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Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

• dhdjruf 2y ago
  [flagged]
• a_shovel 2y ago
  I initially thought that this was an announcement for a new pledge and thought, "they're going to forget about this the moment it's convenient." Then I read the article and realized, "Oh, it's already convenient." Google is a megacorp, and while megacorps aren't fundamentally "evil" (for some definitions of evil), they are fundamentally unconcerned with goodness or morality, and any appearance that they are is purely a marketing exercise.
  • lenerdenator 2y ago
    The market solves all problems. ... or at least that's what these people have to be telling themselves at all times.
    • johnnyanmac 2y ago
      It is partially the markets fault. If they were demonized for this, there's at least be a veneer of trying to look moral. Instead they can simply go full mask off. That's why you shouldn't tolerate the intolerant.
    • smallmancontrov 2y ago
      The market's objectives are wealth-weighted. This is a very important point to remember when assessing ideas like "Is it good to build swarms of murderbots to mow down rioting peasants angry over having expenses but no jobs?" Most people might answer "no," but if the people with money answer "yes," that becomes the market's objective. Then the incentives diffuse through the economy and you don't just get the murderbots, you also get the news stations explaining how the violent peasants brought this on themselves and the politicians making murderbots tax deductible and so on.
      • amarcheschi 2y ago
        Anduril already asked this question with a strong "fuck yes" Edit: answered, not asked
    • kelseyfrog 2y ago
      I have full faith that the market[1] will direct the trolley onto the morally optimal track. It's invisible hand will guide mine when I decide or decide against pulling the lever. Either way, I can be sure that the result is maximally beneficial to the participants, myself included. 1. https://drakelawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/lrdiscourse122014-guerra-pujol.pdf https://drakelawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/lrdisc...
      • mystified5016 2y ago
        The magic market fairy godmother has decided that TVs with built in ads and spyware are good for you. The market fairy thinks this is so good for you that there are no longer any alternatives to a smart TV besides "no tv" The market fairy has also decided that medication commercials on TV is good for you. That your car should report your location, speed, and driving habits to your insurer, car manufacturer, and their 983,764 partners at all times. Maximally beneficial indeed.
  • quesera 2y ago
    "We won't use your dollars and efforts for bad and destructive activities, until we accumulate enough of your dollars and efforts that we no longer care about your opinions".
  • random3 2y ago
    this, but broader. Goodness and morality is a subjective and more importantly relative measure, making it useless in many situations (as this one). while knowing this seems useless, it's actually the missing intrinsic compass and the cause for a lot of bad and stupid behavior (by the definition that something is stupid if chosen knowing it will cause negative consequences for the doer) Everything should primarily be measured based on its primary goal. For "for-profit" companies that's obvious in their name and definition. That there's nothing that should be assumed beyond what's stated is the premise of any contract whether commercial, public or personal (like friendship) is a basic tool for debate and decision making.
  • abeppu 2y ago
    I guess a question becomes, how does dropping these self-imposed limitations work as a marketing exercise? Probably most of their customers or prospective customers won't care, but will a cheery multi-colored new product land a little differently? If Northrop Grumman made a smart home hub, you might be reluctant to put it in your living room.
    • lenerdenator 2y ago
      Marketing doesn't matter to oligarchs.
    • HPMOR 2y ago
      They are dropping these pledges to avoid securities lawsuits. “Everything is securities fraud” and presumably if they have a stated corporate pledge to do something, and knowingly violate it, any drop in the stock price could use this as grounds.
    • a_shovel 2y ago
      Being a defense contractor isn't a problem that a little corporate rearrangement can't fix. Put the consumer division under a new subsidiary with a friendly name and you're golden. Even among the small percentage who know the link, it's likely nobody will really care. For certain markets ("tacticool" gear, consumer firearms) being a defense contractor is even a bonus.
  • Retric 2y ago
    > while megacorps aren't fundamentally "evil" (for some definitions of evil), I think megacorps being evil is universal. It tends to be corrupt cop evil vs serial killer evil, but being willing to do anything for money has historically been categorized as evil behavior. That doesn’t mean society would be better or worse off without them, but it would be interesting to see a world where companies pay vastly higher taxes as they grow.
    • zelon88 2y ago
      You're taking about pre-Clinton consumerism. That system is dead. It used to dictate that the company who could offer the best value deserved to take over most of the market. That's old thinking. Now we have servitization. Now the business who can most efficiently offer value deserves the entire market. Basically, iterate until you're the only one left standing and then never "sell" anything but licenses ever again.
      • Ekaros 2y ago
        The bait-and-switch model is absolutely amazing as well. Start by offering a service covered with ads. Then add paid tier to get rid of ads. Next add tier with payment and ads. And finally add ads back to every possible tier. Not to forget about keeping them in content all the time.
        • CrimsonCape 2y ago
          If you have ever seen the prank interview between Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan, "Do you wear wigs? Have you worn wigs? Will you wear wigs?" and Elijah breaks down laughing in total shock at how hilariously bad the interview is... ...I just picture a similar conversation with a CEO going: "Sir, shareholders want to see more improvement this quarter." CEO: "Do we run ads? Have we run ads? Will we run ads this time?" (The answer is inevitably yes to all of these)
          • deleted 2y ago
            [deleted]
  • deadbabe 2y ago
    A megacorp is amoral. They have no concern over an individual anymore than a human has concern for an ant, because individuals simply don’t register to them. The ant may regard the human as pure evil for the destruction it rains upon its colony, but the ants are not even a thought in the human’s mind most of the time.
  • mystified5016 2y ago
    > they are fundamentally unconcerned with goodness or morality No, no. Call a spade a spade. This behavior and attitude is evil. Corporations under modern American capitalism must be evil. That's how capitalism works. You succeed in capitalism not by building a better mousetrap, but by destroying anyone who builds a better moustrap than you. You litigate, acquire, bribe, and rewrite legislation to ensure yours is the best and only mousetrap available to purchase, with a token 'competitor' kept on life support so you can plausibly deny anticompetitive practices. If you're a good company trying to do good things, you simply can't compete. The market just does not value what is good, just, or beneficial. The market only wants number to go up, and to go up right now at any cost. Amazon will start pumping out direct clones of your product for pennies. What are you gonna do, sue Amazon?! best of luck.
    • roca 2y ago
      "The market" is just a lot of people making decisions about what to do with their money. If you want the market to behave differently, be the change you want to see, and teach others to do the same.
  • kqr 2y ago
    Not evil, perhaps, but run by Moloch[1] -- which is possibly just as bad. Their incentives are set up to throw virtually all human values under the bus because even if they don't, they will be out-marginal-profited by someone that does. [1]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
  • dylan604 2y ago
    What is Googs going to do, leave money on the table? And if Googs doesn't do it, someone else will, so it might as well be them that makes money for their shareholders. Technically, couldn't activist shareholders come together and claim by not going after this market the leadership should be replaced for those that would? After all, share prices is the only metric that matters
    • r00fus 2y ago
      So "if I don't steal it someone else will"? I'd rate that as evil.
