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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

by 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.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  IMHO, it's a specific problem of our drone program. It's being used often for a civilian agency (the CIA) to use military hardware to conduct assassinations of various individuals overseas in countries we are not even at war with. And then there's the fact that we've killed hundreds of children with it. It's hard not to view everyone involved with the program as guilty of war crimes. I don't have a problem with our military in a general sense, or even the idea of using drones to keep our pilots out of harm's way.
kbenson 9y ago
So, honest question, what's worse, helping the military be more accurate in who they attack, or abstaining and perhaps there are more mistakes, and/or collateral damage as they choose the best times/locations to strike that they can find, not the best that could be found. On the one hand, your involvement might help limit "innocent" deaths. On the other, a more effective system might see more use, so more people overall might be killed (and it might lead to more "innocent" deaths than otherwise, even if they are a reduced percentage of the total). Additionally, there's no guarantee that other actors are not developing the same technology, and it could either be obtained by the government through them, or used against the government and its citizens by them, reducing overall safety. Take, for example, RADAR. Should those that developed RADAR, during or just prior to WWII, and abstained because of its possible wartime use? Wikipedia says "In the 1934–1939 period, eight nations developed independently, and in great secrecy, systems of this type"[1], so those that were left out faced a real danger in the coming years if they didn't have something to compete. Yet, RADAR has been used to great effect in many weapon systems and by many countries since WWII in ways that that most would agree are horrible. Then again, it's made commercial air travel much safer than we could have hoped to achieve at this scale without RADAR. It's a complex situation, and I think it deserves a complex discussion. Distilling it to "working with the government is bad because I don't like what the government is doing" doesn't really do it justice. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar
- waisbrot 9y ago
  Research for the military isn't the issue here, it's Google's changing agenda. If the DoD or Raytheon or Weapons Systems Startup LLC hired someone to develop a better system for analyzing drone images, I don't believe that person would be complaining that their work was being used for war -- that's exactly what they signed up for. The problem here is that Google sold their engineers on "Don't Be Evil" and libertarianism and "we're a sweet little tech company that people like" and is now delivering military contracts.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    Engineers have a right to complain, and to attempt to steer the company, and to leave if they don't like where it's going. I'm more referencing the parent comment that calls Google out as shameful. Not all military work is shameful, and some that is viewed one way initially might be viewed otherwise over time as future uses are found for the fruits of that labor. > The problem here is that Google sold their engineers on "Don't Be Evil" and libertarianism and "we're a sweet little tech company that people like" and is now delivering military contracts. And they specifically dropped that when they changed to Alphabet, so the writing was on the wall for people to see. That said, I still think the immediate jump to military work == shameful is far too broad a brush to paint with. What if a contract was for better field medical kits? That's still going to help any military engagement for one side, but does keeping one side's soldiers in better health so they can kill more the other side make it okay? What about future public uses of the technology? The world isn't that simple, and people acting like it is just so they have an easy target for their anger doesn't really help anything other than to make that person feel a little better about themselves for a little while.
omarforgotpwd 9y ago
So, war is still going to be a thing regardless of what position Google takes. Would you rather have less concerned engineers delivering a subpar product? Suppose because the technology is not as good, it misidentifies innocent civilians as targets. Is it "shameful" for Google to develop this software, or to cover their eyes and pretend this isn't happening to avoid bad PR?

by mtgx 9y ago

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.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
IMHO, it's a specific problem of our drone program. It's being used often for a civilian agency (the CIA) to use military hardware to conduct assassinations of various individuals overseas in countries we are not even at war with. And then there's the fact that we've killed hundreds of children with it. It's hard not to view everyone involved with the program as guilty of war crimes. I don't have a problem with our military in a general sense, or even the idea of using drones to keep our pilots out of harm's way.

kbenson 9y ago

So, honest question, what's worse, helping the military be more accurate in who they attack, or abstaining and perhaps there are more mistakes, and/or collateral damage as they choose the best times/locations to strike that they can find, not the best that could be found. On the one hand, your involvement might help limit "innocent" deaths. On the other, a more effective system might see more use, so more people overall might be killed (and it might lead to more "innocent" deaths than otherwise, even if they are a reduced percentage of the total). Additionally, there's no guarantee that other actors are not developing the same technology, and it could either be obtained by the government through them, or used against the government and its citizens by them, reducing overall safety. Take, for example, RADAR. Should those that developed RADAR, during or just prior to WWII, and abstained because of its possible wartime use? Wikipedia says "In the 1934–1939 period, eight nations developed independently, and in great secrecy, systems of this type"[1], so those that were left out faced a real danger in the coming years if they didn't have something to compete. Yet, RADAR has been used to great effect in many weapon systems and by many countries since WWII in ways that that most would agree are horrible. Then again, it's made commercial air travel much safer than we could have hoped to achieve at this scale without RADAR. It's a complex situation, and I think it deserves a complex discussion. Distilling it to "working with the government is bad because I don't like what the government is doing" doesn't really do it justice. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar

waisbrot 9y ago
Research for the military isn't the issue here, it's Google's changing agenda. If the DoD or Raytheon or Weapons Systems Startup LLC hired someone to develop a better system for analyzing drone images, I don't believe that person would be complaining that their work was being used for war -- that's exactly what they signed up for. The problem here is that Google sold their engineers on "Don't Be Evil" and libertarianism and "we're a sweet little tech company that people like" and is now delivering military contracts.
- kbenson 9y ago
  Engineers have a right to complain, and to attempt to steer the company, and to leave if they don't like where it's going. I'm more referencing the parent comment that calls Google out as shameful. Not all military work is shameful, and some that is viewed one way initially might be viewed otherwise over time as future uses are found for the fruits of that labor. > The problem here is that Google sold their engineers on "Don't Be Evil" and libertarianism and "we're a sweet little tech company that people like" and is now delivering military contracts. And they specifically dropped that when they changed to Alphabet, so the writing was on the wall for people to see. That said, I still think the immediate jump to military work == shameful is far too broad a brush to paint with. What if a contract was for better field medical kits? That's still going to help any military engagement for one side, but does keeping one side's soldiers in better health so they can kill more the other side make it okay? What about future public uses of the technology? The world isn't that simple, and people acting like it is just so they have an easy target for their anger doesn't really help anything other than to make that person feel a little better about themselves for a little while.

omarforgotpwd 9y ago

So, war is still going to be a thing regardless of what position Google takes. Would you rather have less concerned engineers delivering a subpar product? Suppose because the technology is not as good, it misidentifies innocent civilians as targets. Is it "shameful" for Google to develop this software, or to cover their eyes and pretend this isn't happening to avoid bad PR?