17 ms·

I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping their military. GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi and all tech giants of that era did that with p

I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping their military. GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi and all tech giants of that era did that with pride during WWII. Then why can't Google, Facebook for USA? Perhaps the illusion of globalization is making us perceive Google, Facebook and other international giants as global companies. Although, geniuses from around the world have significant contributions in the success of these technology companies, after all, they are loyal only to profit and the USA. When a war breaks loose, these data monsters are one of the best weapons against the opponents.

pera 8y ago
During WWII Siemens owned a factory in Auschwitz and manufactured electrical parts for concentration camps and death camps.
oliveshell 8y ago
Hell of a comparison. “Why can’t they?,” you ask? I’m not saying they can’t, but for a start, how about the fact that we are no longer fighting a world war?
- non_sequitur 8y ago
  And do you know what it is that really upholds the peace we all love?
  - oliveshell 8y ago
    What in God’s name are you asking? You seem confused as to the nature of my comment, which was merely pointing out the massive difference in context between WWII and today.
    - non_sequitur 8y ago
      So your contention is that you have to be fighting a world war in order to help your military? (The post you responded to) There's no other reason to help your military? Really? Edit: this came out a bit snide so let me elaborate. There are plenty of reasons you may want to help your military when there isn't a world war going on. You can do it for patriotism. You can do it for the economics. You can do it because military applications of technology are actually pretty cool and can lead to more commercial inventions. Or, to the point in my original response, you can do it because you understand deep down that the threat of military force is what underpins the overall fairly secure world that we live in. Look at the military maneuvers and carrier group movements every time two countries get nervous around each other. Despite (or maybe because of) evolution were still just a step away from clubbing our neighbor (or being clubbed) for resources. So yes, a strong military helps support the country Google was founded in and thrived in, and helps Google and every other company in the US be successful, and makes possible the salaries we all make. So there are definitely incentives for those companies to want to make sure their military is properly supported. And no, I'm not a military man.
      - zdkl 8y ago
        Yeah it's fairly obvious you aren't a military man, thank you for saying it explicitely. The core of my issue with your points is this belief: >the threat of military force is what underpins the overall fairly secure world that we live in That hasn't been true since some time after the first gulf war. Asymmetrical warfare (good old guerilla/"terrorism", cyberespionnage..) aren't operational theaters on which carrier groups present determining advantages. The threat of vitrificating entire valleys hasn't really deterred ideological opponents to the USmil and associated economical or strategic partners. Basically, you're arguing for a variant of the irresistible movement (strong traditional military capabilities), while ignoring why the metaphorical unmoveable object adapts to resist traditional military pressure. Ask the soviets how Afghanistan went for them despite their vastly superior military capabilities.
      - jjuhl 8y ago
        "There's no other reason to help your military?" - I would say that there is indeed no reason to help the military in any way. We would all be a lot better off if the military was disbanded and people would focus on other things than killing eachother. And take it a step further and ban guns/weapons in general, both ownership and production (including for state actors) and we would be one step closer to world peace.
  - zdkl 8y ago
    Username checks out. So social media and search are guarantors of world peace? From a non-US perspective, it looks more like SIGINT against allies by treaty. But hey, it's a private company, no harm, no foul.
    - non_sequitur 8y ago
      What are you talking about? Google is/was not contemplating offering social media and search services as part of Maven. The subthread op asked, why can't a company help its country's military?
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    Is it arming Saudis to create famine in Yemen? Or is it that police can drop literal bombs on Black neighborhoods and few will ever know about it?[1] Or is it that when I'm in the US, I'm more likely to be murdered by police than to be murdered by anyone while in Japan? Or is it that Chicago has a murder rate 5x that of Somalia? Or WMD lies? Gulf of Tonkin lies? You may love this, but does everyone? Wolf Blitzer said he does: https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-defense-contractors-will-lose-jobs-if-u-s-stops-arming-saudi-arabia/ https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-... 1 - https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/18/407665820/why-did-we-forget-the-move-bombing https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/18/407665820...
  - johnchristopher 8y ago
    Around here it's often capitalism that is the poster cold for world peace.
zeth___ 8y ago
The US is directly and indirectly responsible for more civilian death than any other coutry since the cold war ended. Basic human decency should be the answer to why you shouldn't help kill even more.
- smt88 8y ago
  I think you should read some stats on Syria and get back to us.
  - mark_edward 8y ago
    I think you should read some stats on Korea or Vietnam and get back to me
    - smt88 8y ago
      Neither of those conflicts happened after the end of the Cold War.
  - zeth___ 8y ago
    Yes all those cia funded freedom fighters fighting the fbi funded freedom fighters have nothing to do with the US.
delbel 8y ago
its wrong because we don't want to one day wake up with autonomous drones flying over our head that can kill us. Upload a video to youtube with the wrong ideaology or keyword that triggered some AI to flag your account? Get ready to be fragged as soon as you step outside. I'd like to opt out please
- netsharc 8y ago
  The algorithms that take videos down due to "copyright" is already quite stupid, imagine it misclassifying your video as a terrorist video (or... an anti-Donald Trump, so anti-government...)
- wilsonnb 8y ago
  Regardless of whether Google works with the US military on this, or if another company works with the US military on this, or if NO outside company works with the US military on this, or even if the US military doesn't work on it at all, autonomous AI powered weapons are happening anyways. We can't put them back in the box. The prosperity that technology brings us comes with a cost. Weaponizing technology will always be a part of humanity. The only question for someone in the US should be "would I rather the US (and its allies) develop these weapons, or China develop these weapons, or Russia develop these weapons?".
  - hollerith 8y ago
    The US's developing them -- and especially the US's being the first to develop them -- makes it at least slightly more likely that Russia and China will develop them.
    - wilsonnb 8y ago
      My point was that Russia and China (and France, the UK, and many other nations) are going to develop them anyways, regardless of whether the US develops them. Anyone who likes living in a world where the US has military superiority over Russia and China (and every other nation) should support the US military, Google, and any other US company developing these weapons.
remarkEon 8y ago
I think the reason this is a problem is something you stated: Google brands itself as a global company. I’m an American and while I acknowledge the density of intelligent people that work at Google, the fact that they ostensibly have “global interests” makes me concerned that they could do this work safely. Please do not interpret that as some jingoistic platitude. That’s just...reality. While the “company” may be loyal to the US the people who work on these kinds of projects would need to be highly scrutinized.
- cpeterso 8y ago
  Similarly, how would people feel if Google, as a global company, was developing drone tech for other countries?
  - repolfx 8y ago
    Better example - how would all these American Googlers feel if Google started selling drone tech to a country that then began drone striking Americans, e.g. at sea?
  - candiodari 8y ago
    Euhm. Google, as demonstrated at maker fare, is making drone tech that has plenty of military applications : Google Maps/Earth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5jj6gBKGK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5jj6gBKGK8
- nunya213 8y ago
  I can 100% guarantee that no one will be able to work on Maven without getting a TS/SCI clearance. The process of getting one entails a high level of scrutiny.
  - remarkEon 8y ago
    Yes, I’m sure as well. But the “global” nature of the company still exposes even those who have SCI (or higher) clearance to risk.
yongjik 8y ago
> ... after all, they are loyal only to profit and the USA. You know what, most employees of Google or Facebook would vehemently disagree, including American citizens. In fact, say anything like that in Google's internal groups and I'm sure some lawyerfolk will descend down on you, hissing "Would you please stop talking about what you have zero ideas about?" (These days it might even involve HR. After all, saying to half of your coworkers that their work amounts to being a fifth column wouldn't go too well...)
- cobookman 8y ago
  Source please. I've Not seen anything stating most tech employees are anti Maven. Blind had a poll and it showed the exact opposite, with a strong majority for Maven.
  - yongjik 8y ago
    There's a large gap between being OK with your employer having a military project, and believing that the entirety of your multinational corporation is (either morally or legally) bound to one particular nation. I suspect most of those Googlers who are OK with building a robot for Pentagon will probably be OK with building another for, say, the German military. (Why not? It's double the profit.)
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - nebulous1 8y ago
    Can you link the poll you mention?
ipsin 8y ago
I have this queasy feeling that the U.S. is killing people who aren't actually taking up arms against it. If doing so shaves a few percent off the error rate that's saving innocent lives, but it's also becoming an essential part of a process that kills innocent people? I'd prefer standing against the slaughter.