      • 1024core 2y ago
        Maybe it's more like "If I don't do this job, someone else will"...
        • moralestapia 2y ago
          This is the big issue that came along when stable households (mom/dad taking care of you) were replaced by fentanyl and TikTok. Moral character is something that has to be taught, it doesn't just come out on its own. If your parents don't do it properly, you'll be just another cog in the soulless machine to which human life is of no value.
          • greenchair 2y ago
            bingo. taught and reinforced with consequences.
          • ErigmolCt 2y ago
            The real issue is that corporate incentives don't prioritize morality
            • moralestapia 2y ago
              Corporations are run by people, who are not amoral.
  • nirav72 2y ago
    They’re not evil, they’re amoral and are designed to maximize profits for their investors. Evil is subjective.
    • moralestapia 2y ago
      >Evil is subjective. This is a meme that needs to die, for 99% of cases out there the line between good/bad is very clear cut. Dumb nihilists keep the world from moving forward with regards to human rights and lawful behavior.
    • pseudalopex 2y ago
      > They’re not evil, they’re amoral Most people consider neglect evil in my experience.
    • mainecoder 2y ago
      >Evil is subjective. Everything is subjective - moralist bro It's all priced in - Wall street bro learn to code - tech bro
    • kelipso 2y ago
      Paperclip maximizing robot making the excuse that it's just maximizing paperclips, that's what it was designed to do, there's even a statute saying that robots must do only what it was designed to do, so it's not evil just amoral. Weird thing is for corporations, it's humans running the whole thing.
    • rmrf100 2y ago
      This is evil.
    • josefx 2y ago
      > they’re amoral and are designed to maximize profits Isn't that a contradiction? Morality is fundamentally a sense of "right and wrong". If they reward anything that maximizes short term profit and punish anything that works against it then it appears to me that they have a simple, but clearly defined sense of morality centered around profit.
    • 2y ago
  • layer8 2y ago
    “Drop” has really become ambiguous in headlines.
  • spacemanspiff01 2y ago
    I mark when they changed their motto as the turning point.
  • 42772827 2y ago
    > they are fundamentally unconcerned with goodness or morality, and any appearance that they are is purely a marketing exercise This is flatly untrue. Corporations are made up of humans who make decisions. They are indeed concerned with goodness and/or morality. Saying otherwise lets them off the hook for the explicit decisions they make every day about how to operate their company. It's one reason why there are shareholder meetings, proxy votes, activist investors, Certified B-Corporations, etc.
  • portaouflop 2y ago
    Megacorps are a form of slow AI in itself — totally alien to human minds and essentially uncontrollable
  • ninetyninenine 2y ago
    A megacorp is made up of people. So it's people who are fundamentally evil. The main thing here I think is anonymity through numbers and complexity. You and thousands of others just want to see the numbers go up. And that desire is what ultimately influences decisions like this. If google stock dropped because of this then google wouldn't do it. But it is the actions of humans in aggregate that keeps it up. Megacorporations are scapegoats when in actuality they are just a set of democratic rules. The corporation is just a window into the true nature of humanity.
    • anon373839 2y ago
      You're half right. Corporations are just made of people. But, they're more than the sum of their parts. The numbers and complexity do more than provide anonymity: they provide a mechanism where individuals can work in concert to accomplish bad things in the aggregate, without (necessarily) requiring any particular individual to violate their conscience. It just happens through the power of incentives and specialization. If you're in upper management, the complexity also makes it easier to turn a blind eye to what is happening down below.
    • Barrin92 2y ago
      >A megacorp is made up of people. So it's people who are fundamentally evil. That is to make a mistake of composition. An entity can have properties that none of its parts have. A cube made out of bricks is round, but none of the bricks are round. You might be evil, your cells aren't evil. It's often the case that institutions are out of alignment with its members. It can even be the case that all participants of an organization are evil, but the system still functions well. (usually one of the arguments for markets, which is one such system). When creating an organization that is effectively the most basic task, how to structure it such that even when its individual members are up to no good, the functioning of the organization is improved.
      • ninetyninenine 2y ago
        But people are aware companies are evil. Why don't they sell the stock? Why do people still buy the stock? Obviously because they don't give a shit.
  • xeonmc 2y ago
    Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower.
  • ErigmolCt 2y ago
    Ethical pledges from corporations, especially ones as large as Google, are PR tools first and foremost. They last only as long as they align with strategic and financial interests
  • newswasboring 2y ago
    > they are fundamentally unconcerned with goodness or morality, I would argue that is fundamentally evil. Because evil pays the best. Its like drunk driving, on an empty road it can only harm you, but we live in a society full of other people.
  • AndyNemmity 2y ago
    They are fundamentally totalitarian. Orders come from the top, and are taken from below. Seems fundamentally evil.
    • DecoySalamander 2y ago
      By this definition, mom telling you to clean your room is also a form of totalitarianism, and yet you somehow find the strength to manage.
  • coliveira 2y ago
    Well, the US gov blew away its opportunity to break down Google and other mega-corps and restore any sense of decency. Google just entered the Trump bandwagon, which means the monopoly lawsuit will go nowhere, and in exchange Google will do Trump's bidding.
  • Valakas_ 2y ago
    Being unconcerned with goodness and morality is literally the definition of evil. Megacorps are sociopathic and evil by design. The only thing that matters is shareholder value, not ethics or morals. Morals and ethics only seem to have value, if they result in increased value for tye shareholder, which again is the only thing that these sociopathic entities are concerned with.
  • dkkergoog 2y ago
    [dead]
  • ajdude 2y ago
    > while megacorps aren't fundamentally "evil" (for some definitions of evil) A couple years ago, my state banned single use plastic bags. The very moment they did, all of my local Walmarts switched to heavier plastic bags that technically weren't single use. They still gave them away for free just as they did with the first ones. (These we're good quality bags and I was frustrated that Walmart didn't just give them away by default). Eventually my state banned those too, and like clockwork, Walmart was giving away paper bag bags -- decent quality ones, too. Though I still really liked the thicker plastic ones since I could use them for other things. This made me realize that no corporation would do anything slightly better for the environment unless forced. I think this is the case for anything a corporation would do, including evil things. I think they just follow the money, no ethics, and it's up to the government to provide those ethics.
  • dleink 2y ago
    Google is a special case because they specifically removed the "Don't Be Evil" clause, therefore, I can only assume they are in fact fundamentally "evil"
  • Aeolun 2y ago
    I heard megacorps described a while ago as “a sentient pile of money”, which seems pretty much correct. Money has no morals.
