6 ms·

National Security is an incredibly complex, nuanced debate. You should always take articles written by "an amateur woodworker and struggling shade tree mechani

National Security is an incredibly complex, nuanced debate. You should always take articles written by "an amateur woodworker and struggling shade tree mechanic. There's nothing he can't take apart, but many things he can't reassemble". If Russia attacks your country or a terrorist blows a building, no one and no one blames "amateur woodworker and struggling shade tree mechanic" about intelligence failures. But, we find this increasingly acceptable to push articles written by people who have absolutely no clue about anything (technology, security, geopolitics, threats, intelligence), just because the headline "hurr durr, Google/Amazon/Uber/Meta/...is evil"

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jjulius 4y ago
Do you have any comment about the content of the piece itself?
- deltree7 4y ago
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    The author's credentials are not important. Any bad logic or assumptions that seem incredulous are. Can you elaborate on those parts?
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    Can I ask what your credentials are? And could you write a post addressing their points? Edit: that sounds hostile, it isn't meant to, just curious.
    - anon9384929 4y ago
      Stop defaulting to asking for sources or credentials and make your own case for why we should listen to the authors points
      - deltree7 4y ago
        See above.
      - hammyhavoc 4y ago
        I don't have enough knowledge on the topic to say whether the article is good or bad, nor if I should listen to someone on HN who says it is bad, hence asking to know what the credentials of someone are who attacked someone else's lack of credentials, yet made no actual intellectual counterpoints. Stop telling strangers how to live their life. That's some control freak territory.
      - _8j50 4y ago
        The person they are replying to made it about credentials
      - the_only_law 4y ago
        Don’t whip out credentials as a way of discounting someone if you aren’t ready to have your own pulled.
    - deltree7 4y ago
      1) The Author has no clue about the details of the contract. 2) The Author has no clue about the capabilities of AI (Google or Amazon). 3) The Author has no clue about where the systems are deployed. 4) The Author has no clue about laws of Israel. 5) The Author has no clue about protections of ordinary citizens for mis-use / abuse of technology from the constitutions. 6) The Author has no clue about long term, net benefits (or harm) to the society not only from the current state, but potential continuous innovation that will happen increasing the net benefit of such projects to the society. 7) But more importantly, the author sitting in his comfortable chair living a privileged life, has the audacity to preach how Isrealis should ignore threat to their lives and sovereignty so that they can satisfy someone's arbitrary judgement of things that they are clueless about. I can understand as a global citizen, if they want to pass certain law to protect privacy of individuals. But that is not the theme of the post. The post is literally about "Big Corp Evil". Any idiot can write that post.
      - data_maan 4y ago
        Can you bring any concrete proof about what exactly the author has no clue about? For example, regarding 3), can you tell us where those systems are being used? Regarding 4), what laws do you specifically refer to? Without that information it's just the author's word ("Google is evil") against yours ("Google is not evil"). Though your word is more aggressive, which doesn't really help your argument.
        jjulius 4y ago
        >Without that information it's just the author's word ("Google is evil") against yours ("Google is not evil"). Though your word is more aggressive, which doesn't really help your argument. Right? What was that that they said about this being a "complex, nuanced" discussion? :)
      - z9znz 4y ago
        > net benefit of such projects to the society If by “net benefits” you mean “helps in many cases but sacrifices a few people due to false positives”, then I see your point. But you never really said why the author was wrong. You just expanded your critique of the author himself. The author has valid concerns, and one doesn’t need to be an AI researcher to know that content analysis AI is woefully unreliable thus far. We see examples nearly every day here on HN where these systems (often Google’s or YouTube’s) have made wrong judgements that defy explanation.
tadfisher 4y ago
Honestly the angle should be "Israel wastes $1.2 billion on cloud-based surveillance it doesn't need". Even without Google and Amazon's help, the IDF is quite capable of surveiling every face and ascertaining whether you are lying, as anyone who has been through Israeli airport security can tell you.
- swores 4y ago
  Not sure if you're joking, or think that walking through an airport (for most people) will reveal how great or useless the security are at "ascertaining whether you're lying". Are we all meant to be testing a few lies each time we fly somewhere to judge that airport's security?
  - dekhn 4y ago
    They are referring the process by which large numbers of people coming into Israeli airports are questioned by professionals acting like lie detectors.
    - swores 4y ago
      Ah, thanks.
    - z9znz 4y ago
      Large numbers of people coming into Israel? Israel receives fewer than 5 million tourists per year from what I can find online. That is less than 1/10th of the top 5 countries for tourism. And as an amusing point of reference, that is 1/4th the number of visitors who travel to the one city of Bangkok each year.
      - swores 4y ago
        You've misunderstood their comment, what they are saying is that a large proportion of arrivals get questioned, not making a comment on the total number of passengers compared to other places.
  - deleted 4y ago
tarakat 4y ago
Yes, being constantly surveilled by AI-enhanced telescreens when in public is so very complex and nuanced, that we need security and geopolitics experts to tell us if that's the kind of society we want to live in. A lay person is simply not educated enough to judge whether having his every move and expression logged and analyzed by some government or corporate entity is a good thing or not.
- deltree7 4y ago
  Yes especially when the lay person is swayed by privileged people leading comfortable lives telling others who are in danger of getting killed or lose sovereignty. Do you provide good faith argument about the net benefits of such a system to the society? Of course not. You are mostly concerned with "OMG, they showed me an ad about a thing that I almost wanted to buy" and "why should I care about a system that could potentially prevent Isrealis from being bombed from terrorists or Ukrainians murdered by Russians"
  - 0x_rs 4y ago
    Lose sovereignty over occupied territory? I'd imagine what triggered your extreme reaction (and some others') is the bit about Israeli committing crimes against humanity in Palestine. I'd argue the article went too softly on this matter. The ruthless acts committed are clear under the sun and we've all seen videos ranging from unarmed protestors being beaten in the streets to IDF guards throwing live grenades to red cross vehicles, settlers invading civilians houses as they're forced to leave and so on. To question the morality of providing such entity with additional resources (that Israel can easily develop on their own thanks to their massive focus on weaponization of technology) that will further worsen the apartheid in place is entirely legitimate. There shouldn't be an exception just because it's a more western-aligned entity.
    - deltree7 4y ago
worthless443 4y ago
Rather than "evil", I would dub it as a little too much confidence on statistical models running on blackbox computers without checking for edge cases of false inference(which could always be plausible).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jjulius 4y ago

