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>I'm surprised they even considered it. Reason and morality falls apart when confronted with shareholder value.

saalweachter 8y ago
I'm honestly curious if it was ever about money or just that - if you, you know, ignore the whole "killing people" aspect - killbots are an incredibly difficult and complex and cool piece of technology to work on. You go from problems like "can we draw a box around the faces in this artificial dataset" or "can we keep a car between these white lines" to problems like "can we identity a person from a km away while traveling at 100mph" and "how do you take evasive maneuvers" and "can you do all this with hardware mounted on a drone with an acceptable latency". The whole Jurassic Park "you got so wrapped up in asking if you could you didn't ask if you should" thing.
dfxm12 8y ago
Which affects shareholders more? The potential negative PR or the potential government contracts? If it were so cut and dry, I don't think they'd have a policy at all, and I think this policy is the output of a calculated risk assessment where Google determined that the effect of the PR would be greater than the cash. Plus, there was a chunk of their staff that threatened to leave the company if they went through with their pentagon drone project [0]. I imagine it would be hard to explain that to Wall st. 0 - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-01/google-won-t-renew-pentagon-ai-drone-deal-after-staff-backlash https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-01/google-wo...
- smaddox 8y ago
  > ... and I think this policy is the output of a calculated risk assessment where Google determined that the effect of the PR would be greater than the cash. Huh? It sounds like they're not changing course at all, but just spinning what their doing in a less SkyNet light. > Which affects shareholders more? The potential negative PR or the potential government contracts? Considering several of the most valuable companies in the world are U.S. defense contractors, I don't think there's much of question about what affects shareholders more.
  - jopsen 8y ago
    Google's golden egg requires the good will of consumers. Why risk it? Better to do a spin-off company instead..
jopsen 8y ago
My point is that any involvement with war lead to consumer boycotts if Google. For a company that relies so heavily direct interaction with consumers, involvement with warfare is a huge risk. And the value of the contracts hardly outweigh the risks of backlash against Google primary business. It's the same reason drug companies work hard to avoid having their drugs used for executions. The value of the contracts is low, compared to their main business which could be threatened by such a move.. Also if you look at trends over the decades it's clear that warfare is increasingly loosing it's glory. People aren't thrilled about murder and mayhem.. sure we'll have military spending for many years to come, but it's likely to loose it's popularity, and eventually fade.. So why is Google even considering to enter this market? When it's only short term and puts Google golden egg at risk? It makes no sense to me.

I'm honestly curious if it was ever about money or just that - if you, you know, ignore the whole "killing people" aspect - killbots are an incredibly difficult and complex and cool piece of technology to work on. You go from problems like "can we draw a box around the faces in this artificial dataset" or "can we keep a car between these white lines" to problems like "can we identity a person from a km away while traveling at 100mph" and "how do you take evasive maneuvers" and "can you do all this with hardware mounted on a drone with an acceptable latency". The whole Jurassic Park "you got so wrapped up in asking if you could you didn't ask if you should" thing.

dfxm12 8y ago

Which affects shareholders more? The potential negative PR or the potential government contracts? If it were so cut and dry, I don't think they'd have a policy at all, and I think this policy is the output of a calculated risk assessment where Google determined that the effect of the PR would be greater than the cash. Plus, there was a chunk of their staff that threatened to leave the company if they went through with their pentagon drone project [0]. I imagine it would be hard to explain that to Wall st. 0 - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-01/google-won-t-renew-pentagon-ai-drone-deal-after-staff-backlash https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-01/google-wo...

smaddox 8y ago
> ... and I think this policy is the output of a calculated risk assessment where Google determined that the effect of the PR would be greater than the cash. Huh? It sounds like they're not changing course at all, but just spinning what their doing in a less SkyNet light. > Which affects shareholders more? The potential negative PR or the potential government contracts? Considering several of the most valuable companies in the world are U.S. defense contractors, I don't think there's much of question about what affects shareholders more.
- jopsen 8y ago
  Google's golden egg requires the good will of consumers. Why risk it? Better to do a spin-off company instead..

jopsen 8y ago

My point is that any involvement with war lead to consumer boycotts if Google. For a company that relies so heavily direct interaction with consumers, involvement with warfare is a huge risk. And the value of the contracts hardly outweigh the risks of backlash against Google primary business. It's the same reason drug companies work hard to avoid having their drugs used for executions. The value of the contracts is low, compared to their main business which could be threatened by such a move.. Also if you look at trends over the decades it's clear that warfare is increasingly loosing it's glory. People aren't thrilled about murder and mayhem.. sure we'll have military spending for many years to come, but it's likely to loose it's popularity, and eventually fade.. So why is Google even considering to enter this market? When it's only short term and puts Google golden egg at risk? It makes no sense to me.