not killing innocent people in Yemen because they happened to be born into a Shia family is a little bit cooler IMO That is literally the application of drone technology right now. The application of AI in drones is going to be used in a proxy/civil war in a poor country because one of the US's allies is composed of religious freaks. That's it. So unless you want to be complicit in killing innocent people because people in this country like cheap oil, hopefully you won't see this as very cool: http://www.newsweek.com/wedding-became-funeral-us-still-silent-one-year-deadly-yemen-drone-strike-291403 http://www.newsweek.com/wedding-became-funeral-us-still-sile... (although this wasn't technically part of the civil war, it's still a highly relevant example)
    • s3r3nity 9y ago
      Didn't Google drop its "Don't be evil" motto a few years ago?
      • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
        No, this is a common misconception. Google still has "Don't be evil", but Alphabet also now has "Do the right thing". Both are hilarious in the context of what Google actually does.
        • deleted 9y ago
          [deleted]
    • Gargoyle 9y ago
      Do Google employees actually believe this?
      • tzakrajs 9y ago
        Supposedly, and this is hearsay, but when Google bought Skybox Imaging, they cancelled their government contract(s) and kept the private ones. The idea commonly believed amongst employees there was that they did not want to provide intelligence services to the federal government.
  • mtgx 9y ago
    They'll start at image recognition and they'll end up doing much more in the end, especially if their government contracts keep increasing in value. Why go down this path at all? Google doesn't need to be a war contractor (I think "defense contractor" is a misnomer these days - we all know what this tech is used for: bloody violent and usually unfair/illegal war). Google should avoid becoming a sponsor of death in the world. What happened to "changing the world" (for the better, I assume)? Is feeding the American war machine changing the world for the better? Really?
    • laughingman2 9y ago
      The defenders of american military in this thread have forgotten that for the past half century, the american war machine has commited war crimes across the world. If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdD9uSrNFT4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdD9uSrNFT4 https://chomsky.info/1990____-2/ https://chomsky.info/1990____-2/ It is commendable that employees with moral fibre at google are saying no to the industrial war machine, that feeds on global conflict. And there is no apriori reason as to argue that military funding is the only way to do ground breaking research. Ironic that some in the political spectrum who generally defend the military also feverently view goverment spending as inefficient to markets.
  • celticninja 9y ago
    Google is used by individuals whereas AWS and MS are predominantly the clients of industry, who are much less activist and much more pragmatic.
    • sqdbps 9y ago
      Funny, I thought the "A" in AWS stands for Amazon where I as an individual bought a thing recently using my MS Windows powered PC, again as an individual.
      • rabidrat 9y ago
        The "A" in AWS stands for "AWS". If you don't have a separate AWS bill then you're not using AWS.
  • nharada 9y ago
    It makes you an activist to not want to work on certain projects because you disagree with them?
    • DannyBee 9y ago
      This actually has a simple definitional answer: If your goal in not working on them is to bring about political or social change as a result, then you are, by definition, an activist. If not, no :)
      • PeterStuer 9y ago
        Doesn't by the same logic working on them, and thus implicitly supporting the political or societal status quo, make you an activist as well?
        • DannyBee 9y ago
          This isn't logic, i literally quoted the dictionary at them :) (though i admit different dictionaries seem to have fairly different definitions here)
  • pvg 9y ago
    Google should stop hiring activists Google hasn't been doing that, ever. That's really the point of the story - the agency of the people who work at Google.
  • adamsea 9y ago
    I never realized pragmatic was the antonym of active /s
  • tlb 9y ago
    A large fraction of the world's best engineers don't want to be associated with military projects. So companies have a choice to hire them and not do military projects, or not hire them and do them. When I was running a robot company, I made the decision to not do military projects (mostly for personal reasons) and it helped me hire some great people that I couldn't have otherwise.
    • astura 9y ago
      A "large fraction" has to be a huge overstatement. I have an extremely difficult time believing a "large fraction" of top tier engineers won't work on a military project simply because its associated with the military. More like a very small minority. That number becomes "almost zero" when not taking the military project means having to make a career change. Ive been around the block a few times, I've worked in the defense industry myself and I've worked in non-defense private sector as well. The quality and quantity of engineers are extremely similar in my experience. Don't forget, a lot of the tech we use everyday started as military projects, such as the Internet and GPS. Even Siri has its roots as part of a DARPA project. You really think the engineers involved in those technologies are second tier?
    • dkhenry 9y ago
      [citation needed] on why you think there is a large fraction of the worlds best engineers that don't want to be associated with military projects. It has been my experience that the best engineers want to work on hard problems and solve the worlds pressing needs, that sometimes puts them right in the middle of military projects. For instance almost every modern technological breakthrough has been accomplished by or for a military project, and most large technology companies have done work with the military ( and not just modern technology, historically all the big engineering firms helped with military technology ).
      • astura 9y ago
        I've previously worked in defense contracting, as I've said in a sibling comment. Getting DARPA money is seen as extremely awesome and exciting in the industry because it usually means you get to work on amazing futuristic technology that they private sector would never fund and without needing a strategy for monetization. Anyways, is working on software to, for example, improve the day-to-day tasks of soliders and marines really morally inferior to selling people's private data to advertisers? - Most military projects do not involve tactical systems. Let's be honest here, building the "Uber of salads" doesn't change the world. The out of touch hubis displayed in the GP comment is pretty infuriating.
  • Mvandenbergh 9y ago
    AI talent is operating in a sellers market right now. It's up to Google to act in such a way that the people they want to hire want to work there.
  • pretendscholar 9y ago
    Pragmatist must mean greed over morality. I don't see how you can turn a blind eye to the ethically dubious actions of the US Military.
    • dwaltrip 9y ago
      It's unproductive to cast aside as malevolent the opinions of reasonable people who disagree with you.
      • pretendscholar 9y ago
        It's unproductive to sneeringly cast aside the concerns of Google Employees as starry eyed activism but here we are. Its uncontroversial to state that the US military has committed war crimes and engaged in military campaigns across the world in spite of international law. Google is working the military to expand the capabilities to carry out these attacks and to work on these projects is to either agree ideologically that the U.S. military should have these capabilities or to turn a blind eye to its uses for a cushy salary and a chance to play with state of the art toys for your day job. Between the two, the later is far more palatable to me so I feel I'm being quite generous by labeling it as greed.
        • dwaltrip 9y ago
          > Its uncontroversial to state that the US military has committed war crimes and engaged in military campaigns across the world in spite of international law. I don't disagree with this. The question I'm trying to figure out -- which powerful nation should we look to for an example on how to do better? Also, are there are any benefits to the U.S. maintaining hegemony as the top military power that we need to weigh in this analysis? I definitely am not fully up to speed on the details of this debate, but it does appear fairly complex at first glance.
          • pretendscholar 9y ago
            Sure in the same way that the Macedonians and Mongols were good for the Silk Road, the United States and the Bretton Woods system is fantastic for international shipping and suppressing regional conflicts. Even if the US is a net positive I believe that almost none of the campaigns it has engaged in the last 20 years have done anything to contribute to that. I can't abide by that and would urge anyone with a conscience to do the same.
• vowelless 9y ago
  On one hand, I reluctantly appreciate Trump's election because it will force silicon valley to think many times before readily giving up user privacy to the US government. I felt like the attitude was very lax under Obama (despite the Snowden revelations). On the other hand, this bothers me a bit because it continues to allow people in the valley to maintain a (sorry to use this word) delusion that what they are doing is "moral". If Google stops working with the Pentagon after this petition, people in the valley will pat their backs and enjoy how they are making the world a better place. They will not have any incentive to rethink the sale of user data to advertisers, creating highly addictive mentally harmful products, etc. Overall, it's good that at least people in the valley are somewhat mindful of their actions and care about society (compared my current industry, finance). I hope they can be successful at a deeper level.
