3 ms·

So much software is dual purpose, though. "We need this moving object recognition for, uh, cars. So it knows where a moving person is, so it can avoid them." "

by bvttf 8y ago

So much software is dual purpose, though. "We need this moving object recognition for, uh, cars. So it knows where a moving person is, so it can avoid them." "Yes, that's a thing we're totally doing. Cars."

moron4hire 8y ago
It would get a lot of people in management sent to prison to do something like that.
- sterlind 8y ago
  You sweet summer child. It's not even illegal for management to mislead its workers about what they'll do with the products of their labor. More pragmatically, there are a very limited supply of talented, highly-controlled, cleared engineers and architects. Those people meet with the customer, work out the architecture and staging plans, chop the tasks into tiny, innocuous components (like identifying moving targets!) - components that are intrinsically dual-use and valuable assets - and farm out the tasks. My own code runs on DoD machines and I've certainly never anticipated it. It's all generic enough though, that I don't feel like I've done anything evil, even if it's used for evil... that's exactly the point.
sammorrowdrums 8y ago
This. Companies and academia too. This has been a huge part of academic investment by government too. Yes we'll sponsor your PHD in this area because (often without the academics direct knowledge) we have a need in a certain area and we think this might help. That might be signal reflection calculation (like more precise GPS in a place with tall buildings). It might be a new kind of harder material (carbon nanotubes/ graphene). Or perhaps it's a better understanding of a drug / mental health / the mind that has a side-effect of having nefarious applications as well as helpful ones being considered. Even if the result is that it doesn't work, the armed forces and clandestine services are very interested in the outcomes of research that might fix a piece of their puzzle.

by bvttf 8y ago

moron4hire 8y ago

It would get a lot of people in management sent to prison to do something like that.

sterlind 8y ago
You sweet summer child. It's not even illegal for management to mislead its workers about what they'll do with the products of their labor. More pragmatically, there are a very limited supply of talented, highly-controlled, cleared engineers and architects. Those people meet with the customer, work out the architecture and staging plans, chop the tasks into tiny, innocuous components (like identifying moving targets!) - components that are intrinsically dual-use and valuable assets - and farm out the tasks. My own code runs on DoD machines and I've certainly never anticipated it. It's all generic enough though, that I don't feel like I've done anything evil, even if it's used for evil... that's exactly the point.

sammorrowdrums 8y ago

This. Companies and academia too. This has been a huge part of academic investment by government too. Yes we'll sponsor your PHD in this area because (often without the academics direct knowledge) we have a need in a certain area and we think this might help. That might be signal reflection calculation (like more precise GPS in a place with tall buildings). It might be a new kind of harder material (carbon nanotubes/ graphene). Or perhaps it's a better understanding of a drug / mental health / the mind that has a side-effect of having nefarious applications as well as helpful ones being considered. Even if the result is that it doesn't work, the armed forces and clandestine services are very interested in the outcomes of research that might fix a piece of their puzzle.