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I find this entire situation so odd. None of these people leaving Google over Project Maven had any issues with working for the largest corporate spy agency in

by CORDIC 8y ago

I find this entire situation so odd. None of these people leaving Google over Project Maven had any issues with working for the largest corporate spy agency in the world. They were fine with massive data collection in the pursuit of serving people better ads. But helping analysts find objects in imagery? That’s a bridge too far.

daveFNbuck 8y ago
It might have to do with how finding objects in imagery is directly tied to killing people. Human beings tend to not like being involved in killing other human beings.
- pnw_hazor 8y ago
  or directly tied to reducing the chances of killing innocent people. Better or smarter imaging/targeting makes these weapons safer, not more dangerous.
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    You assume that we're not willing to kill innocent people once we've identified a target near them. This also depends on who's being targeted. I'm not comfortable with Trump being able to murder anyone on the globe with pinpoint accuracy.
  - more_corn 8y ago
    No, the project was to prevent humans from having to slog through hours of footage to find vehicle tracks. This makes it easier, faster and cheaper to kill them. Not a super good use of our greatest technology. Let's keep it manual, expensive and slow. The alternative is terrifying efficient killing machines.
grepsign 8y ago
What's so hard to understand? I'm an aerospace engineer and I specialize in rockets. I understand that the nature of my work will almost always 100% benefit the weapons industry because there's just no avoiding it. When I started my career ~10 years ago I worked on a defense project as I was a fresh graduate and had no choice, but nowadays I make it very clear to prospective companies that while I have no issues with my colleagues working on weapons, I myself will absolutely, under no circumstances, work on defense funded projects in any capacity. Most companies from my experience are willing to work with you on this especially because a lot of them are already set up for segregated access. The fault in your thinking is that you seem to think it needs to be an "all or nothing" choice. It's not, and it doesn't need to be. I try to be green and recycle everything I can, but I don't lose sleep over throwing plastic away in the garbage because I do what I can. I'm 99% vegetarian because of my views on animal ethics and I honestly can't remember the last time I've bought meat for my personal consumption, but I have no qualms about going to a friend's backyard BBQ and eating the same grilled burgers that everyone else is enjoying because I do what I can. For this reason, I choose to not work directly on weapons, despite the fact that basically all rocket related technologies can be applied to weapons, because that is something that I can not change, so I do what I can, which in this case is refusing to work on defense funded projects.
- hueving 8y ago
  But you're clearly not doing what you can. You're just doing what's convenient. You still eat meat in one of the most important times not to eat meat (in front of others) if you are truly driven by ethics for animals. You refuse to work on defense-funded projects because companies in your field have a pretend isolation mechanism (here's a hint: unless they are actually separate companies, they aren't isolated) that allows you to think you aren't supporting the military despite working for the company supporting the military. This type of behavior shocks idealists. Even though it's better than nothing, just doing little bits here and there where convenient actually makes it harder to change the status quo for idealists (because you think you're helping when you're not).
  - _vertigo 8y ago
    Clearly he is rejecting the idealist viewpoint, so what does it matter if what he is saying “shocks idealists”?
    - hueving 8y ago
      He asked "what's so hard to understand?" so I explained.
  - micheldlebeau 8y ago
    Maybe the issue is with idealists, having a white or black view of the world, then?
  - Melkman 8y ago
    Then, as an idealist, what do you expect from other people to reach your goal ? If 50% of the people do 80% of what is needed you're at 40% of your goal. If 10% of the people do 100% you're only at 10% plus you've turned your goal in to an "us vs them" instead of "everybody for the greater good". Voting with your wallet 80% of the time is a valid means to support what you think is right. An idealistic minority doesn't change the world. The majority does.
    - 8y ago
TulliusCicero 8y ago
Doesn't seem very strange, and I work at Google. Tracking personal info to sell better ads, vs interpreting data to imprison or kill people? Those seem pretty hugely different to me.
- zapita 8y ago
  The same technology you're developing to track personal info to sell ads is what hostile governments around the world use to suppress individual rights, imprison and kill people. The fact that you don't understand the irony in what you're saying is remarkable. > Doesn't seem very strange, and I work at Google Yeah... Your working at Google might be precisely why it doesn't seem strange to you.
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    > The same technology you're developing to track personal info to sell ads is what hostile governments around the world use to suppress individual rights, imprison and kill people. It is? Source on that?
    - cryoshon 8y ago
      ....tracking personal info is synonymous with the ability to abuse that info. don't be naive.
      - lostcolony 8y ago
        Give me any sort of job that can't be abused. Taxi driver? Oh, wait, there have been sexual offenders who have used their cars to molest and rape. Micro-finance platform? Cool, you just supported putting poor people into debt. Cancer research? Komens foundation. Etc.
      - TulliusCicero 8y ago
        GP suggested organizations were using Google tech to do so, that's the part I find rather hard to believe. Either that or by "same technology" they actually meant "different, but same kind of technology" in which case their point makes no sense. Making chemicals to sell to hospitals vs making chemicals to sell to terrorists are things that have different moral weight, even if the underlying thing being created is basically the same.
gadders 8y ago
Quitting over those items wouldn't get them in the New York Times though.