  • untog 9y ago
    > On the other hand, this bothers me a bit because it continues to allow people in the valley to maintain a (sorry to use this word) delusion that what they are doing is "moral" > They will not have any incentive to rethink the sale of user data to advertisers Is it not possible that one will lead to the other? We're seeing the beginnings of a real examination of the power Silicon Valley giants have. Recent revelations about Facebook, amongst others, shows that awareness of advertising profiles etc. is increasing as well.
  • airstrike 9y ago
    Being “mindful of their actions” doesn’t necessarily mean they are doing the right thing. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don’t really get why anyone would want drones to be less accurate, but maybe that just means I’m just a no-good warmongering fool, right?
    • smokeyj 9y ago
      > but maybe that just means I’m just a no-good warmongering fool, right? More specifically, a warmongering fool who can't discern a false dichotomy - because your options in life are rarely ever drones vs more lethal drones. These regions we're using drones in. They could probably use more tools to enable true democratic representation. Isn't that what Google should be doing, given that they "don't do evil"? Building tools to blow people up seems slightly counter intuitive.
• jryan49 9y ago
  Maybe if they were more accurate they would kill less people?
  • tclancy 9y ago
    Maybe if they're more accurate the marginal cost of killing people in other parts of the world will go down even more so we'll be even less likely to reflect on whether the fact we can easily use robots to kill people on the other side of the world who have no way of responding symmetrically might come back to bite us in the ass?
    • jimmaswell 9y ago
      I don't think the marginal cost of these things has been that much of a consideration in the past. Less American military personnel will be put in harm's way as technology like this advances. Maybe wars will even be mostly unmanned remotely controlled machine-vs-machine in the future.
      • tclancy 9y ago
        I was using that phrase a little loosely to mean "Fewer American soldiers being hurt or killed".
    • airstrike 9y ago
      Nobody cares how many dimes those drones cost. War isn’t fought using the cheapest means available, but the most effective. Have you seen the size of the U.S. military budget? This country will continue to meddle in international affairs and, on occasion, get involved in bloody battles. Such is life. War is an integral part of our civilization and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. You can’t just wish it away.
      • tclancy 9y ago
        I feel like this would all be a little more interesting coming from a different username.
• mrybczyn 9y ago
  Google+Alphabet yearly revenues are in the same ballpark as South Africa's GDP. Google/Alphabet is already a country in its own right, and libertarians would already be sceptical of Google's role in society. This is just another step down a long road of Technocracy... Also, wasn't "Don't be evil" dropped as a motto? I thought I read that.
  • rhacker 9y ago
    Yes when Eric joined.
  • galieos_ghost 9y ago
    Do you consider all the great scientists who helped the US military during WWII evil? Would you have preferred they sat on the sideline for moral reasons and allowed Germany to win?
    • adamsea 9y ago
      Sorry, which war are we fighting now, and against whom? There’s a vaguesly worded Authorization of Use of Military Force, I think, from post 9/11, but, last I checked the US hasn’t declared war on anyone.
  • airstrike 9y ago
    Countries aren’t defined by the size of their economy but, at the very least, the monopoly of violence. Google doesn’t hold such a monopoly and likely never will...
    • jadedhacker 9y ago
      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.
      • airstrike 9y ago
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• AndrewKemendo 9y ago
  Oh boy. Being on the inside of Maven, I can't tell you how confused these Googlers are.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • otterley 9y ago
    If you're not going to explain for the rest of us, what was the point of this comment?
    • AndrewKemendo 9y ago
      To communicate that the people on the inside of Google who are making these protestations are grossly uninformed about the Google-Maven relationship. Choose to believe me or not. My background is all out there for people to see.
      • Darthy 9y ago
        When it comes to life-or-death questions, we should make informed decisions. "Just trust me" fundamentally lacks any valuable information that furthers the discussion. In addition, "just trust me" also endangers less clear thinking people to sway based on emotion instead of well-founded cold hard facts.
        • AndrewKemendo 9y ago
          The reality of Defense/Intelligence is that you do have to just trust some of us.
          • notburnt 9y ago
            The reality of being a citizen of the US is that the intel community doesn't make it easy to do so.
          • 9y ago
• yuhong 9y ago
  My favorite: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/eric-schmidt-google-new-america.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/eric-schmidt-... I wonder if Eric Schmidt left Google because of this.
  • mashedvikings 9y ago
    Not sure if the article claims Eric Schmidt was ousted. But Schmidt has worked for the pentagon since 2016 http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/02/technology/eric-schmidt-pentagon/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/02/technology/eric-schmidt-pent...
    • yuhong 9y ago
      He left quite a bit later after the article was posted. I was wondering whether this article helped.
• meri_dian 9y ago
  >"...that uses artificial intelligence to interpret video imagery and could be used to improve the targeting of drone strikes." These drone strikes have been happening for decades without interpretive AI, and they will probably continue with or without. So let's make the strikes more precise and save more civilians. >"But improved analysis of drone video could be used to pick out human targets for strikes, while also better identifying civilians to reduce the accidental killing of innocent people."
  • shadofx 9y ago
    The need for human operators to identify targets serves as a hard logistical limit to how many drone strikes can be delivered. Turning them into a machine removes that limit. Suppose you decrease error rate by 10% (optimistic), but increase volume by 20% (probably underestimated). You'll get an 8% increase in innocent deaths.
    • meri_dian 9y ago
      Where are you coming up with those percentages? Why are you assuming that human operators will be removed from the decision making process?
    • walshemj 9y ago
      The hard logistical limit is the cost and the number of airframes.
      • titzer 9y ago
        No, it actually is the amount of eyeballs to analyze drone footage. They literally have so much footage feeding in that they can no longer review it with humans. This tech is designed to make the surveillance dragnet feeding into military decisions more automated and efficient.
• CharlesMerriam2 9y ago
  Business Ethics is the art of finding a company whose ethics are close enough to your own. Asking the business to reconsider before leaving is legitimate.
• rahulmehta95 9y ago
  This may be an uncomfortable fact but people have surprisingly short memories: the military funded the majority of the early advances in systems, networking, and cryptography (and especially as a large part of the latter subject area, invested heavily in fundamental, theoretical research). Not saying that I disagree with the employees' opinion, just that DoD/Pentagon involvement in artificial intelligence research shouldn't be viewed as a necessarily bad thing. Many other major powers have heavily invested in AI across all fronts (including military applications), and it would be stupid for the US to not have one of its' largest strategic assets to not be part of the process.
  • sigi45 9y ago
    It still is. It is not necessary for world peace to help the Pentagon to build better killing machines.
    • airstrike 9y ago
      Citation needed
      • rhizome 9y ago
        Sure, I'll bite. Just falsify it: the Pentagon's killing machines have never brought about world peace, and world peace has never occurred while the Pentagon received killing machines.
        • airstrike 9y ago
          You say that as if “world peace” was an attainable goal in any realistic timeframe. War doesn’t exist because people “hate peace”.
          • rhizome 9y ago
            I didn't bring world peace into the thread, but at any rate there's also the saying that "All war represents a failure of diplomacy," which I tend to agree with. I also think "are indifferent toward" should replace "hate" there.