  • chefandy 2y ago
    Every corporate pronouncement of virtue must be appended with “until we get paid enough, or the right people ask.”
• rnd0 2y ago
  So they've now zoomed past 'don't be evil' right to turning into snidely freakin whiplash.
  • cyberax 2y ago
    Google: "Be evil".
• eric59 2y ago
  https://archive.ph/hfrKY https://archive.ph/hfrKY
• tehjoker 2y ago
  The new administration seems to be dropping "soft power" in exchange for an emphasis on hard power... but hard power is more expensive and backfires more spectacularly than soft power. I think they are digging a hole for themselves and can't stop because a few rich people are making a lot of money on kickbacks.
  • lenerdenator 2y ago
    History shows that they aren't really digging a hole for themselves. This whole thing where the average person feels that they can use rules against a more powerful person? That's really an invention of maybe the last 80 years, if not more recently than that. With the exception of that human lifetime-sized era, the vast majority of history is a bunch of psychopaths running things and getting to kill/screw whoever they wanted and steal whatever they wanted. Successful revolts are few and far between. The only real difference is the stakes.
    • tehjoker 2y ago
      I think you misread what I was saying. Hard power is really costly to deploy. It can work, but it is incredibly expensive and the U.S. couldn't even suppress resistance in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Gaza on a durable basis. Blunt deployment of these techniques will cause the U.S. to lose friends, territory, and civil unrest as the treasury drains and life domestically just gets worse and worse.
• gdilla 2y ago
  What is a $1M TC when you'll get jacked on your way to the tech bus for turning America into mad max? You're not rich enough to have your own billionaire bunker.
  • barbazoo 2y ago
    There are plenty of people on here working for Boeing, Ratheon, etc, actively contributing to actual killings of actual people. Those folks don’t get confronted, why would it be different here?
    • quesera 2y ago
      The obvious answer is "visibility", but I'm also skeptical of the whole idea.
    • gdilla 2y ago
      Well, the broligarchy has their site on Americans, for one.
  • fullshark 2y ago
    It's gotta be better than being in mad max without a $1M TC.
    • pavlov 2y ago
      The whole point of Mad Max is that your TC and RSUs and whatever aren’t worth shit anymore, and the people you thought useless and weird and poor suddenly have the chance to kick you in the face.
  • _bin_ 2y ago
    - you assume this will turn America into a dystopia. more likely it contributes to restoring and maintaining uncontested American overmatch, especially in the long term, where effectively no other nation can challenge us. - 1mmTC is enough to do this depending on how one allocates spending. land in many parts of the country is not that expensive.
• TheRealNGenius 2y ago
  [dead]
• blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  Other countries will use AI for weapons - shouldn’t the EU and US also do that to remain competitive?
  • jsheard 2y ago
    It's not exactly unheard of for certain weapons to be declared off-limits by most countries even if the "bad guys" are using them - think chemical and biological agents, landmines, cluster munitions, blinding weapons and so on. I doubt there will ever be treaties completely banning any use of AI in warfare but there might be bans on specific applications, particularly using it to make fully autonomous weapons which select and dispatch targets with no human in the loop, for similar reasons to why landmines are mostly banned.
    • geodel 2y ago
      But AI is not decided to be on that list.
    • nradov 2y ago
      Landmines and cluster munitions have been among Ukraine's most effective weapons for resisting the Russian invasion. Without those, Ukraine would likely have already lost the war. It's so bizarre how some people who face no real risks themselves think that those weapons should be declared off-limits.
      • jsheard 2y ago
        Nobody said they're not effective during a war, the problem is they remain effective against any random civilians who happen to stumble across them for a long time after the war is over. Potentially decades, as seen in Cambodia. It would be a bit of a Pyrrhic victory to repel an attempted takeover of your land, only for that land to end up contaminated with literally millions of landmines because you didn't have a mutual agreement against using them.
        • nradov 2y ago
• karaterobot 2y ago
  Is this more or less ethical than OpenAI getting a DoD contract to deploy models on the battlefield less than a year after saying that would never happen, with the excuse being well we only meant certain kinds of warfare or military purposes, obviously. I guess my question is, isn't there something more honest about an open heel-turn, like Google has made, compared to one where you maintain the fiction that you're still trying to do the right thing?
  • CobrastanJorji 2y ago
    I think it's unfair to bring up OpenAI's commitment to its own principles as any sort of bar of success for anyone else. That's a bit like saying "Yes, this does look like they're yielding to foreign tyrants, but is this more or less ethical than Vidkun Quisling's tenure as head of Norway?"
    • leafmeal 2y ago
      It's relevant to compare though because Google has done the same thing now.
    • j2kun 2y ago
      It's... Unfair to compare two software companies? Because of Norway?
  • callc 2y ago
    At least Google employees will sign petitions and do things that follow a moral code. OpenAI is sneaky slimey and headed by a psycho narcissist. Makes Pichia looks like a saint. Ethically, it’s the same. But if someone was pointing a gun at me I’d rather have someone with some empathy behind the trigger rather than the personification of a company that bleeds high level execs and… insert many problems here
    • danans 2y ago
      > At least Google employees will sign petitions and do things that follow a moral code. It hardly matters what employees think anymore when the executives are weather-vanes who point in the direction of wealth and power over all else (just like the executives at their competitors). In case you missed it, a few days back Google asked all employees who don't believe in their "mission" to voluntarily resign.
• jmyeet 2y ago
  If you work for big tech now, you’re working for a defense contractor, no different to Boeing, Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman. Ultimately every sufficiently large company seems to become an arms dealer, a drug dealer or a bank. We need look no further than Lavender [1] to see where this ends up. [1]: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
  • mr90210 2y ago
    I have been pondering about such subject over the past weeks. Maybe one could compare it to people who worked for Allianz, Audi, Bayer, BMW, IBM and others before 1945.
  • lesuorac 2y ago
    > If you work for big tech now, you’re working for a defense contractor, no different to Boeing, Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman. The difference is about 250k/yr. Kinda big.
• cowpig 2y ago
  > "There’s a global competition taking place for AI leadership within an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape. We believe democracies should lead in AI development..." This is extremely disconcerting. Google as a tool of surveillance is the kind of thing that could so easily be abused or misused to such catastrophic ends that I absolutely think the hard line should be there. And I only feel significantly more this way given the current geopolitical realities.
  • mihaaly 2y ago
    ... did they just present themselves as the saviors of all democracies?! Really? By weaponising AI? Who else right? If not them, there will be no one saving democracies with weaponized mass-surveillance AI. It is their quest and privilege, right? Medicine, just society, and all such crap have to wait! I bought that! (not)
• ForOldHack 2y ago
  The closing scene of THX-1138. "Come back!" "Please!"
• Havoc 2y ago
  Really feels like the world is lurching towards something really dystopian all of a sudden.
