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Tell that to the Google. Their employees scoffed about working with the Pentagon and dropped the contract, but happily helped China build an authoritarian socia

Tell that to the Google. Their employees scoffed about working with the Pentagon and dropped the contract, but happily helped China build an authoritarian social-punishment system. Then denied it ... and then more details kept coming out showing Google continued working on it, just more quietly.

opportune 8y ago
Pretty sure Google wasn't working on a social punishment system (ie the Chinese "credit score" that's based on social factors), but a censored search engine, which is still pretty shitty but not nearly as bad as what you claim, unless I missed some big piece of news and am myself mistaken
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Dragonfly allegedly is designed to associate searches with a user's phone number, which can be tied to their identity. Since China would have access to this system, it's likely searches for banned topics would be able to impact your social credit, or potentially get you disappeared in the middle of the night. https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-links-searches-to-phone-numbers/ https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-l...
  - opportune 8y ago
    I didn't know that, thanks
  - qwerty456127 8y ago
    BTW although having searches on political topics banned explicitly tracked doesn't sound too scary from a pragmatic point of view I doubt they will stop at this point. They probably will analyse whole search histories of people to produce their social portraits so a person interested in whatever unorthodox kind stuff can get penalized too.
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
Many Googlers have already left Google on ethical grounds, and many more likely will in the near future. There are multiple organized groups of employees trying to enact change internally, but some who previously did that have already recognized that as futile and left, so presumably more will eventually. Google is already an extremely large company, and I think that many are only just now realizing the problems that they were contributing to. It may take a while for employee actions (both protests and resignations) to have a visible impact due to it's size, but I think they're making progress. As per my thoughts I expounded here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19548485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19548485 I think that Google's available talent pool is shrinking. Many very talented engineers have left, and many new potential engineers would not want to work there. Sure, there are still plenty who do, but I would say their options are narrowing over time.
- rak00n 8y ago
  I doubt that Google's options are shrinking. There aren't that many companies with similar pay scale or culture.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    Isn’t the culture the problem, and that’s why they are leaving?
    - rak00n 8y ago
      Ethical ground is definitely part of the culture but not entirty of it.
- dontbenebby 8y ago
  >I think that Google's available talent pool is shrinking. Many very talented engineers have left, and many new potential engineers would not want to work there. Sure, there are still plenty who do, but I would say their options are narrowing over time. I think you overestimate how skilled you need to be to work at Google. Google has famously put people through enormous hoops to work there, regardless of the complexity the engineering the new hire will work on. Organizations like NSA also have a negative reputation, but find plenty of people to hire. They just look outside Stanford,CMU, etc. I suspect that as the people who don't have to work there stop applying, Google will widen it's parameters to snare in the people who have to work there. (I've met many a person at Defcon who did a stint in the intel community because they saw it as the only path to a high paying job if you don't have an elite upbringing and don't want to directly kill people.)

opportune 8y ago

Pretty sure Google wasn't working on a social punishment system (ie the Chinese "credit score" that's based on social factors), but a censored search engine, which is still pretty shitty but not nearly as bad as what you claim, unless I missed some big piece of news and am myself mistaken

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
Dragonfly allegedly is designed to associate searches with a user's phone number, which can be tied to their identity. Since China would have access to this system, it's likely searches for banned topics would be able to impact your social credit, or potentially get you disappeared in the middle of the night. https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-links-searches-to-phone-numbers/ https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-l...
- opportune 8y ago
  I didn't know that, thanks
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  BTW although having searches on political topics banned explicitly tracked doesn't sound too scary from a pragmatic point of view I doubt they will stop at this point. They probably will analyse whole search histories of people to produce their social portraits so a person interested in whatever unorthodox kind stuff can get penalized too.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

Many Googlers have already left Google on ethical grounds, and many more likely will in the near future. There are multiple organized groups of employees trying to enact change internally, but some who previously did that have already recognized that as futile and left, so presumably more will eventually. Google is already an extremely large company, and I think that many are only just now realizing the problems that they were contributing to. It may take a while for employee actions (both protests and resignations) to have a visible impact due to it's size, but I think they're making progress. As per my thoughts I expounded here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19548485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19548485 I think that Google's available talent pool is shrinking. Many very talented engineers have left, and many new potential engineers would not want to work there. Sure, there are still plenty who do, but I would say their options are narrowing over time.

rak00n 8y ago
I doubt that Google's options are shrinking. There aren't that many companies with similar pay scale or culture.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  Isn’t the culture the problem, and that’s why they are leaving?
  - rak00n 8y ago
    Ethical ground is definitely part of the culture but not entirty of it.
dontbenebby 8y ago
>I think that Google's available talent pool is shrinking. Many very talented engineers have left, and many new potential engineers would not want to work there. Sure, there are still plenty who do, but I would say their options are narrowing over time. I think you overestimate how skilled you need to be to work at Google. Google has famously put people through enormous hoops to work there, regardless of the complexity the engineering the new hire will work on. Organizations like NSA also have a negative reputation, but find plenty of people to hire. They just look outside Stanford,CMU, etc. I suspect that as the people who don't have to work there stop applying, Google will widen it's parameters to snare in the people who have to work there. (I've met many a person at Defcon who did a stint in the intel community because they saw it as the only path to a high paying job if you don't have an elite upbringing and don't want to directly kill people.)