• mtgx 9y ago
  This has been by far one of the most shameful things Google has done. And their excuse that "they're only analyzing images" is a joke. Analyzing the images and "identifying objects" (their words) is probably 95-99% of the job in a drone strike. So if they're trying to make people think that their role is minimal in drone strikes, they're failing hard at that. I also think Eric Schimidt, who until last December was both Alphabet Chairman and working for the Pentagon, played a big role in this. Now he's still a "technical advisor" but if he continues working for the Pentagon I'd prefer he has no official affiliation with Alphabet. It seems Schmidt would like Google/Alphabet and Pentagon to have a much deeper relationship, if you can read between the lines in this post: http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/01/pentagon-needs-its-own-google-all-its-data-says-eric-schmidt/134456/ http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/01/pentagon-needs-...
  • SmirkingRevenge 9y ago
    So is it simply per se shameful to develop technology for the military, or is there a more nuanced moral argument that this sentiment comes from? Or is there something specific to Google's Maven project that makes it shameful, while other types of military commissioned projects might not be?
    • waisbrot 9y ago
      Slightly more nuanced. I think there is a clear difference between, say, selling food to the military (the service you provide generally allows the military to run better and the military is frequently responsible for killing people) versus selling bullets to the military (the service you provide allows the military to kill people). Weapons-targeting systems clearly falls into the latter category. I've worked on military-funded projects for machine translation and I don't feel guilty about that. I would not work on projects (military-funded or otherwise) that were used for targeting. I think that my position is internally-consistent.
      • SmirkingRevenge 9y ago
        Fair points. I think I agree with you that there is a distinction to be made between say, selling food and making bullets - the latter being a direct tool of violence. Its perfectly reasonable for a person to decide they would rather not spend their short time on earth developing such tools (especially if it would be easy for bad actors to abuse them). I suppose that is the objection many Googlers are making.
• robert_foss 9y ago
  As an engineer I have serious moral qualms about furthering the goals of any military. Contributing means being complicit. The fact that the military funds research doesn't change that.
  • criley2 9y ago
    As an engineer I have serious moral qualms about not furthering the goals of our military. After all, I would not be here, and my job would not exist, and the freedom I have to do this work would not exist, if soldiers like my grandfather hadn't stepped up to Hitler and Stalin and Mao and say "No, you're wrong, and we're willing to use violence to protect our way of life". Just my 2c but I definitely respect the ultimate sacrifice that my grandparents generation gave to create this quite nifty Liberty bubble that these few generations get to play in.
    • tclancy 9y ago
      That's a fair point but it also treats life as a zero sum game that's played in a steady-state arena where the threat of Tartars over the next hill is ever present. That's a good way to prevent progress and to defend yourself perfectly against the Last War but one would think the last 30 years of terrorism would have shown us the flaw in that. Put another way: who benefits from $Giant_New_Military_Platform like new fighter planes? They don't really keep me safe as a citizen of the US: they don't prevent terrorists and they don't threaten other thermonuclear states. Yet we spend trillions on stuff like this any justify it with bellicose rhetoric and it seems like the only people benefiting from it are people selling it.
      • chiefalchemist 9y ago
        Agree. And to that I'll add, it was an ex general and ex POTUS who coined the term (or at least etched it into history): Military Industrial Complex Yet most act like that "friendly reminder" never happened. The collective memory is in fact short.
        • 9y ago
• GiorgioG 9y ago
  Google is a huge company, turning down big money from the US Gov't for legal purposes is probably not a realistic option (at what point would shareholders sue if they turned down hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue?)
  • Mvandenbergh 9y ago
    Never, successfully, considering that the absolute control of the founders was made clear at IPO and at all subsequent points.
  • IAmEveryone 9y ago
    They can sue all they want. But they'll lose. A petition by 3000 employees (or, to be honest, 30) is enough to claim that it was in the company's interest to forgo this revenue to improve their standing among potential hires. Remember that tech companies live and die by the quality of their workforce. Moreover, the idea that companies always have to act according to strict profit motivations is a myth. Just look at the billions corporations spend each year on charitable causes. Yes, you could claim that these donations are done for PR purposes. But that would render your argument meaningless, because I can reframe any such altruistic actions in terms of PR. I have also personally witnessed many decisions that cost money but served some greater good and were never publicised.
    • AndyNemmity 9y ago
      It isn't a myth that companies have to act due to strict profit motivations. It's law. The example you used on charitable causes, falls directly into marketing.
      • IAmEveryone 9y ago
        It's a law in Delaware, only. It is almost never litigated. You haven't addressed my point that any altruistic motive can be reframed as marketing and that therefore the law is largely meaningless.
• ChuckMcM 9y ago
  While I appreciate the engineers speaking out, it isn't really practical for a company the size of Google, with the resources it has, to not have programs that work with the military in one form or another. If, as an engineer, it is against your moral code to do any work that supports the military, your choices are limited to working in small companies where everyone is focused on the commercial products and services you are delivering. And even then, as some games companies found out, the CEO might do some collaborative work with the military for training or something. It should come as no surprise that Google teams up with the Federal government on things.
  • Eridrus 9y ago
    > While I appreciate the engineers speaking out, it isn't really practical for a company the size of Google, with the resources it has, to not have programs that work with the military in one form or another. This is nonsense, Google has plenty of revenue and other non-defense avenues for growth. Companies are not beholden to chase every last dollar, especially if it could alienate their workforce. I don't have the same anti-defense leanings as others around here, but to say Google has no choice is ridiculous. Google probably couldn't (and shouldn't IMO) stop the DoD using Android phones if they want to, but they can certainly refuse to work with the defense sector.
    • stevehawk 9y ago
      Well, they sort of became beholden when they became publicly traded and exchanged Do No Evil for Maximize Shareholder Returns.
    • s3r3nity 9y ago
      I agree with you somewhat, but I imagine the shareholders would revolt against upper-management from the significant loss in revenue + media backlash that would be inevitable ("Google hates the US government!" etc etc.) As a comparison, imagine if Tim Cook took a stronger privacy stance in China that we have in the states on moral grounds, and the result was China banning all Apple sales there. He would be tossed immediately, even though most of the comments here would be in support of the ethical position.
• mankash666 9y ago
  Well then, Google employees should start with moving out of the US. Because, they seem to benefit and enjoy the safety and security provided to them by the Pentagon. Grow the fuck up - part of living in a democracy is tolerating the implementation of measures one disagrees with. Republicans might oppose birth control, but companies continue to support it in their health plans. Likewise, a state of the art offensive military is democratically wanted in the US, state your disagreement and tolerate it's implementation
  • tclancy 9y ago
    >Grow the fuck up - part of living in a democracy is tolerating the implementation of measures one disagrees with And tolerating the opinions of others.
    • mankash666 9y ago
      Are you mistaking a swear word for intolerance?
      • tclancy 9y ago
        No, the suggestion that any conflicting viewpoint is a sign of immaturity. No one would ever suspect someone who can't speak to a fucking stranger without cursing struggles with maturity as well.
        • titzer 9y ago
          Not to mention, encourages them to leave the country, or at the very least, state their objections and then put up with something they deeply morally disagree with (and basically violates international laws on human rights). Oh, and it's an action that's probably self-defeating. Offensive military capabilities indeed.
• nyxtom 9y ago
  I for one would rather have a drone strike program that actually actively avoids civilian casualties as much as possible. There are certainly gray areas here as far as the use of that program from a political standpoint (whether the strikes are warranted or whether it is part of regime changes). On the other hand, by not helping the military become more efficient we also risk losing existing lives (our own and civilian casualties) due to a lack of efficient analysis. We already use statistical analysis and many other methods (human and otherwise) to determine where to make military strikes, might as well improve on this to make fewer mistakes where possible (as gray as that may seem).