Do you have any comment about the content of the piece itself?

deltree7 4y ago
- JohnFen 4y ago
  The author's credentials are not important. Any bad logic or assumptions that seem incredulous are. Can you elaborate on those parts?
- hammyhavoc 4y ago
  Can I ask what your credentials are? And could you write a post addressing their points? Edit: that sounds hostile, it isn't meant to, just curious.
  - anon9384929 4y ago
    Stop defaulting to asking for sources or credentials and make your own case for why we should listen to the authors points
    - deltree7 4y ago
      See above.
    - hammyhavoc 4y ago
      I don't have enough knowledge on the topic to say whether the article is good or bad, nor if I should listen to someone on HN who says it is bad, hence asking to know what the credentials of someone are who attacked someone else's lack of credentials, yet made no actual intellectual counterpoints. Stop telling strangers how to live their life. That's some control freak territory.
    - _8j50 4y ago
      The person they are replying to made it about credentials
    - the_only_law 4y ago
      Don’t whip out credentials as a way of discounting someone if you aren’t ready to have your own pulled.
  - deltree7 4y ago
    1) The Author has no clue about the details of the contract. 2) The Author has no clue about the capabilities of AI (Google or Amazon). 3) The Author has no clue about where the systems are deployed. 4) The Author has no clue about laws of Israel. 5) The Author has no clue about protections of ordinary citizens for mis-use / abuse of technology from the constitutions. 6) The Author has no clue about long term, net benefits (or harm) to the society not only from the current state, but potential continuous innovation that will happen increasing the net benefit of such projects to the society. 7) But more importantly, the author sitting in his comfortable chair living a privileged life, has the audacity to preach how Isrealis should ignore threat to their lives and sovereignty so that they can satisfy someone's arbitrary judgement of things that they are clueless about. I can understand as a global citizen, if they want to pass certain law to protect privacy of individuals. But that is not the theme of the post. The post is literally about "Big Corp Evil". Any idiot can write that post.
    - data_maan 4y ago
      Can you bring any concrete proof about what exactly the author has no clue about? For example, regarding 3), can you tell us where those systems are being used? Regarding 4), what laws do you specifically refer to? Without that information it's just the author's word ("Google is evil") against yours ("Google is not evil"). Though your word is more aggressive, which doesn't really help your argument.
      - jjulius 4y ago
        >Without that information it's just the author's word ("Google is evil") against yours ("Google is not evil"). Though your word is more aggressive, which doesn't really help your argument. Right? What was that that they said about this being a "complex, nuanced" discussion? :)
    - z9znz 4y ago
      > net benefit of such projects to the society If by “net benefits” you mean “helps in many cases but sacrifices a few people due to false positives”, then I see your point. But you never really said why the author was wrong. You just expanded your critique of the author himself. The author has valid concerns, and one doesn’t need to be an AI researcher to know that content analysis AI is woefully unreliable thus far. We see examples nearly every day here on HN where these systems (often Google’s or YouTube’s) have made wrong judgements that defy explanation.