- 3131s 8y ago
  It is fact, not a feeling. How many of the roughly 1 million people dead in the last 15 years of the "War of Terror" ever directly attacked the US or US citizens?
  - mattnewton 8y ago
    That’s the problem with preemptive strikes against individuals who aren’t part of a nation that declared war against you.. who’s t say they wouldn’t have attacked you? The metrics are inpossible, and the government is free to redefine people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time as probably guilty anyways.
    - privacypoller 8y ago
      Killing someone who, if left alive, might kill you is arguably a worst justification than those used by actual terrorists. It throws away the very pretext of correcting a wrong, perceived or otherwise. As software developers we should see the problem here with "premature optimization". It's an incredibly inefficient use of resources with limited success in addressing unplanned situations. Sounds a lot like the war in terror.
      - Kalium 8y ago
        Have you ever seen an engineer waste hours and days on a premature optimization? I have. Have you seen the same thing sometimes turn later into remarkable prescience, correctly anticipating some future problem and solving it before it happens? I've seen that too. Government and policy are rarely about certainty. They're generally and risks and probabilities, anticipated costs and expected values. That's the domain of statement and spies, and not for people who like clear certainties.
raz32dust 8y ago
Extending this argument, would you be OK if they helped other countries as well? Or just your country? I am trying to see if you are arguing from a patriotic perspective or saying that there is nothing wrong with military collaboration in general? I don't see why a company should only collaborate preferentially with one country. Either they shouldn't collaborate with any military as a part of some policy, which I don't see as enforceable. Or they should be free to collaborate with any country while not sharing any confidential data with each other. That gets us to corporations truly owning the world.
- apatters 8y ago
  > Would you be OK if they helped other countries as well? That would depend on how closely that country's interests and values are aligned with my own. This is what arms export regulations are intended to address.
  - ItsMe000001 8y ago
    A "country's interests" are not that of most of their population. Okay, gray and fuzzy area: When most citizens of European countries where enthusiastic when WWI started, does that mean that war was in their interest? So let's add the condition that you are not under the influence of propaganda and group-think and ha time to assess and feel the effects of policies. It's still fuzzy though: If you, directly or indirectly, depend on income streams that flow through the military–industrial complex, is war in your interest if you yourself are not negatively impacted?
- laretluval 8y ago
  > I don't see why a company should only collaborate preferentially with one country. Because if they do, then they avoid the negative outcomes you describe.
Cookingboy 8y ago
I kind of agree actually. Humanity has always been at conflict with each other and will be for the foreseeable future. But for the first time in history we have the tools to conduct intense warfare yet limit collateral damages and minimize cost in both human and material resources. The engineers who worked on precision strike weapons/smart bombs should be applauded instead of ostracized, in the past we'd just carpet bomb the whole city to get rid of enemies, along with innocent civilians. Obviously perpetual world peace without the need for weapons will be ideal, but I'm afraid I won't live long enough to see that day, so I'm totally fine with a more pragmatic approach at making war less costly than necessary. If drones powered by AI can achieve that, I'm all for it.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  I have mixed feelings here. On the one hand, you're correct about reduction of collateral damage. On the other hand, weapons of old were used as part of actual wars. Precise weaponry seems to be making it too easy to kill off people without starting a war - like the US is doing with its drone strikes - which means it'll happen more. Also, I fear that the limit of precision strike weapons is being able to swiftly kill an arbitrary target anywhere, for cheap - which opens the way for ethnic cleansing, killing off political opponents, people harboring thoughts inconvenient to powerful people, etc. Ultimately, I think precision weapons are better than blunt ones, but their development needs to happen in lock step with development of protection technologies - mostly social technologies, that would ensure those weapons can't be arbitrarily used by random politicians or countries without consequence. Unfortunately, it seems that in the last decades we've been losing social technologies - like the rule of law and trust in it.
  - Cookingboy 8y ago
    Hmm...that's a good point. A "safer" weapon may provide more incentives for wielders to use them and less restraints may be exercised. I guess everything is a double edged sword after all.
  - candiodari 8y ago
    If it "will" happen more, then why are we seeing the opposite ? Numbers of deaths due to military conflicts has been systematically declining and drone strikes have been with us for a decade. If loosely defined, you could say they've been with us since the first precision guided missile struck (1968). And of course there's the real can of worms that most technologies have military applications and can often even be directly weaponized. Drones being an example by themselves, but of course every source of energy is another obvious one. Add most medical discoveries, or at the very least every advance in genetics. Furthermore, say a better hashmap also helps guided munitions work faster and more precisely ... The problem with this argument is that it is self-contradictory when you analyze it thoroughly. Furthermore, reality seems to confirm that this is contradictory.
mrtksn 8y ago
April 2004: We will machine-read your e-mails so that we can show you banners more efficiently. No funny business, we promise. We also collect all kind of data about you, even offline data but no biggie. April 2018: We developed all that technology by reading your e-mails and analysing your daily life, now we will make military gear with all the expertise we know about the world and the human population so that political actors can kill more efficiently. No biggie. PS: We control the information flow, we can start and stop political conflicts by selectively displaying information but we would totally not use it to sell military gear. Oh, we also don't claim to be not evil anymore but no biggie. We also have established political ties and spend tons of money on lobbying but we would definitely not extract wealth by starting political conflicts and selling gear that is designed to contain the specific conflicts to the people in power that we spend a lot of money to keep in touch. No biggie.
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  > PS: We control the information flow, we can start and stop political conflicts by selectively displaying information [..] I see that claim thrown around a lot but nothing ever backs that up.
  - mrtksn 8y ago
    It's mostly a deduction. The hypothesis is that if you can control what information is available you can affect the opinions and feelings of the people who receive that information. There's a study conducted by Facebook about controlling emotions by means of content curation. If Facebook can do it, Google too can do it: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-... Google is the dominant search engine and these days they even host the content through AMP and they own the most popular web browser and mobile computers operating system. They have not only the means to reach people and curate the content generated by other people, they can also change the content created by other people(AMP pages) and disguise their actions(since they control the app that displays the content). Let's travel in time and go back to the WW2 days and mention Hitler as any proper online political discussion would eventually do. Don't you think that it would be very convenient for Hitler if he had a way to show "how awful Jews are"? Wouldn't he loved it if Germans search results about economical crisis or gas prices would display how "greedy Jewish bankers are destroying the lives of honest German workers" or any other political or cultural Nazi propaganda? Unless we switch to cryptographically signing all the content we create and learn to distrust any content that's not signed and have a way to verify that the signed content curation is not politically influenced, giants like Google and Facebook would have the power to make/break countries, start/stop lynches or even genocide. There's a reason why China doesn't allow search results about Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and all the governments are trying to find a way to control the information flow.
blackrock 8y ago
Because it is a conflict of interest. The public has put their trust into Google for 20 years. We supported them. We cheered them on. We have voluntarily given them all our personal data. Our emails. Our instant messages. Our voices. All of it feeds into their massive database for them to mine. We put our faith into them, in the hopes that they would honor their creed, that they would do no evil. But gradually, that facade has faded away. Their accumulation of personal data, beyond what is necessary for them to perform their work. And now this. The utilization of their wealth and knowledge, to push forward the state-of-the-art in the weaponization of Artificial Intelligence. There is nothing that will stop this. The military will find a defense contractor to do their bidding. But Google can voluntarily elect to remove themselves from this sector. Let some other company do it. Let someone else figure it out. The blood of dead innocent civilians will be on their hands. You don't see Raytheon, Boeing, or Northrop crying about it. By doing the military's bidding, then Google is now far scarier than Microsoft ever was. For those who don't know, when they coined the phrase, Do no evil, they meant it in relation to the Microsoft Borg of the 1980s and 90s. Microsoft now seems like a sheep in comparison to Google. I think it's time to disconnect Google from our lives. But, it's hopeless. They are everywhere.
- rifung 8y ago