by CORDIC 8y ago

daveFNbuck 8y ago

It might have to do with how finding objects in imagery is directly tied to killing people. Human beings tend to not like being involved in killing other human beings.

pnw_hazor 8y ago
or directly tied to reducing the chances of killing innocent people. Better or smarter imaging/targeting makes these weapons safer, not more dangerous.
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  You assume that we're not willing to kill innocent people once we've identified a target near them. This also depends on who's being targeted. I'm not comfortable with Trump being able to murder anyone on the globe with pinpoint accuracy.
- more_corn 8y ago
  No, the project was to prevent humans from having to slog through hours of footage to find vehicle tracks. This makes it easier, faster and cheaper to kill them. Not a super good use of our greatest technology. Let's keep it manual, expensive and slow. The alternative is terrifying efficient killing machines.

grepsign 8y ago

What's so hard to understand? I'm an aerospace engineer and I specialize in rockets. I understand that the nature of my work will almost always 100% benefit the weapons industry because there's just no avoiding it. When I started my career ~10 years ago I worked on a defense project as I was a fresh graduate and had no choice, but nowadays I make it very clear to prospective companies that while I have no issues with my colleagues working on weapons, I myself will absolutely, under no circumstances, work on defense funded projects in any capacity. Most companies from my experience are willing to work with you on this especially because a lot of them are already set up for segregated access. The fault in your thinking is that you seem to think it needs to be an "all or nothing" choice. It's not, and it doesn't need to be. I try to be green and recycle everything I can, but I don't lose sleep over throwing plastic away in the garbage because I do what I can. I'm 99% vegetarian because of my views on animal ethics and I honestly can't remember the last time I've bought meat for my personal consumption, but I have no qualms about going to a friend's backyard BBQ and eating the same grilled burgers that everyone else is enjoying because I do what I can. For this reason, I choose to not work directly on weapons, despite the fact that basically all rocket related technologies can be applied to weapons, because that is something that I can not change, so I do what I can, which in this case is refusing to work on defense funded projects.

hueving 8y ago
But you're clearly not doing what you can. You're just doing what's convenient. You still eat meat in one of the most important times not to eat meat (in front of others) if you are truly driven by ethics for animals. You refuse to work on defense-funded projects because companies in your field have a pretend isolation mechanism (here's a hint: unless they are actually separate companies, they aren't isolated) that allows you to think you aren't supporting the military despite working for the company supporting the military. This type of behavior shocks idealists. Even though it's better than nothing, just doing little bits here and there where convenient actually makes it harder to change the status quo for idealists (because you think you're helping when you're not).
- _vertigo 8y ago
  Clearly he is rejecting the idealist viewpoint, so what does it matter if what he is saying “shocks idealists”?
  - hueving 8y ago
    He asked "what's so hard to understand?" so I explained.
- micheldlebeau 8y ago
  Maybe the issue is with idealists, having a white or black view of the world, then?
- Melkman 8y ago
  Then, as an idealist, what do you expect from other people to reach your goal ? If 50% of the people do 80% of what is needed you're at 40% of your goal. If 10% of the people do 100% you're only at 10% plus you've turned your goal in to an "us vs them" instead of "everybody for the greater good". Voting with your wallet 80% of the time is a valid means to support what you think is right. An idealistic minority doesn't change the world. The majority does.
  - 8y ago

TulliusCicero 8y ago

Doesn't seem very strange, and I work at Google. Tracking personal info to sell better ads, vs interpreting data to imprison or kill people? Those seem pretty hugely different to me.

zapita 8y ago
The same technology you're developing to track personal info to sell ads is what hostile governments around the world use to suppress individual rights, imprison and kill people. The fact that you don't understand the irony in what you're saying is remarkable. > Doesn't seem very strange, and I work at Google Yeah... Your working at Google might be precisely why it doesn't seem strange to you.
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  > The same technology you're developing to track personal info to sell ads is what hostile governments around the world use to suppress individual rights, imprison and kill people. It is? Source on that?
  - cryoshon 8y ago
    ....tracking personal info is synonymous with the ability to abuse that info. don't be naive.
    - lostcolony 8y ago
      Give me any sort of job that can't be abused. Taxi driver? Oh, wait, there have been sexual offenders who have used their cars to molest and rape. Micro-finance platform? Cool, you just supported putting poor people into debt. Cancer research? Komens foundation. Etc.
    - TulliusCicero 8y ago
      GP suggested organizations were using Google tech to do so, that's the part I find rather hard to believe. Either that or by "same technology" they actually meant "different, but same kind of technology" in which case their point makes no sense. Making chemicals to sell to hospitals vs making chemicals to sell to terrorists are things that have different moral weight, even if the underlying thing being created is basically the same.

gadders 8y ago

Quitting over those items wouldn't get them in the New York Times though.