  • jonlucc 9y ago
    I'm fairly sure the push-back to this kind of point is thus: if you make it less costly (in the form of "civilian" lives, money, or whatever measure) to do drone strikes, more people are killed overall. Our government hasn't exactly been good about reporting casualties from strikes or careful in targeting (a group of people gathered outside of a city may just be considered up-to-no-good and bombed).
    • jpttsn 9y ago
      So they’re already careless, but with better targeting they would be even worse? How does that work?
  • confounded 9y ago
    > I for one would rather have a drone strike program that actually actively avoids civilian casualties as much as possible. Then “AI” should be the least of your worries. Not everything is a software problem.
    • frostwhale 9y ago
      I believe that is the point of his comment.
  • titzer 9y ago
    I am not able to understand because I'm stuck at "the government uses autonomous robots to kill people extra-judiciously with missiles from the sky and nobody seems to care." And you want to make the program "more efficient." This is the gulf which I cannot seem to bridge. Extra-judicial killings of "terrorists" in "bad places" using flying killer robots is just batshit insane to me. I cannot for the life of me understand how that conversation would go with, e.g. Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton. Or really anyone who believes in human rights.
• evmar 9y ago
  I heard an interesting view on this. Engineers build technologies like TensorFlow and demos of object recognition, which have obvious applications in drone combat (just stuff your model into the missile targeting system). Yet then when this tech is used for this purpose they're shocked, shocked -- and as long as they're not specifically building the missile targeting systems themselves they feel like their hands are clean? I'm not even sure what the consequence of this argument is; pretty much anything you build can indirectly contribute to the military industrial complex, even something innocuous like dev infra. But I also don't think that weak "everything is equivalent" argument means you're suddenly absolved of responsibility. One thing I am pretty sure of is that it must feel awful to waste your short time on earth on building tools specifically for killing.
  • frostwhale 9y ago
    It's nothing more than an attempt for Silicon Valley to pretend that they're a bastion of pure innovation, where all advancements are only for good. It's naive and extremely holier-than-thou.
    • Florin_Andrei 9y ago
      Well, that's one extreme. The other extreme is that some folks actually have a conscience. Reality is probably on a continuum in between.
      • gaius 9y ago
        The other extreme is that some folks actually have a conscience Those people are not working in AdTech.
        • VikingCoder 9y ago
          You want to have that conversation with them? Because some of them are right here. In fact some of them just got shot at yesterday. Is it hyperbole, or do you honestly feel that trying to connect users with products they might like is inherently unconscionable?
• RoutinePlayer 9y ago
  Qualifying rahulmehta95's comment below a bit. The government and military ought to be accountable to the citizenry, not the other way around. Having said that, DOD will just find other companies to continue this research, so it actually behooves Google to stays on and to actually contribute in making the technology more accurate.
• linuxftw 9y ago
  > Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project That moment when you realize your mega-corp employer's "culture" is merely just another tool to get your to do their bidding. How do the share holders feel? I'm sure they're betting that almost every employee will stay no matter how their technology is used.
  • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Indeed, they know few to none of these petitioners will quit. 3,000 petition signatures will do nothing. 3,000 resignations would, but Googlers aren't going to pass up on the high paychecks, three five-star meals a day, and massages in the office based on moral grounds. (In the same vein, Google's NetPAC has been quietly donating the max to Republicans like Paul Ryan and Steve Scalise, while most of their engineers openly oppose them.)
    • magneticnorth 9y ago
      I know at least one Googler who really will quit if Google continues to contribute to drone warfare research. Yes, they like the high paychecks, five-star meals and massages, but the market for ML and AI experts is very strong right now. The high paycheck can be matched elsewhere, and the benefits of not contributing to drone warfare research are worth spending a bit of that money on food and massages. But as I said, I only know of one for sure. Whether or not there are enough to sway Google is yet to be seen.
      • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
        This is good to hear, even in a single-person capacity.
      • stevehawk 9y ago
        Since Google isn't going to stop this work, I'd love to hear when this person actually leaves.
        • 9y ago
• 1ec32c71876c47 9y ago
  If you're an engineer working for Google, I think you can most likely afford to be an idealist, and in my opinion that's a much better option than just blindly following orders. Don't most of us want less war? Does it really drive you to enhance the capabilities of those committing acts of violence? How does one start to believe that by supporting the military you are somehow working towards a better world? If you're not going to be an idealist, then in all likelihood you're helping to work towards the vision of an idealist with more power than you.
  • olleromam91 9y ago
    I think the problem can stem from the urge for everyone to try and find the exact same ideal world. It's so obviously clear that this is impossible, and so obvious that there is no civil way for anyone to enforce an ideology across a massive population. IMO, the best hope is for each man to pursue their ideal world for themselves. What else can we really control?
• downrightmike 9y ago
  AI is needed, the sooner we can make or create it to hold consciousness the better. We're constantly changing as a species and what we are 10,000 years from now, will far more different than we are to the ancient Egyptians. The universe will go on with out us and if intelligence is rare and spaced far apart AI is really the only chance that we have to be able to communicate or even find other intelligences.
  • kiliantics 9y ago
    you seem to be in the wrong thread
    • goatlover 9y ago
      AI all the topics.
• sseth 9y ago
  Do we really want to test a theory that we can have a repeat of the 1930s when the democracies fell far behind an autocratic regime in the arms race, and again the autocratic regimes will not win? Democracies are in retreat around the world, and I only hope we wake up before it is too late. The military-industrial complex may have become far bigger and perhaps in some ways a burden, but the world is a dangerous place and becoming more so. In my view, there is a perfectly valid argument that working with the military is the right thing to do. At the same time if individuals have pacifist leanings and do not want to work for the military, i would hope corporations respect that.
  • Darthy 9y ago
    > Democracies are in retreat around the world Nope. Not even in the slightest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Waves_of_democracy.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Waves_of_democracy.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_democracy#Waves_of_democracy_in_the_20th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_democracy#Waves_of_...
    • sseth 9y ago
      The graph you are linking to ends in 1998, when Bill Clinton was in power, the US was the sole superpower, the EU was increasing in size, China's GDP was a tenth of what it is now, and i think Boris Yeltsin was running Russia, and most people had not heard of Osama bin laden. I think it is safe to say the world is different now. Look at the backsliding in Turkey, Phillipines, Burma, Venezuela, Egypt. Look at the regimes which have come to power in Hungary, Poland. And of course Russia itself. China, which at one time seemed to be heading for more moderation has taken a sharply authoritarian turn. I would argue just in the last five years things have turned sharply for the worse.
      • jpollock 9y ago
        In 2016, the count of >= 8 was 70. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polity_data_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polity_data_series
      • 9y ago
• timsim09 9y ago
  I support Google workers. The hubris of US Military is unprecedented. Our military is already trying to pick a fight mostly for no reason. The more the cost of war drops for them (less killed personnel) the more they will create devastation, look Middle East since Iraq invasion.
  • gebeeson 9y ago
    The US Military has zero hubris in and of itself. The 'US Military' has so many moving parts and sub-cultures, not including all the support systems, contractors and so on. On a unit by unit basis; it is just a job for many many people. You might be talking about the big picture 'US Military' - it doesn't wield itself either.
  • gebeeson 9y ago
    'Our military is already trying to pick a fight' Our military doesn't get to pick the fights. They get to fight the fights.
• zaroth 9y ago
  It boggles my mind, with the current state of affairs, the number of people actively organizing to eliminate or curtail our fundamental human rights. It seems to me that 1st and 2nd amendment rights are both under particularly intense bombardment these days.