  > There is nothing that will stop this. The military will find a defense contractor to do their bidding. But Google can voluntarily elect to remove themselves from this sector. Let some other company do it. Let someone else figure it out. The blood of dead innocent civilians will be on their hands. You don't see Raytheon, Boeing, or Northrop crying about it. I work at Google but opinions are my own. This is actually the thing I don't understand. Could you or someone please kindly explain it to me? What is "evil" about working with the military or developing weapons? I've seen this whole "Google is betraying its 'do not evil' by working with the military" as fact so many times but I've yet to get a better explanation for why it's actually evil besides some variation of "the military is bad"
  - DrJaws 8y ago
    Some people will see the evil as the country you are working for is known as the one of the primary aggressors and war initiators of the history that continues to kill directly and indirectly hundreds of thousands of people in other countries bringing them "democracy" where no one asked them for anything. Others will just see it as a necessity and that every company should work and help the government when they are asked to defend the country and maintain the global status quo. for some that conduct is a virus, for others just a symbiosis, but it's easy to see where they come both of them.
xab9 8y ago
Others doing it doesn't make it morally any better, though others thought like you do... like all the axis powers doing their fair share of deportations and gulags.
citrablue 8y ago
What is your opinion of the work that IBM did for the Germans in WW2?
- johnsprial 8y ago
  or the work IBM did for the apartheid government in South Africa?
mirimir 8y ago
Maybe Google isn't literally a global company, but I doubt that it wants only US business.
bambax 8y ago
> all tech giants of that era did that with pride during WWII During WWII the US was freeing the world from oppression; now it's more seen as the oppressor. The side you're on is pretty important (as it was during WWII). This is even more true in the case of drone operations and so-called "AI" assisted actions, where operators sitting safely in air-conditioned facilities in the California desert can decide to remotely kill people with no risk to themselves. I very much understand why a normal Google employee would prefer to have no part in that. Google understands it too, since it actively tried to keep the deal secret and minimized its impact when it became known.
- archerface 8y ago
  > The side you're on is pretty important So, generally and from what I understand about US drone operations, these strikes target people like ISIS and other Islamic extremists. Following this, in a general sense, the sides are the US and terrorist religious extremists. The way you frame your point makes it sound like your on one side or the other. If that is the case, I would much rather be on the side of the US than the extremest who murder people for arbitrary reasons. If that is not the way you meant for it to be framed, please correct me. > This is even more true in the case of drone operations and so-called "AI" assisted actions, where operators sitting safely in air-conditioned facilities in the California desert can decide to remotely kill people with no risk to themselves. Why does the risk to the warfighter matter? Would you rather they send infantry to go and assault the target? Why wouldn't you want to minimize the risk to the soldiers in the field by using tech to hit a target rather than men on the ground?
  - Toboe 8y ago
    >So, generally and from what I understand about US drone operations, these strikes target people like ISIS and other Islamic extremists. While that is the official reason/target, the question of who actually gets killed in those drone strikes is a contentious issue: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone... https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/90-of-people-killed-by-us-drone-strikes-in-afghani/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/90-of-peopl...
apatters 8y ago
These are all highly opinionated statements, but: - If you're American, you should support Google developing technology for the US military. - If you're human, you should support a foreign policy that only considers military action as a last resort. - If you're human, you should support early, aggressive, global regulation of the military applications of AI and drones. We made this mistake with nuclear. We leveled Hiroshima, we leveled Nagasaki, we fueled decades of animosity between the Soviets and the West that still plagues the world today. We need to do better next time. The biggest abuser might be the US again but it could just as easily be China. - If you're human, you should support regulation that forbids Google from using your personal for military applications without your express and informed consent. Substitute Google for any other tech giant's name.
- murukesh_s 8y ago
  > - If you're American, you should support Google developing technology for the US military. Why? Americans are not humans?
  - apatters 8y ago
    I meant to imply that Americans (or citizens of any nation) have certain interests that not all humans share, but in general, we're a lot closer than we think.
    - aninhumer 8y ago
      That still assumes that all Americans are American Nationalists, i.e. they prefer the prosperity of people living in America at the expense of others. I don't think that's necessarily true and I definitely don't think they "should" believe that.
- bonesss 8y ago
  > ... you should support early, aggressive, global regulation of the military applications of AI and drones. The history of global regulations on the military application of useful military technologies is not too impressive. The second a shooting war breaks out those rules will be forgotten, giving a huge head-start to anyone shady enough to ignore them wholesale. "AI" has been used in war since WW2. Strapping an IED onto a quadcopter isn't a shocking idea, and the economics of 1000+ stealth-killer UAVs vs 1 not-that-stealth Navy Boat are pretty undeniable over time... AIs and Drones are inevitably coming to warfare -- they're here already. Economic unions that make warfare unthinkable may be a better long term bet (thanks, Trump!). > We leveled Hiroshima, we leveled Nagasaki, we fueled decades of animosity between the Soviets and the West that still plagues the world today Mmmm that animosity was not created by bombing two Japanese cities, among many, with a new weapon type. That animosity was a freight train that could have kept WWII going another decade, and there was a real problem of how that war might look for our side had a resurgent Russia conquered Japan early in. They took Manchuria just a few days after the second bomb, IIRC, so their threat was far from hypothetical. Those bombs were sending a clear and distinct message to the Soviets. It worked. I'd rather have animosity than a nuclear WWIII.
joering2 8y ago
Because it doesn't fucking rhyme with "don't be evil".
discordance 8y ago
I don't think WW2 and the "wars" of the last 20 years are a fair comparison. The recent wars are highly controversial and this is clearly recognised and protested by people working in SV.
- candiodari 8y ago
  The outcome of wars determines how protests are seen. Do you think there were no large protests against attacking the Nazis in WWII ? Anti-war people are anti-war. They have as little concept of just wars versus unjust wars as the people they accuse of warmongery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_World_War_II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrhjmT4Zg5I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrhjmT4Zg5I
  - refurb 8y ago
    Thanks for calling this out. There was fierce opposition to getting involved in all the wars that we now look back on as "just" - WW2 is the best example.
ninjamayo 8y ago
Like Porsche or Siemens did for the Nazis for example. Nothing wrong there. I wonder how you would feel and what you would say if you were on the other end of these weapons e.g an innocent Afghan civilian.
drawkbox 8y ago
> When a war breaks loose, these data monsters are one of the best weapons against the opponents. War and military research throughout history have done many good things for quality of life, even back to the days of Archimedes fearing the Roman invasions, when it is more about defense not offense. This here ARPA/DARPA decentralized network of the internet is one of those good things along with self-driving cars, wifi, even microwave ovens come from radar research...and many others. But what could possibly go wrong when military/war artificial intelligence is combined with all your data and knows everything about you? We have seen Terminator and heard about Skynet. What if what it knows about you is wrong or spoofed? The ramifications could be much less than worst case Skynet but you can plainly see the way Youtube automation is even just for copyright, you gotta ask yourself, will it get everything right? Will YOU be deemed an opponent and a 'bad guy'? When the machine does it there is also a level of liability taken away. Defensive military/war tools are one thing and lots of good from bad throughout history, but when defense is pre-emptive offensive actions like drones, the line gets fuzzy. Are we Archimedes or the Roman soldier that killed him?
- Lennie 8y ago
  > But what could possibly go wrong when military/war artificial intelligence is combined with all your data and knows everything about you? Someone made a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM Dailymotion (French company) mirror: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6kttmw https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6kttmw
akerro 8y ago
> I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping their military. GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi and all tech giants of that era did that with pride during WWII. Then why can't Google, Facebook for USA? Companies that supported holocaust on Poles and Jews did nothing wrong, because they were helping military?
teekert 8y ago
IBM also did that for the Germans in WW2, perhaps it's better to stay politically neutral for companies? "without IBM's machinery, continuing upkeep and service, as well as the supply of punch cards, whether located on-site or off-site, Hitler's camps could have never managed the numbers they did." (This is the opinion of the writer of "IBM and the Holocaust" [0]) I bet Google is not looking forward to going down into history as: "without Google's AI, continuing upkeep and service, as well as the supply of TPU's, whether located on-site or off-site, the US's drones could have never managed the numbers they did." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
pimmen 8y ago
I don't have anything against tech companies helping the military, that's their choice. I wouldn't want to build that stuff, but others can make that choice. However, AI weapons is something I strongly condemn. They raise many unsolved ethical questions, such as if they kill civilians who committed the war crime? How do you make sure they don't kill civilians? If Google were revealed to be developing biological weapons or chemical weapons, I suspect you would have a different opinion.