tadfisher 4y ago

Honestly the angle should be "Israel wastes $1.2 billion on cloud-based surveillance it doesn't need". Even without Google and Amazon's help, the IDF is quite capable of surveiling every face and ascertaining whether you are lying, as anyone who has been through Israeli airport security can tell you.

swores 4y ago
Not sure if you're joking, or think that walking through an airport (for most people) will reveal how great or useless the security are at "ascertaining whether you're lying". Are we all meant to be testing a few lies each time we fly somewhere to judge that airport's security?
- dekhn 4y ago
  They are referring the process by which large numbers of people coming into Israeli airports are questioned by professionals acting like lie detectors.
  - swores 4y ago
    Ah, thanks.
  - z9znz 4y ago
    Large numbers of people coming into Israel? Israel receives fewer than 5 million tourists per year from what I can find online. That is less than 1/10th of the top 5 countries for tourism. And as an amusing point of reference, that is 1/4th the number of visitors who travel to the one city of Bangkok each year.
    - swores 4y ago
      You've misunderstood their comment, what they are saying is that a large proportion of arrivals get questioned, not making a comment on the total number of passengers compared to other places.
- deleted 4y ago

tarakat 4y ago

Yes, being constantly surveilled by AI-enhanced telescreens when in public is so very complex and nuanced, that we need security and geopolitics experts to tell us if that's the kind of society we want to live in. A lay person is simply not educated enough to judge whether having his every move and expression logged and analyzed by some government or corporate entity is a good thing or not.

deltree7 4y ago
Yes especially when the lay person is swayed by privileged people leading comfortable lives telling others who are in danger of getting killed or lose sovereignty. Do you provide good faith argument about the net benefits of such a system to the society? Of course not. You are mostly concerned with "OMG, they showed me an ad about a thing that I almost wanted to buy" and "why should I care about a system that could potentially prevent Isrealis from being bombed from terrorists or Ukrainians murdered by Russians"
- 0x_rs 4y ago
  Lose sovereignty over occupied territory? I'd imagine what triggered your extreme reaction (and some others') is the bit about Israeli committing crimes against humanity in Palestine. I'd argue the article went too softly on this matter. The ruthless acts committed are clear under the sun and we've all seen videos ranging from unarmed protestors being beaten in the streets to IDF guards throwing live grenades to red cross vehicles, settlers invading civilians houses as they're forced to leave and so on. To question the morality of providing such entity with additional resources (that Israel can easily develop on their own thanks to their massive focus on weaponization of technology) that will further worsen the apartheid in place is entirely legitimate. There shouldn't be an exception just because it's a more western-aligned entity.
  - deltree7 4y ago

worthless443 4y ago

Rather than "evil", I would dub it as a little too much confidence on statistical models running on blackbox computers without checking for edge cases of false inference(which could always be plausible).