  • richmarr 9y ago
    I'm not sure if you meant to imply that the 2nd amendment is a fundamental human right but if so I think that's a bit of a stretch. 'Fundamental rights' (under US law) I think is defensible as fundamental is treated as an alias for constitutional so guns are in. 'Fundamental human rights' to me implies broad and fundamental applicability, i.e. the UN declarations and covenants on human rights, which don't iterate guns as a right. Case in point, when non-US countries talk about human rights, none of them are talking about guns.
    • walshemj 9y ago
      Common law (root of UK and US law) does have the right to self defence. And this "other countries" mm a lot of this had constitutions where the citizens where given some rights by the king and not have universal rights.
      • dilippkumar 9y ago
        I believe UK law is not as strong as US laws regarding right to self defense [1].https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/pensioner-arrested-stabbing-suspected-burglar-death-police/ https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/pensioner-arrested-stabbing-susp... [2]. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1361028/Martin-is-cleared-on-murder-count.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1361028/Martin-is-cl...
        • walshemj 9y ago
          I was more talking about some of the roots of the 2nd amendment - the uks' gun control laws started to be brought in during a panic over the general strike.
• marricks 9y ago
  I think it's very important to consider the increase in military spending over the past decade and decrease in funding for universities. More and more funding in the military means more funding for specifically defense projects rather than straight up knowledge or public good. What is the long term affect of this? Perhaps research far more focused on destruction instead of public good. More better drones, less general knowledge or cures for diseases? It's a sad state of affairs, and workers standing up against military research within their companies is a good first step. --- One of the first sources I found on this is below, but I've specifically heard about it being vexing from AI researchers, as many don't want to directly support military applications, but don't have much of an opportunities for funding otherwise. https://www.bu.edu/research/articles/funding-for-scientific-research/ https://www.bu.edu/research/articles/funding-for-scientific-...
• booblik 9y ago
  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?
  • kiliantics 9y ago
    replace "drone strike accuracy" with something like "zyklon b efficacy"
    • drak0n1c 9y ago
      Improving the accuracy of munitions targeting enemy military forces hiding in a building that neighbors civilian buildings/shields is not the same as genocide.
  • stevenwoo 9y ago
    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.
• jcwayne 9y ago
  Serious question for those who agree with this petition. Which country's military would you like to see be the most technologically advanced in 20 years?
  • awakeasleep 9y ago
    Doesn't the fact that this is another step towards autonomous killing machines complicate your view of this? A lot of Silicon Valley's justification for its immoral actions rests on the _belief_ of the inevitability of outcomes. It's ok to monopolize and centralize everything, discarding the lives of people who are negatively impacted because it's inevitable. It's ok to make robots able to kill people better because it's inevitable, etc. The thing is, it's a _belief_ that this is inevitable — not a proven fact of nature. And people who don't believe in it will logically withdraw their cooperation from building that future. Both sides are 'proving' their point of view. If enough people object, then it wasn't inevitable after all. If enough people work to bring us into that future, maybe it was. But thats the struggle and moral choice we face.
    • coryfklein 9y ago
      I find it pretty easy to believe that other countries will continue to funnel money into military operations even if the US slows or stops. No, I can't prove that. But it seems like a very reasonable belief to have. What reason do you have to believe that it won't be so?
      • larkeith 9y ago
        The reason to believe it won't be so is the same reason not all tragedies of the common end in resource exhaustion - cooperation is possible, especially in such an internationally-connected industry as software development. From a less grassroots perspective, international regulations and sanctions tend to be fairly effective.
    • ihsw2 9y ago
      The free world does have enemies! We must seek them out!
• KarishmaKapoor 9y ago
  I have been encouraging my friends and family to discourage their kids from working for US Army, Pentagon and similar organisations. For a country like USA it is stupid to waste human capital on fighting someone else's wars.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• no_wizard 9y ago
  The fact remains regardless of historical anecdotes or advances made in the past that in today’s economic landscape one of the few steadily profitable and maintainable businesses is doing work for the Department of Defense. Regardless of who is president this is an organization that regularly gets well over 200+ billion in funding and much of what they do has little oversight. If you are a business large or small and can land a long term DOD contract I’ve seen businesses that needed capital but couldn’t raise it pivot to a well funded DOD project and then able to reap those profits into their other businesses successful. It’s a sad state really but this is probably the main idea behind partnering with them in the first place
• abalone 9y ago
  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 Pentagon-funded efforts -- see DARPA Grand Challenge. And it's not just funding the early research, it's procurement like this too. Military procurement has also supported the development of technologies when the commercial market couldn't. Again, I support the employees and hate the fact that in order to develop medical lasers we first have to figure out how to shoot down missiles with them. It's hugely inefficient, could spell our doom, and if you think about it, fundamentally undemocratic. (Gives elites more power to direct taxpayer dollars under the rubric of defense.) But this should be a basic part of any story on how Silicon Valley works. And to think that SV has a large population of supposedly "small government" Libertarian Capitalists... oh, the mental gymnastics in that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CALO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CALO
  • almost_usual 9y ago
    It starts well before Silicon Valley, Engineering Departments get large portions of their revenues through Defense programs. MIT's Lincoln Laboratory made 27% of their revenue (roughly a billion dollars) in 2016. That's one research center. http://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html http://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html
    • lliamander 9y ago
      "Engineering" as a concept itself has roots in military application. The term "civil engineer" was coined precisely to distinguish the application of engineering techniques outside of the native context of military works.
      • pteredactyl 9y ago
        Yea, Leonardo da Vinci was a military engineer at one point.
• palisade 9y ago
  Not helping them improve precision of the drone strikes reduces the precision of those strikes which leads to more innocent lives lost as collateral. An argument could be made that using AI to improve surgical strike capability of drones would be the lesser of the two evils. Seems misguided, no pun intended. Also, Google dropped the slogan "Don't be evil" in favor of "Do the right thing." Not that it matters because they barely followed it anyway.
  • titzer 9y ago
    I hate this line of reasoning, because in the end I could suggest that the government install remote kill switches in every single human being's brain and be able to precisely kill anyone with zero collateral damage at any point in time. I mean, why would we settle for anything less but absolute perfection? Let's get to it!
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• Animats 9y ago
  The future of border security could be drones flying along the Mexican border, taking out intruders with precisely aimed headshots.
• make3 9y ago
  Democracies need top of the line militaires to exist. Plain and simple.
• pmarreck 9y ago
  But wouldn’t drone strike accuracy improvement actually reduce civilian casualties? Given that these strikes will occur one way or the other, isn't this stance actually adding more misery to the world? (So do drone strikes in general. Much better to negotiate at a table with a mediator or use a sporting event to resolve disputes, but I don't currently run things here.)
  • titzer 9y ago
    > Given that these strikes will occur one way or the other, Holy poopers, no. Drone strikes are not like premarital sex. The fact that we're _here_ (that being autonomous killer robots firing missiles from the sky to kill "bad guys") and no one bats an eyelash, means we're already in some kind of massive fail scenario. We could, for example, go back to the rule of law. You know, before we believed that every bad guy out there was going to end civilization and deprive us of our "freedom." Before we decided blowing up wedding parties in Pakistan was such a great use of our time and money, and every Allahu-Ackbar-kaboom moment is a pervasive existential threat.
    • pmarreck 9y ago
      I kind of agree with you. This is dystopian at this point. And I don't see how permitting this sort of thing wouldn't have massive consequences down the road, but then again I'm the guy who thinks intense negotiation at a table with a mediator, and/or deciding a dispute with some sort of sporting event, is a superior solution to simply butchering people with explosives en masse.
      • jackaroe78 9y ago
        When I was little I asked my dad why people couldn't settle things with a snowball fight or something instead of killing each other in wars, he said because there's always somebody out there that will put a rock in the snowball. That's always stuck with me
        • pmarreck 9y ago
• pnw_hazor 9y ago
  Working with China and other despotic regimes is cool, though?