gaius 8y ago
I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping their military Sure, it’s fine but let’s call a spade a spade. Will Google update their global T&Cs to say “we are an American company serving American national interests and by using our services you agree to your data being used for that purpose”? Of course they won’t!
- jacquesm 8y ago
  There ought to be a service that re-writes T&C and privacy policies in the most straightforward manner.
  - r3bl 8y ago
    Of course there is! https://tosdr.org/ https://tosdr.org/
sorokod 8y ago
helping their military Do you mean helping in the sence FB helps us socialize and Google helps us search? Helping without expectation of reward and incentivizing further business? Not a pro bono work from the looks of it so profit is expected and good place in future competition with other contractors. Perhaps I am nitpicking but "help" doesn't belong here.
kumarvvr 8y ago
GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi, etc. have nowhere near the amount of power that Google has over our lives. Google is a different beast altogether. Recent events have shown that every aspect of our lives can be controlled by data. Imagine a situation where Google can supply weapons to support human rights violations and simultaneously keep such information from reaching the masses. Misinforming just 30% of US Population has brought people like trump to power.
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
The difference is that the wars nowadays are less about ideals and more about profit. Yes muslim extremism is bad and those people are bastards, but the military isn't fighting them as effectively and there is no way to win this war - like the "war" on drugs it's a self-reinforcing, endless cycle kinda thing. WW2 was different; the nazis had invaded most of Europe, were committing genocide, etc.
stef25 8y ago
Nothing wrong with running their emails or servers but helping it identify targets with AI brings it very close to everyone's nightmare scenario of fully autonomous killer drones. I don't know the details, probably everything will be verified by a human (for now) and we're maybe talking only structures and patterns instead of persons. But things may evolve quickly. AI can already drive a car and diagnose some illnesses better than humans can (there was a recent article about AI detecting melanoma). The step to "decide who to kill better than a human" is awfully close. Personally I'm not against it all if better really means better. It's just crazy that cutesy Google with their maps and emails are now doing this. It's shocking enough that Intercept would pounce on it. If it was Raytheon nobody would care. I wonder if they'll update their terms & conditions. "Any selfies may be used to kill you". Al Qaeda better (not) be using Google Photos.
timavr 8y ago
They are multinational companies. If they want to move HQ to another country, they can do it any day. Happens all the time. It is question of ethics and values. Plenty of companies and people were totally fine profiting from holocaust. US is killing thousands of people in countries we are not in war with with no trial. In my opinion everyone in the world should have the same rights as us. Otherwise it is just hypocricy and we just live a huge lie. How would anyone feel in America if somebody was killed without trial by foreign nation? Also this behaviour long term is completely self defeating. Military wise nukes make everyone equal? Are we planning to keep nukes out of hands of our enemies for centuries or we just planning to kill everyone who is against our policies?
singularity2001 8y ago
"I don't see anything wrong" Maybe you see if, you substitute 'military' for it's historic contributions to mankind: "I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping «an organization that is specialized in killing and very likely to perform torture, rape and genocide»"
giancarlostoro 8y ago
The issue is taking engineers who likely NEVER signed up for military work ("that's not in my job description!") at your company and throwing them at military contracts. If Google wants to pursue this they should either hire experienced government contractors (who have the benefit of existing government clearance) or Alphabet should spin up (whether buy or create / fund) a government contractor focused on this sort of thing. It would likely yield better results given the types of resources Google has available. But don't just expect someone whose never done government work who might not want to to just roll over and do it if you force it upon them. Disclaimer: I work as a government contractor unrelated to Google but I chose the type of company to work for based on the TYPE of work they do. If I don't wanna build kill drones I don't work for companies known to do weapons or related engineering.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
v-yadli 8y ago
so you want Google to do it with pride in WWIII?
simion314 8y ago
Maybe if there be one US AI company would be ok, but Google is a world wide company that has it's tentacles in many things.
barrkel 8y ago
Google is a multi-national company. Why should it have allegiance to the US? Just because it was founded and has headquarters somewhere doesn't mean that it needs to be loyal to that place. Look at how quickly Banco Sabadell and CaixaBank moved out of Catalonia after the separatist movement started causing ructions. Do you think that staying on Trump's side is in the best interest of a multi-national? Don't forget, there's another side to building weapons: the better your weapons, the lower your threshold for starting a war. AI weapons are especially dangerous: they permit politicians to start wars without risking citizen's lives, thus reducing the natural incentive in democracies to avoid war. Now put that power in the reins of Trump. Does it sound good?
demarq 8y ago
This is not WWII
saas_co_de 8y ago
It is not necessarily a question of "right" and "wrong" but what are the consequences of people seeing Google as a weapon as opposed to an information service? If the whole world begins to see Google as a weapon then they will take defensive measures.
gameswithgo 8y ago
I think if we were currently fighting the 3rd Reich people might be more for it. But currently the USA has a massive military for no purpose, which is often used to conduct evil, and thus some people do not want to aid it.
- jeffreyrogers 8y ago
  I'd argue that the purpose is to act as a deterrent against countries that might otherwise think of invading their neighbors or things along those lines, but it's reasonable to think that the cost of such of large military is not worth the benefits. It's also one of the US's largest employers.
  - wilsonnb 8y ago
    And one of our largest welfare programs. It's pretty easy for an 18 year old with no marketable skills to join the military and end up with some skills and a free college education.
- archerface 8y ago
  > ... which is often used to conduct evil, ... I am curious. In your eyes, what evil has the US military done?
  - glitchdout 8y ago
    https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/ https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone... Is this enough?...
fixermark 8y ago
Globalization does make Google a global company. Some of its employees have had friends and relatives in the path of US-operated drone strikes.
bitL 8y ago
I think it's because of idealism innate in computing. Those young aspiring minds dream about making a positive change in the world, studying day and night, sacrificing pleasure for knowledge and capability, and at some point somebody will show them a video of a person blown into pieces and telling them: "Congratulations! This is the main fruit of your life. Well Done!" - moments later - "Why do you complain? You signed a contract so shut up!"
ajsdfhjkas 8y ago
youre really going to cite mitsubishi and siemens conduct during wwii as uh something you dont see anything wrong about?? you might want to do some homework on that....
tripzilch 8y ago
So, Siemens also built the deep packet inspection system for Iran (in a joint venture together with Nokia) and was accused of complicity in human rights violations (by Amnesty International, among other organisations). After being called out, both companies posted an apology/explanation on their websites, where they claimed they didn't know that building a deep packet inspection system for Iran would result in human rights violations. After having been developed for Iran, the system was also sold to Egypt. This is one reason why the Black Mirror-esque tracking/surveillance situation in China should scare everyone: This system now exists. Consider the inefficiency of government IT projects when they need to be built, compared to when they can be bought. I don't know if China would sell it, of course, but the mere existence and that it can now be deployed elsewhere, which is of course still no small task because a lot of it is probably very specific to China, but even then, scary as hell. But I digress. So you say they helped their military with pride during WWII (what side was Siemens on, btw?) Is there really nothing wrong with Siemens developing DPI infrastructure for a country that is known for its human rights abuses? (Siemens claiming not knowing what it would be used for is either a bullshit excuse or a dangerous lack of foresight). So is there also really nothing wrong with Google developing AI for flying military robot plane-missile-things for this other country that is also known for human rights abuses? (just not on its own citizens, usually) Anyway, my point is, it doesn't matter whether a corporation supports its own military/country when developing technology that comes strong ethical questions (which is the case for military drones, or DPI). Google should consider their own choice in the light of whether this technology will be used for good things, not just whether the military of the particular country they're developing it for considers it a good thing, because usually the military considers whatever grants them more power to be good things. Google should also consider that there is no "when a war breaks loose", that's not how the world works today. Besides, the USA claims to be currently "at war" anyway. So when they develop modern weapons for the US military, they should consider that in the light of what the US military is doing right now and what it has been doing recently, not in the light of them taking the noble high ground in a hypothetical future war situation that conveniently has a clear "good side" and a clear "bad side". Because before that hypothetical future war will happen those weapons WILL have been used for whatever the US military pleases currently. And that's not always good things.