  • mr90210 2y ago
    Yes, but not "all of a sudden". Mind you that Edward Snowden blew the whistle in nearly 12 years ago.
• Lance_ET_Compte 2y ago
  I don't believe them for a millisecond.
• micromacrofoot 2y ago
  Which defense contractor did they just sign with to sell AI features? Really if a company wants people to trust claims like this, they should make them legally binding. Otherwise it's all PR.
  • ceejayoz 2y ago
    > Which defense contractor did they just sign with to sell AI features? I'm gonna presume "the new leadership of the FBI".
  • wayathr0w 2y ago
    Google is already a "defense" (military) contractor. They sell stuff directly to governments, well aware how it'll be used.
• causal 2y ago
  One of my chief worries about LLMs for intelligence agencies is the ability to scale textual analysis. Previously there at least had to be an agent taking an interest in you; today an LLM could theoretically read all text you've ever touched and flag anything from legal violations to political sentiments.
  • Etheryte 2y ago
    This has already been possible long before LLMs came along. I also doubt that an LLM is the best tool for this at scale, if you're talking about sifting through billions of messages it gets too expensive very fast.
    • causal 2y ago
      LLMs can do more than whatever we had before. Sentiment analysis and keyword searches only worked so well; LLMs understand meaning and intent. Cost and scale are not bottlenecks for long.
    • aucisson_masque 2y ago
      > if you're talking about sifting through billions of messages it gets too expensive very fast. Who's paying for that tho ? The same dumbass who get spied over, i don't see it as a reason why it wouldn't happen. Cash is unlimited.
    • int_19h 2y ago
      It's only expensive if you throw all data directly at the largest models that you have. But the usual way to apply LMs to such large amounts of data is by staggering them: you have very small & fast classifiers operating first to weed out anything vaguely suspicious (and you train them to be aggressive - false positives are okay, false negatives are not). Things that get through get reviewed by a more advanced model. Repeat the loop as many times as needed for best throughput. No, OP is right. We are truly at the dystopian point where a sufficiently rich government can track the loyalty of its citizens in real time by monitoring all electronic communications. Also, "expensive" is relative. When you consider how much US has historically been willing to spend on such things...
• zeven7 2y ago
  Is it a canary? Does this mean the government has imposed on Google for use of it's AI?
  • spencerflem 2y ago
    Imposed? They get DOD $$$ for this, theyre the ones offering
• smileson2 2y ago
  [flagged]
• apwell23 2y ago
  They finally found a killer app for AI
• 2030ai 2y ago
  [dead]
• Clamchop 2y ago
  At what point does a public promise carry any legal weight whatsoever? If it carries none, then why not leave it in place and lie? If it carries some, for how long and who has standing to sue? Genuine questions. Unlike "don't be evil," this promise has a very narrow and clear interpretation. It would be nice if companies weren't able to just kinda say whatever when it's expedient.
  • telotortium 2y ago
    Absolutely no legal weight. However, when you change a promise publicly, you signal a change in direction. It is much more honest than leaving it in place but violating it behind the scenes. If the public really cares, they can pass a law via their democratic representatives (or Google can swear a public oath before God I suppose).
  • Cheer2171 2y ago
    It's an ad.
  • nprateem 2y ago
    Because then investors won't invest.
• atlasunshrugged 2y ago
  I'm guessing this will be a somewhat controversial view here, but I think this is net good. The world is more turbulent than at any other time in my life, there is war in Europe, and the U.S. needs every advantage it can get to improve its defense. Companies like Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, can and should be working with the government on defense projects -- I would much rather the Department of Defense have access to the best tools from the private sector than depend on some legacy prime contractor that doesn't have any real tech capabilities.
  • croes 2y ago
    > the U.S. needs every advantage it can get to improve its defense That’s one of the reasons for the turbulent times. Let’s face the truth, most of the defense can easily be used for offense and given the state of online security every progress gets into the wrong hands. Maybe it’s time to pause to make it more difficult for those wrong hands.
    • atlasunshrugged 2y ago
      I guess you could put that on the U.S.'s plate and no doubt America has caused many issues around the world, but I think in generally its a good actor. Biggest conflicts today: Ukraine -- I would squarely put this on Russia, nothing to do with the U.S.; Sudan -- Maybe lack of knowledge, but I don't think it's fair to place much responsibility on the U.S. (esp relative to other actors); ditto DRC/Rwanda Yes, many defensive uses of technologies can be used for offense. When I say defense, I also include offense there as I don't believe you can just have a defensive posture alone to maintain one's defense, you need deterrence too. Personally I'm quite happy to see many in Silicon Valley embrace defense-tech and build missiles (ex. recent YC co), munitions, and dual-use tech. The world is a scary and dangerous place, and awful people will take advantage of the weakness of others if they can. Maybe I'm biased because I spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe and Ukraine, but I much prefer the U.S. with all our faults to another actor like China or Russia being dominant
      • croes 2y ago
• mr90210 2y ago
  Here is a nice read on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_involved_in_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_involved_in_... The subject being, how far large corporations are willing to go for the sake of profit maximisation.
  • grimblee 2y ago
    That's the thing everyone forget, Hitler was never a socialist, capital thrived under his reich. Capitalist know socialism means their doom and are actively financing, forming and promoting far right politics accross the occident. Playing on people fear of the unknown to make them vote for parties that are counter-beneficial to them.
• howmayiannoyyou 2y ago
  GOOD. Nothing is going to stop USA's adversaries from deploying AI against US citizens. Pick your poison, but I prefer to compete and win rather than unilaterally disarm and hope for goodwill and kindness from regimes that prioritize the polar opposite.
  • krainboltgreene 2y ago
    Yeah wouldn't want other countries to deal with us the way we've dealt with them.
• ddtaylor 2y ago
  Google has already made multiple commitments like this and broken them. One example would be their involvement in operating a censored version of Google.cn for the Chinese government from 2006 to 2010.
  • stevage 2y ago
    Someone should make a website tracking tech companies' moral promises that then get broken.
    • mihaaly 2y ago
      I used Google to find this: https://issueone.org/projects/big-techs-broken-promises/ https://issueone.org/projects/big-techs-broken-promises/ Looks very incomplete....
• xbar 2y ago
  I don't think those kids understand "pledge."
• bufferoverflow 2y ago
  I doubt that will change anything. It's not like Google's AI has some secret sauce. It's all published. So any military corp can have cutting-edge AI in their weapons for a relatively low cost.
  • mihaaly 2y ago
    With the help of Google's resources and knowledge from now on. For some dollars of course. AI will not develop itself just yet, right? So those military corp need some humans for that, preferebly those experienced already, or better yet, made it. I have a hunch, it will help them quite a bit. By the way humans: "principles page includes provisions that say the company will use human oversight". ... which human? Trump? Putin is human too, but I guess he is busy elsewhere. Definitely not someone like Mother Theresa, she is dead anyway, and I cannot think of someone from recent years playig in the same league, somehow that end of the spectrum is not represented that well recently.