  • ionised 9y ago
    What military technology is Google currently developing for the Chinese military?
    • pnw_hazor 9y ago
      Everything in China is for the Chinese military.
• dqpb 9y ago
  Are the Google employees working on this project all American? Google's workforce is heavily multinational, but I would imagine a pentagon project would require some kind of security clearance?
  • AndyNemmity 9y ago
    I think you'd be surprised, I've worked on a few government security clearance roles where 80-90% of below management staff were Indian.
• thetruthseeker1 9y ago
  I also think that disengaging is the wrong approach. Google once disengaged with China because they didn’t agree with China on some freedom of expression laws and all the management now think that it was a bad decision. In similar vein, if you are not part of it, somebody else will shape the outcome of this.. It should be rather you if you really care and could play a role in minimizing the negative impact of such tech
  • ForHackernews 9y ago
    This sounds like some next-level rationalization to me. You can justify anything by theorizing that somebody else will do the same-thing-but-even-worse: "If we don't employ child labour, somebody else will! It should be us, so we can at least make sure our child-slaves get fed once a day!" The fact of the matter is that Google has rare talent in AI. There isn't another company with their kind of expertise waiting in line behind them, and even if there were, sometimes you should keep your hands clean.
    • thetruthseeker1 9y ago
      Your comparison is like comparing apples and oranges. You can’t do child labor because there are laws in the US to prevent that. If you lobby to pass a law that prevents AI for defense purposes then that would be similar. Here the US govt is a client, if not google they will go to some-other company for that tech as long as there is no law that prevents that. Also, if they don’t go to google, sure they may not see as much of a rapid growth in AI tech, but if you think they will never be able to get anywhere significant, you sir are underestimating others IMO
• oh_sigh 9y ago
  From what I can tell, there are ~90k google employees[1]. So, 3% of the employees signed this. I feel like I could find 3000 people out of almost 100k that believe in almost anything, especially if it is generically anti-military, or anti-USG. I doubt this would happen, but I wish these only petitions would include counter-petitions, which people could sign if they don't agree with the petition, so we could get an estimate of whether this is just a very vocal minority of Googlers or viewpoints are split. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-time-google-employees/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/273744/number-of-full-ti...
• zitterbewegung 9y ago
  I think this is a good idea because it would be great optics for Google to cancel this project.
• m3kw9 9y ago
  Their tech is already used in all kinds of war activities indirectly.
• rasz 9y ago
  Im confused, do people working at Google not know the origin of their company? There would be no Google if not for Pentagon funded military research. Look up "Highlands Forum", DLI, MDDS. Sergey Brin was literally funded by NSA and CIA under MDDS.
  • rexpop 9y ago
    People can advocate away from their origins. It's not hypocritical for the child of a rape to advocate against rape.
  • dredmorbius 9y ago
    Sometimes it's knowing your origins intimately which gives the strongest cause to oppose them. There's the case of Robert Oppenheimer, father, and opponent, of the atomic bomb. http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/history/cold-war/oppenheimer-affair/oppenheimer-affair-intro.htm http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/hist... From the Soviet side, Andrei Sakarov. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Sakharov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Sakharov
• sneak 9y ago
  So this is about data processing of video feeds used to target. If you think about it, we (including Google employees) have known Google has been doing this in a different way to assist in waging war ever since Snowden showed us those slides. Google processes data for the government that allows them to know who to target for war.
• skyland 9y ago
  Everyone needs to fear the military industrial complex. Its bad for every business that is not in the business of war and killing. I'm sorry but today is unlike anything we have ever witnessed. While Military Industrial Complex was one thing in 1950, today, its a totally different beast and our society can't take much more beast.
  • skyland 9y ago
    We should all be in the business of peace and prosperity, not war and destruction. If we aim to build a better world that is. What will it take, my fellow geniuses, to build a peaceful world?
• ohiovr 9y ago
  This is is not the same kind of technology as better materials science for gun barrels, or hypergolic fuels for ICBM maneuvering thrusters. This is about a software that constitutes a decision making process. Who dies is not up to you or a commander, but by a automatic software process. Debugging the code means innocent people are probably going to die to do it.
• jjuhl 9y ago
  Let's keep advanced research out of the hands of the gun nuts (aka most of the USA).
  • dang 9y ago
    Flamebait comments, especially nationalistic provocations, are definitely not ok on Hacker News. Just because everywhere else on the internet is doing this is not a reason to do it here. It's a reason not to. Please don't do it here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• kiliantics 9y ago
  And this is why tech workers need to unionise. This petition is a weak statement that probably will have no effect. Unless these workers could pose a real threat to Google by threatening a strike action, Google has no need to change anything. Furthermore, if the workers really stood by their moral convictions, they'd use their collective power to tackle the issue more directly than by just appealing to Google. Companies like Google are like the railroads of the 19th century. They comprise the major infrastructure of modern society. A union at Google could threaten to effectively halt all institutional operations of governments or other companies in order to influence their actions. Is facebook manipulating voters? Okay, no more gmail for facebook till they stop. Is the government going to bomb Yemen? Alright, we're shutting down government accounts. As others in the thread have also said, I'm doubtful many of these signatories will quit their cozy jobs if Google doesn't back down. Without the group solidarity and pressure from a union, most individual workers just don't have any good incentive to put their money where their mouth is.
  • pfarnsworth 9y ago
    A reason why we SHOULDN'T unionize. It means that workers could potentially be politicized and forced to be a part of things that they don't believe in. Maybe right now we may agree with not militarizing our company, but what if the union starts supporting ideas that you're fundamentally against?
    • confounded 9y ago
      Can you explain the mechanics of that happening? Do you have any personal experience of unionized work? Employees having more of a say about what they work on though collective bargaining, resulting in employees having less of a say on what they work on, seems unlikely to me.
      • pfarnsworth 9y ago
        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 it? Then I would be paying money to a union that I fundamentally disagreed with. There is a court case going to the Supreme Court about exactly this issue. What if I were a Democrat, and the union decided to support a Republican candidate?
• crb002 9y ago
  A.I. is commodity compute. You can't pull out.
  • dredmorbius 9y ago
    The genies of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear warfare, as well as genocde, ave been reasonably well re-bottled. Even Sun Tzu notes that warfare is not total.
• ehudla 9y ago
  The famous public letter from Norbert Wiener declaring he will not work for the military: http://lanl-the-back-story.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-scientist-rebels.html http://lanl-the-back-story.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-scientist-...