pera 8y ago

During WWII Siemens owned a factory in Auschwitz and manufactured electrical parts for concentration camps and death camps.

oliveshell 8y ago

Hell of a comparison. “Why can’t they?,” you ask? I’m not saying they can’t, but for a start, how about the fact that we are no longer fighting a world war?

non_sequitur 8y ago
And do you know what it is that really upholds the peace we all love?
- oliveshell 8y ago
  What in God’s name are you asking? You seem confused as to the nature of my comment, which was merely pointing out the massive difference in context between WWII and today.
  - non_sequitur 8y ago
    So your contention is that you have to be fighting a world war in order to help your military? (The post you responded to) There's no other reason to help your military? Really? Edit: this came out a bit snide so let me elaborate. There are plenty of reasons you may want to help your military when there isn't a world war going on. You can do it for patriotism. You can do it for the economics. You can do it because military applications of technology are actually pretty cool and can lead to more commercial inventions. Or, to the point in my original response, you can do it because you understand deep down that the threat of military force is what underpins the overall fairly secure world that we live in. Look at the military maneuvers and carrier group movements every time two countries get nervous around each other. Despite (or maybe because of) evolution were still just a step away from clubbing our neighbor (or being clubbed) for resources. So yes, a strong military helps support the country Google was founded in and thrived in, and helps Google and every other company in the US be successful, and makes possible the salaries we all make. So there are definitely incentives for those companies to want to make sure their military is properly supported. And no, I'm not a military man.
    - zdkl 8y ago
      Yeah it's fairly obvious you aren't a military man, thank you for saying it explicitely. The core of my issue with your points is this belief: >the threat of military force is what underpins the overall fairly secure world that we live in That hasn't been true since some time after the first gulf war. Asymmetrical warfare (good old guerilla/"terrorism", cyberespionnage..) aren't operational theaters on which carrier groups present determining advantages. The threat of vitrificating entire valleys hasn't really deterred ideological opponents to the USmil and associated economical or strategic partners. Basically, you're arguing for a variant of the irresistible movement (strong traditional military capabilities), while ignoring why the metaphorical unmoveable object adapts to resist traditional military pressure. Ask the soviets how Afghanistan went for them despite their vastly superior military capabilities.
    - jjuhl 8y ago
      "There's no other reason to help your military?" - I would say that there is indeed no reason to help the military in any way. We would all be a lot better off if the military was disbanded and people would focus on other things than killing eachother. And take it a step further and ban guns/weapons in general, both ownership and production (including for state actors) and we would be one step closer to world peace.
- zdkl 8y ago
  Username checks out. So social media and search are guarantors of world peace? From a non-US perspective, it looks more like SIGINT against allies by treaty. But hey, it's a private company, no harm, no foul.
  - non_sequitur 8y ago
    What are you talking about? Google is/was not contemplating offering social media and search services as part of Maven. The subthread op asked, why can't a company help its country's military?
- wallace_f 8y ago
  Is it arming Saudis to create famine in Yemen? Or is it that police can drop literal bombs on Black neighborhoods and few will ever know about it?[1] Or is it that when I'm in the US, I'm more likely to be murdered by police than to be murdered by anyone while in Japan? Or is it that Chicago has a murder rate 5x that of Somalia? Or WMD lies? Gulf of Tonkin lies? You may love this, but does everyone? Wolf Blitzer said he does: https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-defense-contractors-will-lose-jobs-if-u-s-stops-arming-saudi-arabia/ https://theintercept.com/2016/09/09/wolf-blitzer-is-worried-... 1 - https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/18/407665820/why-did-we-forget-the-move-bombing https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/18/407665820...
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  Around here it's often capitalism that is the poster cold for world peace.

zeth___ 8y ago

The US is directly and indirectly responsible for more civilian death than any other coutry since the cold war ended. Basic human decency should be the answer to why you shouldn't help kill even more.

smt88 8y ago
I think you should read some stats on Syria and get back to us.
- mark_edward 8y ago
  I think you should read some stats on Korea or Vietnam and get back to me
  - smt88 8y ago
    Neither of those conflicts happened after the end of the Cold War.
- zeth___ 8y ago
  Yes all those cia funded freedom fighters fighting the fbi funded freedom fighters have nothing to do with the US.

delbel 8y ago

its wrong because we don't want to one day wake up with autonomous drones flying over our head that can kill us. Upload a video to youtube with the wrong ideaology or keyword that triggered some AI to flag your account? Get ready to be fragged as soon as you step outside. I'd like to opt out please

netsharc 8y ago
The algorithms that take videos down due to "copyright" is already quite stupid, imagine it misclassifying your video as a terrorist video (or... an anti-Donald Trump, so anti-government...)
wilsonnb 8y ago
Regardless of whether Google works with the US military on this, or if another company works with the US military on this, or if NO outside company works with the US military on this, or even if the US military doesn't work on it at all, autonomous AI powered weapons are happening anyways. We can't put them back in the box. The prosperity that technology brings us comes with a cost. Weaponizing technology will always be a part of humanity. The only question for someone in the US should be "would I rather the US (and its allies) develop these weapons, or China develop these weapons, or Russia develop these weapons?".
- hollerith 8y ago
  The US's developing them -- and especially the US's being the first to develop them -- makes it at least slightly more likely that Russia and China will develop them.
  - wilsonnb 8y ago
    My point was that Russia and China (and France, the UK, and many other nations) are going to develop them anyways, regardless of whether the US develops them. Anyone who likes living in a world where the US has military superiority over Russia and China (and every other nation) should support the US military, Google, and any other US company developing these weapons.

remarkEon 8y ago

I think the reason this is a problem is something you stated: Google brands itself as a global company. I’m an American and while I acknowledge the density of intelligent people that work at Google, the fact that they ostensibly have “global interests” makes me concerned that they could do this work safely. Please do not interpret that as some jingoistic platitude. That’s just...reality. While the “company” may be loyal to the US the people who work on these kinds of projects would need to be highly scrutinized.

cpeterso 8y ago
Similarly, how would people feel if Google, as a global company, was developing drone tech for other countries?
- repolfx 8y ago
  Better example - how would all these American Googlers feel if Google started selling drone tech to a country that then began drone striking Americans, e.g. at sea?
- candiodari 8y ago
  Euhm. Google, as demonstrated at maker fare, is making drone tech that has plenty of military applications : Google Maps/Earth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5jj6gBKGK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5jj6gBKGK8
nunya213 8y ago
I can 100% guarantee that no one will be able to work on Maven without getting a TS/SCI clearance. The process of getting one entails a high level of scrutiny.
- remarkEon 8y ago
  Yes, I’m sure as well. But the “global” nature of the company still exposes even those who have SCI (or higher) clearance to risk.

yongjik 8y ago

> ... after all, they are loyal only to profit and the USA. You know what, most employees of Google or Facebook would vehemently disagree, including American citizens. In fact, say anything like that in Google's internal groups and I'm sure some lawyerfolk will descend down on you, hissing "Would you please stop talking about what you have zero ideas about?" (These days it might even involve HR. After all, saying to half of your coworkers that their work amounts to being a fifth column wouldn't go too well...)

cobookman 8y ago
Source please. I've Not seen anything stating most tech employees are anti Maven. Blind had a poll and it showed the exact opposite, with a strong majority for Maven.
- yongjik 8y ago
  There's a large gap between being OK with your employer having a military project, and believing that the entirety of your multinational corporation is (either morally or legally) bound to one particular nation. I suspect most of those Googlers who are OK with building a robot for Pentagon will probably be OK with building another for, say, the German military. (Why not? It's double the profit.)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- nebulous1 8y ago
  Can you link the poll you mention?

ipsin 8y ago

I have this queasy feeling that the U.S. is killing people who aren't actually taking up arms against it. If doing so shaves a few percent off the error rate that's saving innocent lives, but it's also becoming an essential part of a process that kills innocent people? I'd prefer standing against the slaughter.

