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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

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.
  - plandis 9y ago
    Id argue it's not a false dichotomy because drone strikes will go on regardless of what Google does. It's very clear that whatever collateral damage drones currently cause is an acceptable cost to the militaries using them.
    - kachurovskiy 9y ago
      "go on regardless" argument can be used to justify absolutely anything so I don't think it helps advancing the meaningful debate.
      - olleromam91 9y ago
        Sure it can. We can ask "what are you going to do now that we agree it happens regardless?". If you can accept existence contains horror in all forms, then you can go on your way to make the best impact you can for those you care about. If you can't accept that, you just sit around arguing if life could be perfect.
    - smokeyj 9y ago
      "If you don't help make drones more accurate, you're the reason for collateralized murder". Or, you could like, just stop droning innocent people to death. Not saying we all have to agree, but just that factually speaking - it's within the realm of possibilities. And for that reason it's a false dichotomy.
      - airstrike 9y ago
        You’re saying that as if droning was specifically meant to target innocent people, when that’s exactly what they’re trying to avoid.
        staplers 9y ago
        that’s exactly what they’re trying to avoid. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Circular argumentation
- vowelless 9y ago
  Incidentedly, I worked on drones for the Navy and Marines for many years. My issue is with the hypocracy. Don't claim to be moral and sell this Kool aid. It sounds a lot like religious high priests that I have a viceral reaction to (given where I come from). It could just be my own personal issue with the faux moral sell of the valley.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    > My issue is with the hypocrisy. There are degrees of morality. Just like a criminal might object to being defrauded because they feel it crosses a line. Everybody is a hypocrite to some extent, you at least seem to be aware of that fact that you are simply a gun for hire which makes it easier to reason about the position of others.
    - vowelless 9y ago
      > you at least seem to be aware of that fact that you are simply a gun for hire which makes it easier to reason about the position of others. That probably is the case. Morality is also very subjective (which, to some, is a matter of belief). Maybe "hypocrisy" is not the right word. Perhaps I was looking for "lack of self awareness". That is kind of what I meant with "delusion". There are a lot of good, empathetic people in Silicon Valley. More empathetic than probably any other subgroup I have ever encountered. And they have a deep desire to change the world. I have a lot of respect for that. But they also circle jerk about that all the time (you see this in finance at charity events too). And in that circle jerk, thinking they are improving humanity, they end up cozing up with the federal government, foreign dictators, and even suppressing free thought! And I am not acquitting the Military Industrial Complex of doing a lot of the same things (but at least they are less deluded, having the "American interests" narrative as opposed to "make the world a better place" narrative).
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        To some extent living in a self-reinforcing bubble will cause people to believe their own bullshit. SV is not unique in this, there are plenty of people who are obviously busy with enriching themselves and their buddies while doing this 'to improve the world'. I don't buy it, and I would prefer it if they were honest about it but then again what does it matter, they're certainly not fooling anybody. The few that really want to improve the world stand out and don't feel the need to sell themselves as improving the world, they don't need to: it's obvious, their actions speak louder than words.
IAmEveryone 9y ago
> allow people in the valley to maintain a (sorry to use this word) delusion that what they are doing is "moral" People refusing to work on military technology isn't "appearing moral". It's just "moral", at least if you consider war to be generally amoral. People here and elsewhere have been throwing the term "virtue signalling" around a lot in the last year or so. This is a perfect counterexample: Google employees speaking out against military tech are shouldering the risk of appearing disloyal to their employer. If Google were to cut their military ties, they would forgo whatever benefit they previously sought in that relationship.
- opportune 9y ago
  Right, it's reminiscent of decrying "virtue signaling" as if there is anything bad with doing something because it's virtuous We shouldn't make fun of people because they "do the right thing". That sounds like something Facebook would do
  - nickpinkston 9y ago
    The problem is when you write off your culpability to do more because "At least I did something" via virtue signaling. So no, it's not wrong to virtue signal necessarily, but often is seen as an empty gesture by people who don't talk/act towards the actual problems.
    - IAmEveryone 9y ago
      It's an intellectually dishonest argument, because it actually uses someone's profession of good intentions, accepts them, and then somehow turns it against the speaker. As used on the internet, it's also useless because it always assumes the speaker doesn't actually act on their believes, and there usually is no way for them to prove their willingness to act on their believes. It also ignores that even just stating such believes can have an effect. After all, these statements are used to convince others to adopt them. The best proof of the last point may actually be this protest by Google employees: their conviction was probably formed by reading and hearing about the ethical responsibility of engineers, a topic that is certainly teeming with "virtue signalling" according to the common definition. They might even be the product of Google's own "virtue signalling", i. e. "Do no Evil". Maybe Larry Page and Sergey Brin only ever wanted to pay lip service to ethical behaviour. But their employees didn't get the full memo, took them by their word, and are now acting upon it. In this sense, "virtue signalling" aka "Greenwashing" or "diversity boilerplate" may start as a cynical profit-motivated lie, and end up changing the world for the better.
mc32 9y ago
Not only that, but unless the effort is global, the impact of any AI will deliver greater effect in countries with less citizen rights. So while it's great these protestors want to protect us from AI, those in China, Russia, India, Iran, will endure a greater threat from AI and it behooves us to be at the forefront lest we fall behind. In other words a moratorium can only work if all participants agree and participate. Sort of like the anti nuclear proliferation treaty.

