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"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

• 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.