3131s 8y ago
It is fact, not a feeling. How many of the roughly 1 million people dead in the last 15 years of the "War of Terror" ever directly attacked the US or US citizens?
- mattnewton 8y ago
  That’s the problem with preemptive strikes against individuals who aren’t part of a nation that declared war against you.. who’s t say they wouldn’t have attacked you? The metrics are inpossible, and the government is free to redefine people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time as probably guilty anyways.
  - privacypoller 8y ago
    Killing someone who, if left alive, might kill you is arguably a worst justification than those used by actual terrorists. It throws away the very pretext of correcting a wrong, perceived or otherwise. As software developers we should see the problem here with "premature optimization". It's an incredibly inefficient use of resources with limited success in addressing unplanned situations. Sounds a lot like the war in terror.
    - Kalium 8y ago
      Have you ever seen an engineer waste hours and days on a premature optimization? I have. Have you seen the same thing sometimes turn later into remarkable prescience, correctly anticipating some future problem and solving it before it happens? I've seen that too. Government and policy are rarely about certainty. They're generally and risks and probabilities, anticipated costs and expected values. That's the domain of statement and spies, and not for people who like clear certainties.

raz32dust 8y ago

Extending this argument, would you be OK if they helped other countries as well? Or just your country? I am trying to see if you are arguing from a patriotic perspective or saying that there is nothing wrong with military collaboration in general? I don't see why a company should only collaborate preferentially with one country. Either they shouldn't collaborate with any military as a part of some policy, which I don't see as enforceable. Or they should be free to collaborate with any country while not sharing any confidential data with each other. That gets us to corporations truly owning the world.

apatters 8y ago
> Would you be OK if they helped other countries as well? That would depend on how closely that country's interests and values are aligned with my own. This is what arms export regulations are intended to address.
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  A "country's interests" are not that of most of their population. Okay, gray and fuzzy area: When most citizens of European countries where enthusiastic when WWI started, does that mean that war was in their interest? So let's add the condition that you are not under the influence of propaganda and group-think and ha time to assess and feel the effects of policies. It's still fuzzy though: If you, directly or indirectly, depend on income streams that flow through the military–industrial complex, is war in your interest if you yourself are not negatively impacted?
laretluval 8y ago
> I don't see why a company should only collaborate preferentially with one country. Because if they do, then they avoid the negative outcomes you describe.

Cookingboy 8y ago

I kind of agree actually. Humanity has always been at conflict with each other and will be for the foreseeable future. But for the first time in history we have the tools to conduct intense warfare yet limit collateral damages and minimize cost in both human and material resources. The engineers who worked on precision strike weapons/smart bombs should be applauded instead of ostracized, in the past we'd just carpet bomb the whole city to get rid of enemies, along with innocent civilians. Obviously perpetual world peace without the need for weapons will be ideal, but I'm afraid I won't live long enough to see that day, so I'm totally fine with a more pragmatic approach at making war less costly than necessary. If drones powered by AI can achieve that, I'm all for it.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
I have mixed feelings here. On the one hand, you're correct about reduction of collateral damage. On the other hand, weapons of old were used as part of actual wars. Precise weaponry seems to be making it too easy to kill off people without starting a war - like the US is doing with its drone strikes - which means it'll happen more. Also, I fear that the limit of precision strike weapons is being able to swiftly kill an arbitrary target anywhere, for cheap - which opens the way for ethnic cleansing, killing off political opponents, people harboring thoughts inconvenient to powerful people, etc. Ultimately, I think precision weapons are better than blunt ones, but their development needs to happen in lock step with development of protection technologies - mostly social technologies, that would ensure those weapons can't be arbitrarily used by random politicians or countries without consequence. Unfortunately, it seems that in the last decades we've been losing social technologies - like the rule of law and trust in it.
- Cookingboy 8y ago
  Hmm...that's a good point. A "safer" weapon may provide more incentives for wielders to use them and less restraints may be exercised. I guess everything is a double edged sword after all.
- candiodari 8y ago
  If it "will" happen more, then why are we seeing the opposite ? Numbers of deaths due to military conflicts has been systematically declining and drone strikes have been with us for a decade. If loosely defined, you could say they've been with us since the first precision guided missile struck (1968). And of course there's the real can of worms that most technologies have military applications and can often even be directly weaponized. Drones being an example by themselves, but of course every source of energy is another obvious one. Add most medical discoveries, or at the very least every advance in genetics. Furthermore, say a better hashmap also helps guided munitions work faster and more precisely ... The problem with this argument is that it is self-contradictory when you analyze it thoroughly. Furthermore, reality seems to confirm that this is contradictory.

mrtksn 8y ago

April 2004: We will machine-read your e-mails so that we can show you banners more efficiently. No funny business, we promise. We also collect all kind of data about you, even offline data but no biggie. April 2018: We developed all that technology by reading your e-mails and analysing your daily life, now we will make military gear with all the expertise we know about the world and the human population so that political actors can kill more efficiently. No biggie. PS: We control the information flow, we can start and stop political conflicts by selectively displaying information but we would totally not use it to sell military gear. Oh, we also don't claim to be not evil anymore but no biggie. We also have established political ties and spend tons of money on lobbying but we would definitely not extract wealth by starting political conflicts and selling gear that is designed to contain the specific conflicts to the people in power that we spend a lot of money to keep in touch. No biggie.

johnchristopher 8y ago
> PS: We control the information flow, we can start and stop political conflicts by selectively displaying information [..] I see that claim thrown around a lot but nothing ever backs that up.
- mrtksn 8y ago
  It's mostly a deduction. The hypothesis is that if you can control what information is available you can affect the opinions and feelings of the people who receive that information. There's a study conducted by Facebook about controlling emotions by means of content curation. If Facebook can do it, Google too can do it: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-... Google is the dominant search engine and these days they even host the content through AMP and they own the most popular web browser and mobile computers operating system. They have not only the means to reach people and curate the content generated by other people, they can also change the content created by other people(AMP pages) and disguise their actions(since they control the app that displays the content). Let's travel in time and go back to the WW2 days and mention Hitler as any proper online political discussion would eventually do. Don't you think that it would be very convenient for Hitler if he had a way to show "how awful Jews are"? Wouldn't he loved it if Germans search results about economical crisis or gas prices would display how "greedy Jewish bankers are destroying the lives of honest German workers" or any other political or cultural Nazi propaganda? Unless we switch to cryptographically signing all the content we create and learn to distrust any content that's not signed and have a way to verify that the signed content curation is not politically influenced, giants like Google and Facebook would have the power to make/break countries, start/stop lynches or even genocide. There's a reason why China doesn't allow search results about Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and all the governments are trying to find a way to control the information flow.

blackrock 8y ago

Because it is a conflict of interest. The public has put their trust into Google for 20 years. We supported them. We cheered them on. We have voluntarily given them all our personal data. Our emails. Our instant messages. Our voices. All of it feeds into their massive database for them to mine. We put our faith into them, in the hopes that they would honor their creed, that they would do no evil. But gradually, that facade has faded away. Their accumulation of personal data, beyond what is necessary for them to perform their work. And now this. The utilization of their wealth and knowledge, to push forward the state-of-the-art in the weaponization of Artificial Intelligence. There is nothing that will stop this. The military will find a defense contractor to do their bidding. But Google can voluntarily elect to remove themselves from this sector. Let some other company do it. Let someone else figure it out. The blood of dead innocent civilians will be on their hands. You don't see Raytheon, Boeing, or Northrop crying about it. By doing the military's bidding, then Google is now far scarier than Microsoft ever was. For those who don't know, when they coined the phrase, Do no evil, they meant it in relation to the Microsoft Borg of the 1980s and 90s. Microsoft now seems like a sheep in comparison to Google. I think it's time to disconnect Google from our lives. But, it's hopeless. They are everywhere.