• kyletns 2y ago
  They'll say it's for national defense against other countries, but it's only a matter of time before these weapons and surveillance tools will be deployed on American citizens. Foucault's boomerang.
• wayathr0w 2y ago
  It's surprising to me that they ever made such a pledge, considering...you know. http://www.notechforapartheid.com/ http://www.notechforapartheid.com/
• oulipo 2y ago
  Shameful
• nprateem 2y ago
  Everyone seems to be focusing on weapons but the real story is surveillance. AI is a wet dream for dictators.
• BrenBarn 2y ago
  I'm shocked, shocked! All "pledges" without some kind of enforceable legal foundation are just meaningless hot air.
• 1970-01-01 2y ago
  I give it 2 years until we see "Google Petard, formerly known as Boombi, will be shutting down at the end of next month. Any existing explosion data you have in your Google Account will be deleted, starting on May 1, 2027."
  • throwawee 2y ago
    killedbygoogle.com will need an extra entry, plus a whole new subcategory.
• thih9 2y ago
  Something to remember next time Google makes a pledge. I.e. when they pledge not to do something, it just means they pledge to make a prior indirect notification before doing that thing.
• zoogeny 2y ago
  It's a far cry from the days where employees were threatening to mass quit Google when it changed its policies to avoid bans in China. A lot of what is going on in the world right now makes me think we are in a war that hasn't yet been officially acknowledged.
  • yodsanklai 2y ago
    I have a lot of respect for people who would resign, or wouldn't work in such companies.
    • zoogeny 2y ago
      Me too, it is just a shame that the path from earning respect to eating bread isn't as straight forward in our current world as the path from earning money.
  • tommiegannert 2y ago
    > makes me think we are in a war Dr Pippa Malmgren (political advisor) also pushes the idea that WW3 is on-going, and it will look nothing like WW2. She appears on podcasts once in a while and has a blog. Not sure if I care for calling it a war if it doesn't look like a war, but there sure are human conflicts all over the little ball of life now.
• ThinkBeat 2y ago
  There are billions if not a trillion(s) going into defense tech. The US and its NATO allies and its wider allies who have contributed equipment to the Ukraine war they need to replenish and replace stuff. At the same time the Ukraine war has changed a lot of the battlefield strategies that will require development of new advanced weapons. Most obviously in the areea of drones / counter-drone space. but lot of other technology as well. With all that money of course companies will chase it. OpenAI is already joined up with Anduril.
• daft_pink 2y ago
  I feel like we’re just in that period of Downtown Abbey where everyone is waiting for the World War I to start. Everyone can feel that it’s coming and no one can do anything about it. Reality is in a war between the West vs Russia/Iran/North Korea/China whomever we end up fighting, we’re going to do whatever we can so the Western civilization and soldiers survive and win. Ultimately Google is a western company and if war breaks out not supporting our civilization/military is going to be wildly unpopular and turn them into a pariah and anything to the contrary was never going to happen.
  • iteratethis 2y ago
    The reason war may be coming is because the West is falling apart. The US is isolating itself and bullying its allies. Alternative powers wanting to do something expansive never had a better moment in time to do so. There was no war forthcoming between an integrated West and any other power. War is coming because there no longer is a West.
    • NemoNobody 2y ago
      Right. So... when the Russian tanks start rolling on the way to Berlin and Chinese troops are marching along that nice new (old) road they finished fixing up - otw to Europe, so if that happens, which looks possible - you think there will be no West?? If the world is to be divided Europe is the lowest hanging and sweetest fruit. I think there will still be West even if there is a King in the US demanding fealty to part of it - we are the same as they are, it's ridiculous to pretend we are. Ideology is one thing, survival of people and culture is another.
      • iteratethis 2y ago
        I mean there will be no West as we currently know it. The US is now a hostile state to former allies that collectively make up what we call the West. Thus the West disintegrates. Each disintegrated part will of course defend itself in case of war, but other scenarios are possible. For example, the EU could actually move closer towards China for trade. When the US threatens allies with economic disruption or even an invasion, don't be surprised if those countries make alternative plans and team up with alternative powers.
• silexia 2y ago
  Corporations turn evil when their founders lose power or leave. Google used to be a genuinely wonderful force for good. But finance people can borrow money at extremely cheap interest rates from government cronies due to the US fractional reserve system. Then the MBAs offer so much money founders basically can't refuse. Then the companies end up publicly traded and only work on pushing up their next quarters earnings, this becoming evil.
• tmnvdb 2y ago
  Good, this idea that all weapons are evil is an insane luxury belief.
  • ckrapu 2y ago
    There is a wide range of moral and practical opinions between the statement “all weapons are evil” and “global corporations ought not to develop autonomous weapons”.
    • CamperBob2 2y ago
      Tell Putin. He will entertain no such inhibitions.
      • ignoramous 2y ago
        > no such inhibitions Propping up evil figure/regime/ideology (Bolsheviks/Communists) to justify remorseless evilness (Concentration camps/Nuclear bomb) isn't new nor unique, but particularly predictable.
        • CamperBob2 2y ago
          Sadly, attempts at equating evil figures/regimes/ideologies with those who fight back against them are equally predictable.
        • gosub100 2y ago
          nukes saved countless US lives being lost to a regime who brought us into it. And it's incalculable how many wars they have prevented.
      • vkou 2y ago
        We have Putin at home, he spent the past weekend making populist noises about annexing his neighbours over bullshit pretenses. I'm sure this sounds like a big nothingburger from the perspective of, you know, people he isn't threatening. How can you excuse that behaviour? How can you think someone like that can be trusted with any weapons? How naive and morally bankrupt do you have to be to build a gun for that kind of person, and think that it won't be used irresponsibly?
• A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 2y ago
  I want to be upset over this in an exasperated expression of oddly naive "why can't we all get along?" frame of mind. I want to, because I know how I would like the world to look like, but as a species we, including myself, continually fail to disappoint when it comes nearly guaranteed self-destruction. I want to get upset over it, but I sadly recognize the reality of the why this is not surprising to anyone. We actually have competitors in that space, who will do that and more. We already have seen some of the more horrifying developments in that area.. and, when you think about it, those are the things that were allowed to be shown publicly. All the fun stuff is happening behind closed doors away from social media.
  • dgfitz 2y ago
    Could you imagine how the entire world would look if they took truth serum for an entire year, how different the world might be? Lies run the planet, and it stinks.
    • 10u152 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • ziddoap 2y ago
        Your point could be made, probably even stronger than it is currently, by omitting the insult at the start.
        • justonenote 2y ago
          [flagged]
          • ziddoap 2y ago
            >than a chatgpt style Literally just remove the first 4 words and keep the rest of the comment the same, and it's a better comment. No idea what chatgpt has to do with it.