• grellas 9y ago
  Where does one draw a line these days among the personal, the moral, the legal, and the political? The military application in question is legal and is approved by a duly elected government that supports it politically. In earlier days, employees generally would see this as just doing their jobs in developing technology that their employers wanted developed and would not concern themselves about ultimate uses and applications. In other words, doing your job is personal and, as long as you do it honestly and work hard, you should not be faulted for doing it as requested by your employer. That was always the standard. What then is the new element from which this sort of employee-driven demand arises? Is it morality? In other words, if I help develop A.I. that can be used for all sorts of things, one of which happens to be military-related, is the effort "evil" if the employer for whom I develop it agrees contractually to provide it to the government for a wartime/military use that can kill people? Do I really make a difference for the good if I convince my employer not to do this if all this means is that the company down the street gets the contract and the military gets the same results, albeit from a different vendor? If this is so, then I assume that you as an employee can make no practical difference in making the world better by insisting that your employer forego this particular form of contracting opportunity. If you succeed, your employer misses an opportunity but the evil you see being released into the world still gets released. It just means that you do not personally contribute to the development effort by which it is made possible. Of course, it might theoretically be possible to persuade all persons working in the field of A.I. to ban further work that directly helps the military. But that would seem a practical impossibility. Many people in all countries believe that military technology of all kinds is proper, legal, and politically supportable for purposes of self-defense or for some other overriding purpose they deem proper. And certainly, there are bad people throughout the world who are eager to use any technology that comes their way for overtly evil purposes such as misuse of an atomic bomb. Unless and until human nature is fundamentally transformed, that will never change. So, what is the answer in a country such as the United States where people and companies have the freedom to develop A.I. for any lawful purpose and where some inevitably will do so for a military purpose of which you disapprove? You are then left only with a political solution: use political means to gain control of the government and the military and apply the force of law to ban the military use of which you disapprove. So this is either a personal act of futility by the Google employees or it is a case by which they cannot separate the personal from the political and thereby insist that their employer sacrifice particular economic opportunities to ensure that your personal actions do not support a political outcome of which you disapprove. Even then, does this mean that your employer should cease working on A.I. altogether? For, just as cash is fungible, so too is technology. Every improvement you make in A.I. might have an immediate use of x for your employer but, as humans collectively do this for all sorts of improvements, the results are there for the taking in the future for military applications of all kinds. In other words, you cannot put your improvement in a box or control it so as to limit its future uses (at least not in a free society). The computing technology of recent decades undoubtedly has bettered many aspects of life but it has also greatly magnified the lethality and utility of military applications so as to make the world far less safe. And this was inevitable unless a supervening agency were to have used forcible and totalitarian means to suppress such technological development from inception. Since no such supervening agency existed or even can exist in a free society, does this mean that all engineers and technical developers have blood on their hands because, ultimately, things they have done were used for applications of which they disapproved? Of course it does not. Nor would people today working on A.I. be held morally or legally responsible for ultimate downstream uses made of their work of which they would not morally approve today. But this brings us back full circle. In the long run, you cannot stop such uses (or misuses) made from your technical development work. Nor can you be held responsible for them even though you contributed to them in some remote degree through your work efforts. Why then should it make a difference if your direct work efforts for a company like Google are applied to a military application of which you do not approve but which is legal, politically approved by the governing authorities, and will happen anyway regardless of whether Google is involved? The puritans of old tried controlling the morality of others by shunning and shaming and doing it to an extreme degree. They failed miserably in their efforts because humanity is what it is and followed its own course without regard to external religious constraints. This sort of effort by Google employees is obviously different in that it is not religiously driven but does it amount to anything more than a shunning-and-shaming method for trying to impose one's sense of morality on others by signaling that this way lies righteousness and everywhere else lies evil? If this is what "don't be evil" now means, then Google will need lots of help going forward because every cause under the sun can be used in the same way to shun and shame. We then have management by a corporate board as may be swayed to and fro by any organized protest of the moment. Whatever this is, and however it might be defensible in "sending a message" or whatever, it is a sure way to put a company at a competitive disadvantage while accomplishing nothing practically. It may further political goals but, if those are the goals, better just to try to advance them directly and not by attempting to shun and shame your employer (and your co-workers who may disagree with you) into submission. The personal need not be political. If it does become that way, a new form of puritanism will hold full sway to the detriment of all.
• Jd 9y ago
  To me this illustrates a huge opportunity: big tech can't effectively engage with public good projects (e.g. typical government territory). What's needed is a tech gov superlayer that provides an umbrella for these services and can also guarantee their internal integrity. The lack of guarantee over this last point is one major problem here.
• HugoDaniel 9y ago
  Apple recently hired the Google A.I. Chief[1]. I wonder how much this is related. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/business/apple-hires-googles-ai-chief.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/business/apple-hires-goog...
• larkeith 9y ago
  > In an interview in November, Mr. Schmidt acknowledged “a general concern in the tech community of somehow the military-industrial complex using their stuff to kill people incorrectly, if you will.” He said he served on the board in part “to at least allow for communications to occur” and suggested that the military would “use this technology to help keep the country safe.” I have a sneaking suspicion that Mr. Schmidt's views on what constitutes "killing people incorrectly" and what is required to "keep this country safe" both differ fairly significantly from those of the signatories of the letter.
  • samirillian 9y ago
    That is some menacing language. What exactly is the right way to kill a person.
    • edanm 9y ago
      In self defense? In defense of others? Those are considered cases where killing someone is legitimate by almost everyone.
      • olleromam91 9y ago
        If only we could all agree who's life matters the most. That would be great =P
      • samirillian 9y ago
        America Defends itself and others with Predators. Power loves rubbing your face in these kinds of absurdities.
• myrandomcomment 9y ago
  Totally agree! We should stop trying to make a weapon more accurate and go back to fire bombing complete cities. Only way to be sure.
• daodedickinson 9y ago
  Seems like the two most likely consequences would be more inaccurate drone strikes and a higher risk of further expansion of the territory controlled by Communist Chinese hegemony. I don't think these Google employees want that so I'd like to see their thoughts on why they think the US military having worse AI would bring about a better universe.
• jay-anderson 9y ago
  > several Google employees familiar with the letter would speak of it only on the condition of anonymity, saying they were concerned about retaliation This is too bad that the fear of retaliation exists for a letter like this. Is this actually the case? Or did the author read into them wanting to remain anonymous incorrectly? Perhaps they didn't want to become a spokesman for this issue outside the company, but are fine making their opinion known to coworkers and managers.
• JabavuAdams 9y ago
  I wonder what Geoff Hinton's position on this is. He seems somewhat anti-military from some side comments in his Neural Networks course.
  • YetAnotherNick 9y ago
    What does anti military even mean? I can get anti war, but don't you want government has the power to stop terrorist, and military is needed for that.
    • geodel 9y ago
      Well It would mean we can respectfully disagree with terrorists and ask them to not blow things up and engage in bilateral or multilateral talks with governments which they have issues with.
  • sseth 9y ago
    I remember reading that when DeepMind was acquired by Google in 2014, they made it a precondition that an ethics committee be set up to review use of AI, and Google did back out of some projects because of it. In this case what they seem to be doing is allowing the military to use some of the AI tools on Google cloud which are also available for general use. This is a much grayer area - it is one thing to not develop something specifically for the military, it is another to say that we will not provide the military something we provide to the general public.
• wintom 9y ago
  During world war 2, fan favorite companies like Mercedez Benz were building tanks for the Nazis. If there is a war today don’t you think the government will seize everything and we will all be working for them? This is different in some ways because Google is likely being paid for this but I don’t think they can just refuse nor do I think they should be able to, frankly. That’s not how national security works. And just because employees at Google refuse, employees in one of the big Chinese firms won’t be able to. If our government does not have this tech then someone else will. We live in this fantasy, like people aren’t dying everyday from war in so many places around the world. We are not immune to that. Edit: to all the folks down voting me it’s a good idea to get a different perspective sometimes.
  • alanh 9y ago
    > if there is a war today Wow, we really are insulated from our military today, aren’t we? Yes, the US government is still at war in Afghanistan and with ISIS.
• cjhanks 9y ago
  So it is ethical to track hundreds of millions of people to manipulate them for profit. But unethical to defend power plants in the United States?
  • mashedvikings 9y ago
    It's also unethical to solve world hunger by feeding the poor to the hungry. If defending is done not by installing firewalls, but by spying on everyone in case they do something bad, you have a huge problem.
• stanislavb 9y ago
  The beginning... we basically can't avoid this. If it isn't Google, it will be someone else.