rifung 8y ago
> There is nothing that will stop this. The military will find a defense contractor to do their bidding. But Google can voluntarily elect to remove themselves from this sector. Let some other company do it. Let someone else figure it out. The blood of dead innocent civilians will be on their hands. You don't see Raytheon, Boeing, or Northrop crying about it. I work at Google but opinions are my own. This is actually the thing I don't understand. Could you or someone please kindly explain it to me? What is "evil" about working with the military or developing weapons? I've seen this whole "Google is betraying its 'do not evil' by working with the military" as fact so many times but I've yet to get a better explanation for why it's actually evil besides some variation of "the military is bad"
- DrJaws 8y ago
  Some people will see the evil as the country you are working for is known as the one of the primary aggressors and war initiators of the history that continues to kill directly and indirectly hundreds of thousands of people in other countries bringing them "democracy" where no one asked them for anything. Others will just see it as a necessity and that every company should work and help the government when they are asked to defend the country and maintain the global status quo. for some that conduct is a virus, for others just a symbiosis, but it's easy to see where they come both of them.

xab9 8y ago

Others doing it doesn't make it morally any better, though others thought like you do... like all the axis powers doing their fair share of deportations and gulags.

citrablue 8y ago

What is your opinion of the work that IBM did for the Germans in WW2?

johnsprial 8y ago
or the work IBM did for the apartheid government in South Africa?

mirimir 8y ago

Maybe Google isn't literally a global company, but I doubt that it wants only US business.

bambax 8y ago

> all tech giants of that era did that with pride during WWII During WWII the US was freeing the world from oppression; now it's more seen as the oppressor. The side you're on is pretty important (as it was during WWII). This is even more true in the case of drone operations and so-called "AI" assisted actions, where operators sitting safely in air-conditioned facilities in the California desert can decide to remotely kill people with no risk to themselves. I very much understand why a normal Google employee would prefer to have no part in that. Google understands it too, since it actively tried to keep the deal secret and minimized its impact when it became known.

archerface 8y ago
> The side you're on is pretty important So, generally and from what I understand about US drone operations, these strikes target people like ISIS and other Islamic extremists. Following this, in a general sense, the sides are the US and terrorist religious extremists. The way you frame your point makes it sound like your on one side or the other. If that is the case, I would much rather be on the side of the US than the extremest who murder people for arbitrary reasons. If that is not the way you meant for it to be framed, please correct me. > This is even more true in the case of drone operations and so-called "AI" assisted actions, where operators sitting safely in air-conditioned facilities in the California desert can decide to remotely kill people with no risk to themselves. Why does the risk to the warfighter matter? Would you rather they send infantry to go and assault the target? Why wouldn't you want to minimize the risk to the soldiers in the field by using tech to hit a target rather than men on the ground?
- Toboe 8y ago
  >So, generally and from what I understand about US drone operations, these strikes target people like ISIS and other Islamic extremists. While that is the official reason/target, the question of who actually gets killed in those drone strikes is a contentious issue: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone... https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/90-of-people-killed-by-us-drone-strikes-in-afghani/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/15/90-of-peopl...

apatters 8y ago

These are all highly opinionated statements, but: - If you're American, you should support Google developing technology for the US military. - If you're human, you should support a foreign policy that only considers military action as a last resort. - If you're human, you should support early, aggressive, global regulation of the military applications of AI and drones. We made this mistake with nuclear. We leveled Hiroshima, we leveled Nagasaki, we fueled decades of animosity between the Soviets and the West that still plagues the world today. We need to do better next time. The biggest abuser might be the US again but it could just as easily be China. - If you're human, you should support regulation that forbids Google from using your personal for military applications without your express and informed consent. Substitute Google for any other tech giant's name.

murukesh_s 8y ago
> - If you're American, you should support Google developing technology for the US military. Why? Americans are not humans?
- apatters 8y ago
  I meant to imply that Americans (or citizens of any nation) have certain interests that not all humans share, but in general, we're a lot closer than we think.
  - aninhumer 8y ago
    That still assumes that all Americans are American Nationalists, i.e. they prefer the prosperity of people living in America at the expense of others. I don't think that's necessarily true and I definitely don't think they "should" believe that.
bonesss 8y ago
> ... you should support early, aggressive, global regulation of the military applications of AI and drones. The history of global regulations on the military application of useful military technologies is not too impressive. The second a shooting war breaks out those rules will be forgotten, giving a huge head-start to anyone shady enough to ignore them wholesale. "AI" has been used in war since WW2. Strapping an IED onto a quadcopter isn't a shocking idea, and the economics of 1000+ stealth-killer UAVs vs 1 not-that-stealth Navy Boat are pretty undeniable over time... AIs and Drones are inevitably coming to warfare -- they're here already. Economic unions that make warfare unthinkable may be a better long term bet (thanks, Trump!). > We leveled Hiroshima, we leveled Nagasaki, we fueled decades of animosity between the Soviets and the West that still plagues the world today Mmmm that animosity was not created by bombing two Japanese cities, among many, with a new weapon type. That animosity was a freight train that could have kept WWII going another decade, and there was a real problem of how that war might look for our side had a resurgent Russia conquered Japan early in. They took Manchuria just a few days after the second bomb, IIRC, so their threat was far from hypothetical. Those bombs were sending a clear and distinct message to the Soviets. It worked. I'd rather have animosity than a nuclear WWIII.

joering2 8y ago

Because it doesn't fucking rhyme with "don't be evil".

discordance 8y ago

I don't think WW2 and the "wars" of the last 20 years are a fair comparison. The recent wars are highly controversial and this is clearly recognised and protested by people working in SV.

candiodari 8y ago
The outcome of wars determines how protests are seen. Do you think there were no large protests against attacking the Nazis in WWII ? Anti-war people are anti-war. They have as little concept of just wars versus unjust wars as the people they accuse of warmongery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_World_War_II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrhjmT4Zg5I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrhjmT4Zg5I
- refurb 8y ago
  Thanks for calling this out. There was fierce opposition to getting involved in all the wars that we now look back on as "just" - WW2 is the best example.

ninjamayo 8y ago

Like Porsche or Siemens did for the Nazis for example. Nothing wrong there. I wonder how you would feel and what you would say if you were on the other end of these weapons e.g an innocent Afghan civilian.

drawkbox 8y ago

> When a war breaks loose, these data monsters are one of the best weapons against the opponents. War and military research throughout history have done many good things for quality of life, even back to the days of Archimedes fearing the Roman invasions, when it is more about defense not offense. This here ARPA/DARPA decentralized network of the internet is one of those good things along with self-driving cars, wifi, even microwave ovens come from radar research...and many others. But what could possibly go wrong when military/war artificial intelligence is combined with all your data and knows everything about you? We have seen Terminator and heard about Skynet. What if what it knows about you is wrong or spoofed? The ramifications could be much less than worst case Skynet but you can plainly see the way Youtube automation is even just for copyright, you gotta ask yourself, will it get everything right? Will YOU be deemed an opponent and a 'bad guy'? When the machine does it there is also a level of liability taken away. Defensive military/war tools are one thing and lots of good from bad throughout history, but when defense is pre-emptive offensive actions like drones, the line gets fuzzy. Are we Archimedes or the Roman soldier that killed him?

Lennie 8y ago
> But what could possibly go wrong when military/war artificial intelligence is combined with all your data and knows everything about you? Someone made a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM Dailymotion (French company) mirror: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6kttmw https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6kttmw

akerro 8y ago

> I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping their military. GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi and all tech giants of that era did that with pride during WWII. Then why can't Google, Facebook for USA? Companies that supported holocaust on Poles and Jews did nothing wrong, because they were helping military?

teekert 8y ago

IBM also did that for the Germans in WW2, perhaps it's better to stay politically neutral for companies? "without IBM's machinery, continuing upkeep and service, as well as the supply of punch cards, whether located on-site or off-site, Hitler's camps could have never managed the numbers they did." (This is the opinion of the writer of "IBM and the Holocaust" [0]) I bet Google is not looking forward to going down into history as: "without Google's AI, continuing upkeep and service, as well as the supply of TPU's, whether located on-site or off-site, the US's drones could have never managed the numbers they did." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

pimmen 8y ago

I don't have anything against tech companies helping the military, that's their choice. I wouldn't want to build that stuff, but others can make that choice. However, AI weapons is something I strongly condemn. They raise many unsolved ethical questions, such as if they kill civilians who committed the war crime? How do you make sure they don't kill civilians? If Google were revealed to be developing biological weapons or chemical weapons, I suspect you would have a different opinion.

