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> I can never understand those protesters In my opinion, the potential for the technology that microsoft could develop for the military is just as dangerous if

> I can never understand those protesters In my opinion, the potential for the technology that microsoft could develop for the military is just as dangerous if not more so than chlorine gas, which was used in WW1. You should watch this video [1]. It is about Einstein and Fritz Haber (who was the father of chlorine gas). Einstein was horrified at the way Haber was so casual about mass murdering people. Speaking for myself: I have never and will never work on any weapon technology that is meant for killing other people. If I was at MS and someone asked me to do that I would raise hell like these people and absolutely refuse to do it and quit. There is no reason or need for an arms race on super high end weaponization of AI between the US, Russia, and China. That is super dangerous and crazy talk. We need peace in this world, not more high tech weapons. I support the action of the protesters at MS 1000%. Hope that helps you understand them. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWFe253TYmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWFe253TYmA

refurb 8y ago
It's 1943 and Germany has taken over most of Europe and it's looking like Russia might fall as well. Are you saying you'd never help the Allies develop weapons that might help end the war?
- 8note 8y ago
  would there have been a Hitler if the US hadn't joined in WW1? seems to have gone badly to me.
- blub 8y ago
  Very poor argument. Today's existential threats are climate change and having too many nukes, not an ongoing world war.
blotter_paper 8y ago
>There is no reason or need for an arms race on super high end weaponization of AI between the US, Russia, and China. I feel like I'm stating the obvious, and you probably already understand this point, but I'll make it anyway for the sake of advancing the discussion. From the perspective of the world as a whole, an arms race doesn't make sense. From the perspective of any single major player (United States, Russia, China) advancing your own military technology makes sense regardless of if the other players do so; if they do you have MAD (maybe) protecting you from being exploited, if they don't you can exploit them. We can argue that the major players "shouldn't" be trying to exploit each other, but the fact is that they are, and the best defense against exploitation seems to be military power. So it goes.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bigiain 8y ago
Sure - but it's not like all the world's militaries aren't already using Excel and Word and Powerpoint to enable more effective killing of people - what makes the Hololens game stuff "weaponisation" categorically worse than all of the other military use of Microsoft products? (well, maybe not Powerpoint - I suspect it doesn't make the military more efficient at their objective either...)
- rickycook 8y ago
  specifics: you can use an iron bar to kill someone, but that doesn’t make an iron bar a weapon. putting a hololens on a soldier serves only a single purpose: to increase their “lethality” as the US military puts it i’m certain that if the contract was for medics, there would be no issue
  - bigiain 8y ago
    You can use a knife to spread butter on your toast, you can use a pistol to compete at target competition, you can use a shotgun to hunt ducks, you can use an automatic weapon to, ummm, get your jollies at a shooting range or whatever (that's not my preferred source of entertainment, but if someone else enjoys doing that safely and it's not hurting other people, why shouldn't they?). You can use boots to walk in a park, or to walk into battle. There's a continuum from boots thru iron bars thru to assault rifles. (And, I guess, thru to Predator drones and nuclear weapons.) I'm questioning just where the hololens fits on that continuum. I guess selling them to the army makes them "for killing", but is it really "for killing" like an automatic weapon (which many people would choose not to be employed making, and would rightly be upset if their boss sprung that on them)? Or is it more like selling iron bars to the army (which even if they don't directly beat whoever we've always been at war with this week to death, are still obviously going to be used in some small or large part to "increase their lethality" (or at least enable it, I suppose)). Would it make sense for an iron factory worker to get upset his boss lands a deal with the army and sells them iron bars? The feels kinda precious to me. Sure an end-of-the-bell-curve pacifist could object, but I think most people would say that's about the pacifist rather than the iron factory boss. Would that be different if the iron factory boss was already selling sheet iron and iron filings to the army? I kinda feel it would. Does it make sense to people who work for the company who makes hololens to protest their boss selling them to the army, when that company is already selling other products (Windows, Word, Excel, pretty much every enterprise MS product) to almost every western military in on the planet? Again, at least to me, it feels kinda precious. It seems like end-of-the-bell-curve pacifism, from people who's living has previously been made working from a company who's _other_ products earn profit from the military, but "my project" is a pure as the driven snow and now all of a sudden I've got blood on my hands...
GVIrish 8y ago
I understand the desire to not participate in defense technology. But at the same time people need to be realistic about the world we live in. Peace is a matter of good diplomacy backed by military force. You can be a peaceful nation without having a strong military until a country with a stronger military decides they don't want peace with you. At that point, your sovereignty and safety is at the whim of that other country's might. The United States is the world's only superpower and as such is a major deterrent against military action from countries like China and Russia. But those countries are actively pursuing technologies that will change the balance of power in their favor. The moment an adversary gains a capability you are unable to counter, that decreases your power of deterrence. If China attained enough capability to be sure they could prevail against the United States in a conflict over Taiwan, they might take the opportunity to mount a first strike. If Russia thought they could forcibly take back their former Soviet satellite states with no pushback they would. The United States (and it's allies) for all its sins and flaws still stands as a deterrent against the ambitions of several illiberal regimes. It is better to maintain the power of that deterrent by staying ahead of the military technology curve than to ignore nee technologies and get surprised when an adversary develops and uses it against you. We've already sort of seen that with Russia's offensive cyber warfare and social media active measures offensives.

refurb 8y ago

It's 1943 and Germany has taken over most of Europe and it's looking like Russia might fall as well. Are you saying you'd never help the Allies develop weapons that might help end the war?