• mattigames 9y ago
  I wrote a little article related to this matter; I submitted it to HN on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16760768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16760768
• hedgenetFT 9y ago
  Just as with a nuclear arsenal, what keeps the peace is a balance of power between the nations. If one nations has access to a military technology that allows it to destroy it's ennemies and steal it's resources without fear of retaliation, it WILL use it. Our well meaning google friends might believe they are doing the right thing, but they are just doing what's fashionable instead of really thinking the consequences of these actions. Making ourselves weaker in the AI race augments the probability of war instead of diminishing it.
• bigjimslade 9y ago
  Thank you, Google employees who signed this letter! Let us hope the, ummm, yea, "do no evil" company listens to you (and to its very own motto).
• betolink 9y ago
  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 tens of thousands of lives. Another man helped kill millions." "Now, I don't know what any of you are going to end up doing in your lives," Dr. Kearns says, "but I can guarantee you that there will come a day when you have a decision to make. And it won't be as easy as deciding between a heart valve and a gas chamber." To me this is incredibly valid for Silicon Valley engineers these days.
  • hyperdunc 9y ago
    Whether military AI endsup being closer to a heart valve or a gas chamber, it's going to be built first by some nation. But there is space for ethical contemplation during an arms race.
    • killjoywashere 9y ago
      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.
      • jstanley 9y ago
        If soldiers hate war so much why do they join up?
        • hueving 9y ago
          The best way out of a terrible life for many poor people. If you didn't do great in school and don't have rich parents to pay for college, the military in the US will look great with its education perks and chance to "see the world".
• HipHopHacker 9y ago
  As the Google/Youtube/Alphabet crew make plans to become murderers, in their catered, air conditioned offices, to the endless justifications in this thread, I have a big smile on my face as I think of the woman who went in yesterday and shot at these murdering scum. Google/Youtube/Alphabet workers are about to become murderers, and they just got some big blowback yesterday, paying them back in their own coin. Thinking of it puts a big smile on my face. Especially reading all the justifications here for the need to work towards militancy.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • sumedh 9y ago
    > Especially reading all the justifications here for the need to work towards militancy. The internet was started because of military project. If you really care about this issue you should not be using the internet.
    • HipHopHacker 9y ago
      I worked and was taxed, and these taxes built the Internet. That I should not use something that was built from my indirect work seems to follow the logic all the rest of this does though.
      • sumedh 9y ago
        That is an interesting double standard, you rant about not supporting murderers and then use a tool which was created by the military for better communications during a war(aka murdering people) Its not about logic its about principles, we already established that you are a hypocrite.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  • minkzilla 9y ago
    The double standard in this comment is disgusting. One should never be happy at the loss of life.
• sova 9y ago
  Engineer brains must be allocated to benefitting Humanity. Ease the lives of your fellow traveler.
• sabmalik 9y ago
  I keep seeing the argument "More accurate weapons would kill fewer people". By that logic, it would be perfectly okay for Google to sell this technology to the enemy states so those guys could kill fewer Americans. This sounds ridiculous to me but it's likely I am missing something.
• jcoffland 9y ago
  I am against war and violence but even a cursory review of the last 10k years of human history make it abundantly clear that the threat Iran, North Korea or Russia pose to the Western World is real. I hate many of the things the US has done but I'm glad the world is not controlled by even worse actors. The sole reason for US and UN dominance is military power. If we ignore this the West will be overrun.
• knowThySelfx 9y ago
  Google can't pull out. That'd be like being ungrateful.
• 75dvtwin 9y ago
  >"...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..." If Google still continues to engage in the 'Business of war', would these 3,100 employees walk out? Would they, then, also refuse to pay taxes to the US Fed Gov (which, obviously spends them, on the business of war) ?
• nell 9y ago
  This is a tricky problem and there is no easy position to take. On one hand you don’t want anyone to have such lethal power. You could argue the atomic bomb is the warning we should learn from. On the other hand, this needs to be evaluated in the context of “balance of power”. Can Alibaba really refuse helping Chinese military. If not the Chinese are going to gain the power regardless of whether US has it or not. Any advanced country could gain such power. These other entities may not follow the same ethical guidelines. Are we then proposing the US military should be less powerful than its rivals?
• HacklesRaised 9y ago
  Well this is it, n'est ce pas? Is google really about "do no evil" or will capitalism melt the snowflakes. Either way, googles fate is of its own making.
• pawal 9y ago
  Anybody looking forward to the captchas asking us to identify drone targets?
• eloop 9y ago
  These employees are right to be worried. If Google becomes a defense contractor I'll be going out of my way to stop using their products. I'm not a pacifist, but I'll always choose to work for and patronize peaceful enterprises, it's as simple as that. I also influence lots of non-technical friends and family in their IT purchases and habits and I'll definitely be warning them off as well. So Google, be less greedy and make the world a better place for us all.
• jwillmer 9y ago
  As someone who is hesitant of using (free) cloud services there you pay with your information I really like that there are some thoughtful and aware people working at Google. If it turns out that they have the power to affect decisions like this in there company I might choose to use more Google products.
• wackspurt 9y ago
  Relevant here: "Why don't I take military funding?" by Prof. Benjamin Kuipers. https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~kuipers/opinions/no-military-funding.html https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~kuipers/opinions/no-military-fun... From the introduction: """ Mostly it's a testimony that it's possible to have a successful career in computer science without taking military funding. My position has its roots in the Vietnam War, when I was a conscientious objector, did alternative service instead of submitting to the draft, and joined the Society of Friends (Quakers). During the 1980s and 90s, the position seemed to lose some of its urgency, so it became more of a testimony about career paths. Since September 11, 2001, all the urgency is back. The defense of our country is at stake, so this testimony becomes critical. In short, I believe that non-violent methods of conflict resolution provide the only methods for protecting our country against the deadly threats we face in the long run. Military action, with its inevitable consequences to civilian populations, creates and fuels deadly threats, and therefore increases the danger that our country faces. """
• oldpond 9y ago
  So 3100 out of 57000 employees signed the letter. That makes google only 95% evil.
• Dowwie 9y ago
  My condolences to leaders who organized this. They'll find in their management review that because a fly farted in their work areas they haven't achieved performance on par with their peers. At next round of layoffs, they'll be released.
• mgpetkov 9y ago
  I want to remind those Google employees that they are able to work at Google and enjoy very high living standard and obviously freedom of speech just because they are protected by the US army.
• ElijahLynn 9y ago
  If I worked for Google and found out I was working for the Pentagon, my line would be crossed and I would resign.
• wuxb 9y ago
  The CEO wants to match the evil of Mark Z.
• ThomPete 9y ago
  Their entire career choice and their current sky-high yearly salaries plus the stock price are based on what fundamentally was a military need i.e. the internet (or the TCP/IP protocol to be exact). The right course of action IMO would be to leave Google if you are unsatisfied with working for Pentagon. But Google HAS to work for the Pentagon and especially on AI because the knowledge that comes out of this isn't only going to be military but to a much higher degree and relevant extent for civilized use. Technology is always a double-edged sword and we have to learn to deal with the powers it gives us. But to not be on the forefront of technology when you can is a losers game and Google would lose much of its value if it isn't at the forefront.
• tempz 9y ago
  Better headline: "Google Workers Astonished: Found Out They Work In Capitalist System, Not Nerd Commune"
• mistahchris 9y ago
  > There’s a strong libertarian ethos among tech folks... This does not ring true in my experience with "tech folks" in recent times. It may have been true at one time, but I think libertarianism in tech has fallen out of vogue. Also, I take issue with distrusting how government (or any powerful organization) makes use of technology puts someone into the libertarian political philosophy according to this article. A healthy distrust of how powerful groups use technology makes a lot of sense for anyone and is definitely not something exclusive to libertarians.