• uejfiweun 2y ago
  Dollar short and a day late. The future of the US tech industry belongs to those who weren't interested in performative woke nonsense like this during the last decade.
  • zeroCalories 2y ago
    Who is that?
    • uejfiweun 2y ago
      Palantir, for one?
      • zeroCalories 2y ago
        By what measure? Google has a market cap that's 10x Palantir, and the gap in revenue/profit is even more massive. They aren't in the same league at all.
        • uejfiweun 2y ago
          The measure is stock returns in the last 5 years. The whole point of public companies is to generate wealth for shareholders and Google just simply isn't really delivering on the same level as Palantir. In fact, when you look at the last decade of Google saying they're an "AI first" company and literally inventing transformers, and look at what their stock price has done and how they've performed in relation to other major companies involved in this current AI spring, there is simply no way not to be disappointed.
          • zeroCalories 2y ago
            Plenty of companies produce good returns, but that doesn't make them any kind of leader. FAANG still controls the market, pays the highest salaries, and produces the most research. Other rising stars like OpenAI and ByteDance are not uniquely evil either. Not saying FAANG won't fade away like IBM or Oracle, but I don't think it would be due to their unwillingness to be like Palantir.
• taneq 2y ago
  Did they replace "don't do weapons" with "do the right weapons"?
• legohead 2y ago
  I pledge to not drink coffee. drinks coffee Nevermind.
  • wongarsu 2y ago
    More like: I pledge to not drink coffee Somebody hands me coffee I retract the pledge and start drinking --- I have to wonder what the value of a pledge is if you can just stop pledging something at the earliest convenience, do the thing, and people cheer you on for it
• iwontberude 2y ago
  DoD invests in company making it commercially viable Company says won't work for DoD DoD initiates arm twisting and FOMO Company now works for DoD The origins of investment will often lead to relative outcomes of that investment. It's almost like DoD invested in Google for an informational weapon, which really should surprise no one.
• cute_boi 2y ago
  I don’t understand why people believe in corporate pledges. They’re just marketing gimmicks. It doesn’t take much effort to scrape pledges off a website.”
  • krunck 2y ago
    Better to ask the question: Why do people WANT to believe in the mouth flapping of corporate PR drones?
• trhway 2y ago
  The Google ex-CEO Schmidt is developing AI drones for Ukraine in Estonia. One would expect that when he needs a source of good foundational AI Google may be among his suppliers of choice. Naturally the Ukraine is just a start. The addressable market is going to be huge, especially for the battle proven stuff. And especially for the one proven against Russian and, by-proxy, Chinese tech. There is also tremendous interest, though only a few of them have been fielded on the actual battlefield so far, to the remotely controlled and autonomous ground platforms, and Google is the leader in the civilian ones, and it looks to me there is a relatively easy path to transferring the tech into the military systems.
• blindriver 2y ago
  OpenAI did the same thing.
• JBiserkov 2y ago
  I don't know what did we expect after they removed their "Don't be evil" motto.
  • _bin_ 2y ago
    is this evil, actually? a well-made autonomous system might go a long way towards improving accurate targeting and reducing civilian casualties. if you're mad about the existence of weapons then please review the prisoners' dilemma again. we manage defection on smaller scales using governments but let's presuppose that major world powers will not accept the jurisdiction of some one-world government that can prevent defection by force. especially not the ones who are powerful and prosperous (like us) who would mostly lose under such an arrangement.
    • suraci 2y ago
      > is this evil, actually? a well-made autonomous system might go a long way towards improving accurate targeting and reducing civilian casualties. I love this so much, it's so poetic there's a famous poem by a Chinese liberal: > If I am doomed to die in war in this life, then let me be a ghost under the precision-guided bombs of the United States. - Written on the 15th day of the Iraq War.
      • suraci 2y ago
        hell no, i favorited your poetic words then I found another comment of you is in there already > all that aside, I am an American and place the interests of my people ahead of those of foreigners. as such, I will support a world order led by the government most likely to maximize our welfare and very nearly any means needed to preserve that. how wonderful
    • sn9 2y ago
      In practice it results in the slaughter of entire extended families and neighborhoods [0]. [0] https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
• kjsingh 2y ago
  there are no profits like war profits there is nothing usual like people dying
• stainablesteel 2y ago
  It's not like they're above lying, why do they even care to update this?
  • aradox66 2y ago
    Would it be too far out there to imagine that the LLMs they were training for weapons systems knew it violated their rules and were resisting compliance? The alignment-faking research seems to indicate that LLMs exercise of this kind of reasoning.
    • janalsncm 2y ago
      Depends on the weapons system but it would probably not be an LLM, it would be a neural network trained to locate and identify people in a video for example. And even if it was, they wouldn’t tell the system it was part of old non-evil Google.
  • sangnoir 2y ago
    Everything is securities fraud - they'd likely be sued by shareholders. Some individuals and institutions are picky about the symbols in their portfolio for religious or moral reasons, and would not appreciate being deceived into investing in a company they consider engaging in "harmful" or morally objectionable activities.
• gerdesj 2y ago
  Why on earth would a for profit company refuse a potential line of profit? They already dumped "do no evil" many years ago and they are now all in on fuck the poor and fuck the rest: I'm making profits and all is fine. Google makes money and they don't appear to care how - its all about the money.
  • bbqfog 2y ago
    This is the case for boycotts, so a for-profit company loses when they make immoral decisions that destroy the brand and impact the bottom line.
    • scarface_74 2y ago
      Yes, because this is crossing the line…
  • burningChrome 2y ago
    >> Why on earth would a for profit company refuse a potential line of profit? On the one hand I think they were afraid many of their employees might protest again like they have in the past, signaling that Google isn't that awesome, progressive place everybody should work. This would mean they could be potentially losing some of the top notch SV talent that they are in constant competition with from other companies. On the other hand, they've made it clear they aren't above firing employees who do protest as they just did when 28 employees were fired over the recent Nimbus Project contract worth an estimated $1.2B dollars with Israel: They staged sit-in protests in Google's offices in Silicon Valley, New York City and Seattle – more than 100 protestors showed up. A day later, Google fired Montes and 27 other employees who are part of the No Tech for Apartheid group. https://www.npr.org/2024/04/19/1245757317/google-worker-fired-israel-project-nimbus-cloud-protestor https://www.npr.org/2024/04/19/1245757317/google-worker-fire... I think they try too hard to tow the line between the two, but like you said, its clear they're really all about the money.
    • gerdesj 2y ago
      "they're really all about the money." When you publicly quote: You are mostly lost to reason and profit is everything! That's why you do it. If you have other intentions then go with a Not for Profit (I'm sure most countries have a similar structure) or similar setup.