8note 8y ago
would there have been a Hitler if the US hadn't joined in WW1? seems to have gone badly to me.
blub 8y ago
Very poor argument. Today's existential threats are climate change and having too many nukes, not an ongoing world war.

blotter_paper 8y ago

>There is no reason or need for an arms race on super high end weaponization of AI between the US, Russia, and China. I feel like I'm stating the obvious, and you probably already understand this point, but I'll make it anyway for the sake of advancing the discussion. From the perspective of the world as a whole, an arms race doesn't make sense. From the perspective of any single major player (United States, Russia, China) advancing your own military technology makes sense regardless of if the other players do so; if they do you have MAD (maybe) protecting you from being exploited, if they don't you can exploit them. We can argue that the major players "shouldn't" be trying to exploit each other, but the fact is that they are, and the best defense against exploitation seems to be military power. So it goes.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

bigiain 8y ago

Sure - but it's not like all the world's militaries aren't already using Excel and Word and Powerpoint to enable more effective killing of people - what makes the Hololens game stuff "weaponisation" categorically worse than all of the other military use of Microsoft products? (well, maybe not Powerpoint - I suspect it doesn't make the military more efficient at their objective either...)

rickycook 8y ago
specifics: you can use an iron bar to kill someone, but that doesn’t make an iron bar a weapon. putting a hololens on a soldier serves only a single purpose: to increase their “lethality” as the US military puts it i’m certain that if the contract was for medics, there would be no issue
- bigiain 8y ago
  You can use a knife to spread butter on your toast, you can use a pistol to compete at target competition, you can use a shotgun to hunt ducks, you can use an automatic weapon to, ummm, get your jollies at a shooting range or whatever (that's not my preferred source of entertainment, but if someone else enjoys doing that safely and it's not hurting other people, why shouldn't they?). You can use boots to walk in a park, or to walk into battle. There's a continuum from boots thru iron bars thru to assault rifles. (And, I guess, thru to Predator drones and nuclear weapons.) I'm questioning just where the hololens fits on that continuum. I guess selling them to the army makes them "for killing", but is it really "for killing" like an automatic weapon (which many people would choose not to be employed making, and would rightly be upset if their boss sprung that on them)? Or is it more like selling iron bars to the army (which even if they don't directly beat whoever we've always been at war with this week to death, are still obviously going to be used in some small or large part to "increase their lethality" (or at least enable it, I suppose)). Would it make sense for an iron factory worker to get upset his boss lands a deal with the army and sells them iron bars? The feels kinda precious to me. Sure an end-of-the-bell-curve pacifist could object, but I think most people would say that's about the pacifist rather than the iron factory boss. Would that be different if the iron factory boss was already selling sheet iron and iron filings to the army? I kinda feel it would. Does it make sense to people who work for the company who makes hololens to protest their boss selling them to the army, when that company is already selling other products (Windows, Word, Excel, pretty much every enterprise MS product) to almost every western military in on the planet? Again, at least to me, it feels kinda precious. It seems like end-of-the-bell-curve pacifism, from people who's living has previously been made working from a company who's _other_ products earn profit from the military, but "my project" is a pure as the driven snow and now all of a sudden I've got blood on my hands...

GVIrish 8y ago

I understand the desire to not participate in defense technology. But at the same time people need to be realistic about the world we live in. Peace is a matter of good diplomacy backed by military force. You can be a peaceful nation without having a strong military until a country with a stronger military decides they don't want peace with you. At that point, your sovereignty and safety is at the whim of that other country's might. The United States is the world's only superpower and as such is a major deterrent against military action from countries like China and Russia. But those countries are actively pursuing technologies that will change the balance of power in their favor. The moment an adversary gains a capability you are unable to counter, that decreases your power of deterrence. If China attained enough capability to be sure they could prevail against the United States in a conflict over Taiwan, they might take the opportunity to mount a first strike. If Russia thought they could forcibly take back their former Soviet satellite states with no pushback they would. The United States (and it's allies) for all its sins and flaws still stands as a deterrent against the ambitions of several illiberal regimes. It is better to maintain the power of that deterrent by staying ahead of the military technology curve than to ignore nee technologies and get surprised when an adversary develops and uses it against you. We've already sort of seen that with Russia's offensive cyber warfare and social media active measures offensives.