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.
- plandis 9y ago
  Id argue it's not a false dichotomy because drone strikes will go on regardless of what Google does. It's very clear that whatever collateral damage drones currently cause is an acceptable cost to the militaries using them.
  - kachurovskiy 9y ago
    "go on regardless" argument can be used to justify absolutely anything so I don't think it helps advancing the meaningful debate.
    - olleromam91 9y ago
      Sure it can. We can ask "what are you going to do now that we agree it happens regardless?". If you can accept existence contains horror in all forms, then you can go on your way to make the best impact you can for those you care about. If you can't accept that, you just sit around arguing if life could be perfect.
  - smokeyj 9y ago
    "If you don't help make drones more accurate, you're the reason for collateralized murder". Or, you could like, just stop droning innocent people to death. Not saying we all have to agree, but just that factually speaking - it's within the realm of possibilities. And for that reason it's a false dichotomy.
    - airstrike 9y ago
      You’re saying that as if droning was specifically meant to target innocent people, when that’s exactly what they’re trying to avoid.
      - staplers 9y ago
        that’s exactly what they’re trying to avoid. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Circular argumentation
vowelless 9y ago
Incidentedly, I worked on drones for the Navy and Marines for many years. My issue is with the hypocracy. Don't claim to be moral and sell this Kool aid. It sounds a lot like religious high priests that I have a viceral reaction to (given where I come from). It could just be my own personal issue with the faux moral sell of the valley.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > My issue is with the hypocrisy. There are degrees of morality. Just like a criminal might object to being defrauded because they feel it crosses a line. Everybody is a hypocrite to some extent, you at least seem to be aware of that fact that you are simply a gun for hire which makes it easier to reason about the position of others.
  - vowelless 9y ago
    > you at least seem to be aware of that fact that you are simply a gun for hire which makes it easier to reason about the position of others. That probably is the case. Morality is also very subjective (which, to some, is a matter of belief). Maybe "hypocrisy" is not the right word. Perhaps I was looking for "lack of self awareness". That is kind of what I meant with "delusion". There are a lot of good, empathetic people in Silicon Valley. More empathetic than probably any other subgroup I have ever encountered. And they have a deep desire to change the world. I have a lot of respect for that. But they also circle jerk about that all the time (you see this in finance at charity events too). And in that circle jerk, thinking they are improving humanity, they end up cozing up with the federal government, foreign dictators, and even suppressing free thought! And I am not acquitting the Military Industrial Complex of doing a lot of the same things (but at least they are less deluded, having the "American interests" narrative as opposed to "make the world a better place" narrative).
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      To some extent living in a self-reinforcing bubble will cause people to believe their own bullshit. SV is not unique in this, there are plenty of people who are obviously busy with enriching themselves and their buddies while doing this 'to improve the world'. I don't buy it, and I would prefer it if they were honest about it but then again what does it matter, they're certainly not fooling anybody. The few that really want to improve the world stand out and don't feel the need to sell themselves as improving the world, they don't need to: it's obvious, their actions speak louder than words.

IAmEveryone 9y ago

> allow people in the valley to maintain a (sorry to use this word) delusion that what they are doing is "moral" People refusing to work on military technology isn't "appearing moral". It's just "moral", at least if you consider war to be generally amoral. People here and elsewhere have been throwing the term "virtue signalling" around a lot in the last year or so. This is a perfect counterexample: Google employees speaking out against military tech are shouldering the risk of appearing disloyal to their employer. If Google were to cut their military ties, they would forgo whatever benefit they previously sought in that relationship.

opportune 9y ago
Right, it's reminiscent of decrying "virtue signaling" as if there is anything bad with doing something because it's virtuous We shouldn't make fun of people because they "do the right thing". That sounds like something Facebook would do
- nickpinkston 9y ago
  The problem is when you write off your culpability to do more because "At least I did something" via virtue signaling. So no, it's not wrong to virtue signal necessarily, but often is seen as an empty gesture by people who don't talk/act towards the actual problems.
  - IAmEveryone 9y ago
    It's an intellectually dishonest argument, because it actually uses someone's profession of good intentions, accepts them, and then somehow turns it against the speaker. As used on the internet, it's also useless because it always assumes the speaker doesn't actually act on their believes, and there usually is no way for them to prove their willingness to act on their believes. It also ignores that even just stating such believes can have an effect. After all, these statements are used to convince others to adopt them. The best proof of the last point may actually be this protest by Google employees: their conviction was probably formed by reading and hearing about the ethical responsibility of engineers, a topic that is certainly teeming with "virtue signalling" according to the common definition. They might even be the product of Google's own "virtue signalling", i. e. "Do no Evil". Maybe Larry Page and Sergey Brin only ever wanted to pay lip service to ethical behaviour. But their employees didn't get the full memo, took them by their word, and are now acting upon it. In this sense, "virtue signalling" aka "Greenwashing" or "diversity boilerplate" may start as a cynical profit-motivated lie, and end up changing the world for the better.

mc32 9y ago

Not only that, but unless the effort is global, the impact of any AI will deliver greater effect in countries with less citizen rights. So while it's great these protestors want to protect us from AI, those in China, Russia, India, Iran, will endure a greater threat from AI and it behooves us to be at the forefront lest we fall behind. In other words a moratorium can only work if all participants agree and participate. Sort of like the anti nuclear proliferation treaty.