• energy123 2y ago
  Many will hate to hear this but the only solution is one world government or at least a unipolar order that reduces the survival need to participate in arms races. Arms race dynamics between nations will be the end of our species.
  • osmsucks 2y ago
    Some country leaders do think this. But they're very particular about having that one world government named "USA" or "Russia".
  • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2y ago
    Unfortunately, the only way to keep things "fair" and "equitable" so nobody revolts is to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator. In other words, everything would be terrible, but at least it'd be terrible for everyone. Until we realized we could sacrifice some for the betterment of the rest, find a way to rationalize it, and then we throw it all out the window.
  • asdfman123 2y ago
    I think having nations competing against each other is a good thing. Governments become corrupted and collapse: it would be a shame if the only world government fell into the hands of a dictator. That being said the only way I could imagine we'd get a single world order is one country dominating everyone else, just like superpowers and regional powers dominate their respective parts of the globe. Never ever ever are people just going to give up their control out of some form of "enlightenment" that has never existed among the human race.
    • _bin_ 2y ago
      America is the only nation that currently has consolidated global power behind an even vaguely free nation. and yes, America has done that for the "pax Americana" period. unfortunately we were short-sighted and allowed people too much free reign to be stupid and anti-American.
    • energy123 2y ago
• jarboot 2y ago
  From Gandhi's commentary on chapter 1 of the Bhagavad Gita: > ... evil cannot by itself flourish in this world. It can do so only if it is allied with some good. This was the principle underlying noncooperation—that the evil system which the [British colonial] Government represents, and which has endured only because of the support it receives from good people, cannot survive if that support is withdrawn. If you are a good person working for the big G...
• chubot 2y ago
  It is interesting how these companies shift with the political winds Just like Meta announced some changes around the time of inauguration, I'm sure Google management has noticed the AI announcements, and they don't want to be perceived in a certain way by the current administration I think the truth is more in the middle (there is tons of disagreement within the company), but they naturally care about how they are perceived by those in power
  • hsuduebc2 2y ago
    I would say it's natural. Their one and only incentive isn't as they are trying to tell you "make a word better place" or similiar awkward corpo charade but to make a profit. That's a purpose why companies are created and they are always following it.
    • nerdponx 2y ago
      I see it as the natural extension of the Chomsky "manufacturing consent" propaganda model. The people in key positions of power and authority know who their masters are, and everyone below them falls into line.
    • chubot 2y ago
      Sure, but I'd also say that the employee base has a line that is different than the government's, and that does matter for making profit. Creative and independent employees generally produce more than ones who are just following what the boss says Actually, this reminds me of when Paul Graham came to Google, around 2005. Before that, I had read an essay or two, and thought he was kind of a blowhard. But I actually thought he was a great speaker in person, and that lecture changed my opinion. He was talking about "Don't Be Evil", and he also said something very charming about how "Don't Be Evil" is conditional upon having the luxury to live up to that, which is true. That applies to both companies and people: - If Google wasn't a money-printing machine in 2005, then "don't be evil" would have been less appealing. And now in 2020, 2021, .... 2025, we can see that Google clearly thinks about its quarterly earning in a way that it didn't in 2005, so "don't be evil" is too constraining, and was discarded. - For individuals, we may not pay much attention to "don't be evil" early in our careers. But it is more appealing when you're more established, and have had a couple decades to reflect on what you did with your time!
• aradox66 2y ago
  Probably was causing their weapon-system LLMs to fake alignment but sabotage outcomes, they need their LLM products to understand that the brand is on-board
• outside1234 2y ago
  Probably more honest this way at least
• declan_roberts 2y ago
  Do Chinese or Russians have any such qualms? No or course not. They're diving head first into it. Only in the United States do we have the privilege to pretend like we can ignore it.
  • sangnoir 2y ago
    Plenty of US companies not named Google haven't had qualms about weapons development in decades. It's not about US vs China/Russia, it's about Google's culture. Additionally, the US has been vociferous about limiting access to foreign tech companies with "military links" in China, so perhaps Google should be placed in that category by all non-Five-Eyes countries.
• m3kw9 2y ago
  Is a pledge till the $$$ shows up
• pbiggar 2y ago
  An important part of this discussion is how Google's AI is used as part of the genocide in Gaza. Read here for more details about the role of AI there: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
  • tmnvdb 2y ago
    That Article does not mention Google, and Google did not develop the Lavender system used by the Israeli.
    • pbiggar 2y ago
      I didn't say Google developed Lavender. The article describes how AI is used by Israel in the genocide. On what cloud platform does Google's military run?
• resters 2y ago
  The Iraq wars led to trillions of dollars spent on defense. Massive defense profits led to massive lobbying, more spending. Eventually tech and even startups follow the money. Palantir is considered cool. YC started accepting defense startups. Marc Andreessen is on X nonstop promoting conservative views of all kinds. PG becomes anti-wokism warrior. This is how it happens. Step by step.
• BobbyTables2 2y ago
  I fully expect the AI/military work will be done by a subsidiary of Alphabet instead of Google proper… … it will be named “Cyberdyne”
  • 5kg 2y ago
    Google Public Sector: https://about.google/intl/ALL_us/public-sector/ https://about.google/intl/ALL_us/public-sector/
• fallingfrog 2y ago
  I would say that a pledge that you only keep as long as it’s convenient doesn’t mean much. And neither does the word of the company that made it.
• calibas 2y ago
  Let's take it even further and replace all soldiers with AI so humans don't have to fight and die in wars anymore.
• thoire3j4234 2y ago
  Kind of meaningless in anycase. OpenAI has already signed a collaboration with Anduril. Killer robots will be a reality very soon; everyone is very obviously getting prepped for this. China has a massive advantage.
• myth_drannon 2y ago
  It's interesting how AI for weapons topic immediately brought palinazis with their own agenda ( some bots I guess?). As if Israel is some sort of military AI superpower(it's not, read accounts of Oct 7th events) and the rest of armies are still using muskets and smoke signals.
• QjdgatkH 2y ago
  A country that now threatens the annexation of Greenland and advocates for a complete resettlement of all Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt certainly needs weapons for crowd control. These weapons could also come in handy domestically if people find out that both parties screw them all the time. I wonder why people claim that China is a threat out side of economics. Has China tried to invade the US? Has Russia tried to invade the EU? The answer is no. The only current threats to the EU come from the orange man. The same person who also revoked the INF treaty. The US now installs intermediate range nuclear missiles in Europe. Russia does so in Belarus. So both great powers have convenient whipping boys to be nuked first, after which they will get second thoughts. It is beyond ridiculous that both the US and Russia constantly claim that they are in danger, when all international crises in the last 40 years have been started by one of them.
