3 ms·

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 s

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.

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.