gaius 8y ago

I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping their military Sure, it’s fine but let’s call a spade a spade. Will Google update their global T&Cs to say “we are an American company serving American national interests and by using our services you agree to your data being used for that purpose”? Of course they won’t!

jacquesm 8y ago
There ought to be a service that re-writes T&C and privacy policies in the most straightforward manner.
- r3bl 8y ago
  Of course there is! https://tosdr.org/ https://tosdr.org/

sorokod 8y ago

helping their military Do you mean helping in the sence FB helps us socialize and Google helps us search? Helping without expectation of reward and incentivizing further business? Not a pro bono work from the looks of it so profit is expected and good place in future competition with other contractors. Perhaps I am nitpicking but "help" doesn't belong here.

kumarvvr 8y ago

GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi, etc. have nowhere near the amount of power that Google has over our lives. Google is a different beast altogether. Recent events have shown that every aspect of our lives can be controlled by data. Imagine a situation where Google can supply weapons to support human rights violations and simultaneously keep such information from reaching the masses. Misinforming just 30% of US Population has brought people like trump to power.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

The difference is that the wars nowadays are less about ideals and more about profit. Yes muslim extremism is bad and those people are bastards, but the military isn't fighting them as effectively and there is no way to win this war - like the "war" on drugs it's a self-reinforcing, endless cycle kinda thing. WW2 was different; the nazis had invaded most of Europe, were committing genocide, etc.

stef25 8y ago

Nothing wrong with running their emails or servers but helping it identify targets with AI brings it very close to everyone's nightmare scenario of fully autonomous killer drones. I don't know the details, probably everything will be verified by a human (for now) and we're maybe talking only structures and patterns instead of persons. But things may evolve quickly. AI can already drive a car and diagnose some illnesses better than humans can (there was a recent article about AI detecting melanoma). The step to "decide who to kill better than a human" is awfully close. Personally I'm not against it all if better really means better. It's just crazy that cutesy Google with their maps and emails are now doing this. It's shocking enough that Intercept would pounce on it. If it was Raytheon nobody would care. I wonder if they'll update their terms & conditions. "Any selfies may be used to kill you". Al Qaeda better (not) be using Google Photos.

timavr 8y ago

They are multinational companies. If they want to move HQ to another country, they can do it any day. Happens all the time. It is question of ethics and values. Plenty of companies and people were totally fine profiting from holocaust. US is killing thousands of people in countries we are not in war with with no trial. In my opinion everyone in the world should have the same rights as us. Otherwise it is just hypocricy and we just live a huge lie. How would anyone feel in America if somebody was killed without trial by foreign nation? Also this behaviour long term is completely self defeating. Military wise nukes make everyone equal? Are we planning to keep nukes out of hands of our enemies for centuries or we just planning to kill everyone who is against our policies?

singularity2001 8y ago

"I don't see anything wrong" Maybe you see if, you substitute 'military' for it's historic contributions to mankind: "I don't see anything wrong for a company of a particular country helping «an organization that is specialized in killing and very likely to perform torture, rape and genocide»"

giancarlostoro 8y ago

The issue is taking engineers who likely NEVER signed up for military work ("that's not in my job description!") at your company and throwing them at military contracts. If Google wants to pursue this they should either hire experienced government contractors (who have the benefit of existing government clearance) or Alphabet should spin up (whether buy or create / fund) a government contractor focused on this sort of thing. It would likely yield better results given the types of resources Google has available. But don't just expect someone whose never done government work who might not want to to just roll over and do it if you force it upon them. Disclaimer: I work as a government contractor unrelated to Google but I chose the type of company to work for based on the TYPE of work they do. If I don't wanna build kill drones I don't work for companies known to do weapons or related engineering.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

v-yadli 8y ago

so you want Google to do it with pride in WWIII?

simion314 8y ago

Maybe if there be one US AI company would be ok, but Google is a world wide company that has it's tentacles in many things.

barrkel 8y ago

Google is a multi-national company. Why should it have allegiance to the US? Just because it was founded and has headquarters somewhere doesn't mean that it needs to be loyal to that place. Look at how quickly Banco Sabadell and CaixaBank moved out of Catalonia after the separatist movement started causing ructions. Do you think that staying on Trump's side is in the best interest of a multi-national? Don't forget, there's another side to building weapons: the better your weapons, the lower your threshold for starting a war. AI weapons are especially dangerous: they permit politicians to start wars without risking citizen's lives, thus reducing the natural incentive in democracies to avoid war. Now put that power in the reins of Trump. Does it sound good?

demarq 8y ago

This is not WWII

saas_co_de 8y ago

It is not necessarily a question of "right" and "wrong" but what are the consequences of people seeing Google as a weapon as opposed to an information service? If the whole world begins to see Google as a weapon then they will take defensive measures.

gameswithgo 8y ago

I think if we were currently fighting the 3rd Reich people might be more for it. But currently the USA has a massive military for no purpose, which is often used to conduct evil, and thus some people do not want to aid it.

jeffreyrogers 8y ago
I'd argue that the purpose is to act as a deterrent against countries that might otherwise think of invading their neighbors or things along those lines, but it's reasonable to think that the cost of such of large military is not worth the benefits. It's also one of the US's largest employers.
- wilsonnb 8y ago
  And one of our largest welfare programs. It's pretty easy for an 18 year old with no marketable skills to join the military and end up with some skills and a free college education.
archerface 8y ago
> ... which is often used to conduct evil, ... I am curious. In your eyes, what evil has the US military done?
- glitchdout 8y ago
  https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/ https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone... Is this enough?...

fixermark 8y ago

Globalization does make Google a global company. Some of its employees have had friends and relatives in the path of US-operated drone strikes.

bitL 8y ago

I think it's because of idealism innate in computing. Those young aspiring minds dream about making a positive change in the world, studying day and night, sacrificing pleasure for knowledge and capability, and at some point somebody will show them a video of a person blown into pieces and telling them: "Congratulations! This is the main fruit of your life. Well Done!" - moments later - "Why do you complain? You signed a contract so shut up!"

ajsdfhjkas 8y ago

youre really going to cite mitsubishi and siemens conduct during wwii as uh something you dont see anything wrong about?? you might want to do some homework on that....

tripzilch 8y ago

So, Siemens also built the deep packet inspection system for Iran (in a joint venture together with Nokia) and was accused of complicity in human rights violations (by Amnesty International, among other organisations). After being called out, both companies posted an apology/explanation on their websites, where they claimed they didn't know that building a deep packet inspection system for Iran would result in human rights violations. After having been developed for Iran, the system was also sold to Egypt. This is one reason why the Black Mirror-esque tracking/surveillance situation in China should scare everyone: This system now exists. Consider the inefficiency of government IT projects when they need to be built, compared to when they can be bought. I don't know if China would sell it, of course, but the mere existence and that it can now be deployed elsewhere, which is of course still no small task because a lot of it is probably very specific to China, but even then, scary as hell. But I digress. So you say they helped their military with pride during WWII (what side was Siemens on, btw?) Is there really nothing wrong with Siemens developing DPI infrastructure for a country that is known for its human rights abuses? (Siemens claiming not knowing what it would be used for is either a bullshit excuse or a dangerous lack of foresight). So is there also really nothing wrong with Google developing AI for flying military robot plane-missile-things for this other country that is also known for human rights abuses? (just not on its own citizens, usually) Anyway, my point is, it doesn't matter whether a corporation supports its own military/country when developing technology that comes strong ethical questions (which is the case for military drones, or DPI). Google should consider their own choice in the light of whether this technology will be used for good things, not just whether the military of the particular country they're developing it for considers it a good thing, because usually the military considers whatever grants them more power to be good things. Google should also consider that there is no "when a war breaks loose", that's not how the world works today. Besides, the USA claims to be currently "at war" anyway. So when they develop modern weapons for the US military, they should consider that in the light of what the US military is doing right now and what it has been doing recently, not in the light of them taking the noble high ground in a hypothetical future war situation that conveniently has a clear "good side" and a clear "bad side". Because before that hypothetical future war will happen those weapons WILL have been used for whatever the US military pleases currently. And that's not always good things.