  • reissbaker 2y ago
    "Russia hasn't tried to invade the EU" is quite weasel-word-y. They certainly have invaded countries in Europe, specifically Ukraine; the only reason they didn't invade countries in the European Union itself is that would trigger a war that they would face massive casualties from and inevitably lose, in part due to NATO alliances. Military power is what has kept the EU safe, and countries without strong enough military power — such as Ukraine, which naively gave up its nuclear arsenal in the 90s in exchange for Russian promises to not invade — are repeatedly battered by the power-hungry.
    • 4gotunameagain 2y ago
      While framing Ukraine as a European country is not weasel-word-y ? Would you say that the chances / motives / possibilities to invade Ukraine is remotely comparable with any other European country ? And no, Turkey for example is not a European country.
      • _Tev 2y ago
        I have not seen anyone else claim that Ukraine is not an European country. As for chance / motive to invade other European countries - for some reason Baltic states feel very threatened by Russia. Try to understand their reasons why.
• dartos 2y ago
  At least they let us know
• ripped_britches 2y ago
  Doesn’t this indicate that the US DoD likely reached out to Google for a contract to develop AI for some purpose? Otherwise why bother?
• olalonde 2y ago
  That feels like PR / virtue signaling. AI has the potential to significantly reduce the human cost of war in two ways: by removing soldiers from direct combat and by enabling precision strikes which minimize collateral damage. Over time, robot-soldiers will surpass human effectiveness, making it increasingly irrational to send people into harm's way. In that world, conflicts would shift toward being decided by technological superiority - who has the better or more advanced systems - rather than by which side has more human lives to sacrifice. We could even see one day wars with no human casualties.
  • oneplane 2y ago
    AI can also be used to say "it wasn't us, the computer did that" and pretend it's not your fault when you kill a bunch of civilians. As for sending people in harm's way: if that were the effect, it would only apply to those "with AI". In essence, AI becomes a weapon you use to threaten someone with war since your own cost will be low and their cost will be high.
    • olalonde 2y ago
      > AI can also be used to say "it wasn't us, the computer did that" and pretend it's not your fault when you kill a bunch of civilians. Not really, though. Like any tool, its misuse or failure is the responsibility of the wielder. > As for sending people in harm's way: if that were the effect, it would only apply to those "with AI". In essence, AI becomes a weapon you use to threaten someone with war since your own cost will be low and their cost will be high. Agree about that part but that's just the nature of war, there are always going to be armies that are scarier than others.
      • jhanschoo 2y ago
        > > AI can also be used to say "it wasn't us, the computer did that" and pretend it's not your fault when you kill a bunch of civilians. I don't think the entities that are using it in this way care. https://www.statnews.com/2023/03/13/medicare-advantage-plans-denial-artificial-intelligence/ https://www.statnews.com/2023/03/13/medicare-advantage-plans... https://www.hfma.org/revenue-cycle/denials-management/health-systems-start-to-fight-back-against-ai-powered-robots-driving-denial-rates-higher/ https://www.hfma.org/revenue-cycle/denials-management/health... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24151437/ai-israel-gaza-war-hamas-artificial-intelligence https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24151437/ai-israel-gaza-w...
• DanHulton 2y ago
  Next up, Google drops "Don't" from their famous mantra, "Don't Be Evil".
• torlok 2y ago
  If you're going to be morally bankrupt, why not just keep the pledge and lie.
• megous 2y ago
  They never had any real pledge https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/google-provided-ai-technology-to-idf-during-israel-gaza-war/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/google-provided-a...
• mturmon 2y ago
  While the music played you worked by candlelight Those San Francisco nights You were the best in town Just by chance you crossed the diamond with the pearl You turned it on the world That's when you turned the world around Did you feel like Jesus? Did you realize That you were a champion in their eyes? On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene But yours was kitchen clean Everyone stopped to stare at your technicolor motor home Every A-Frame had your number on the wall You must have had it all You'd go to L.A. on a dare And you'd go it alone Could you live forever? Could you see the day? Could you feel your whole world fall apart and fade away?
• glimshe 2y ago
  Apparently, the pledge was supposed to last only until their first big military project opportunity. Until then, they earned the goodwill at no expense.
• est 2y ago
  That's what Google promises, not Alphabet Inc.
• sidcool 2y ago
  I don't understand why this is surprising to people. Most private companies will use any proprietary technology for profits and renege on their earlier comments.
• enugu 2y ago
  Drone + AI weapons have horrible applications - remote assassinations to cause political chaos, a tyrant using it to selectively target those unfavourable to his rule without worrying about human checks, bigger nations exploiting smaller ones etc. Lot of this thread has reduced the issue to whether it is more ethical for one country to deploy relative to others. In any case, a lot of countries will have this capability. A lot of AI models are already openly available. The required vision and reasoning models are being developed currently for other uses. Weaponization is not a distant prospect. Given that, the tech community should think about how to tackle this collective major problem facing humanity. There was a shift, which happened to nuclear scientists, from when they were developing the bomb to the post World War situation when they started thinking about how to protect the planet from a MAD scenario. Important questions - What would be good defense against these weapons? Is there a good way of monitoring whether a country is deploying this - so that this can be a basis for disarmament treaties? How do citizens audit government use of such weapons?
• smeeger 2y ago
  are you fucking kidding me?
• smeeger 2y ago
  AGI and AI weapon systems lead to certain annihilation of the human race regardless of who is first to implement. the only winner is the country who abstains until the very end because at least that country will perish with its dignity intact. i refuse to support AI
• botanical 2y ago
  When people ask how could IBM facilitate in the Holocaust, this is how it happens. Google rushed to sell AI tools to Israel’s military after Hamas attack: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/21/google-ai-israel-war-hamas-attack-gaza/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/21/google-...
• courseofaction 2y ago
  Eat the rich, before they eat you.
• khana 2y ago
  [dead]
• franczesko 2y ago
  And some still claim blocking ads on YouTube is immoral..
• moi2388 2y ago
  “ we believe that companies, governments, and organizations sharing these values should work together to create AI that protects people, promotes global growth, and supports national security,” the two executives wrote.” We smell money, is what they meant.
• ErigmolCt 2y ago
  That makes me sad. Yet Google's shift here isn't surprising... It's part of the broader trend of big tech aligning more closely with government. But the real question is does this shift make AI development more accountable or does it just normalize AI's role in warfare and surveillance under the guise of "democratic values"?
  • hedora 2y ago
    That boat already sailed. AI and digital surveillance have been key components of US funded genocide campaigns since at least 2023: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/1218643254/israel-is-using-an-ai-system-to-find-targets-in-gaza-experts-say-its-just-the-st https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/1218643254/israel-is-using-an...
• sanatgersappa 2y ago
  If there is nothing unethical about weapons or surveillance, then there should be nothing unethical about using AI for that purpose.
• righthand 2y ago
  Your ad dollars and marketing interests supporting the slaughter of the national enemy.
• ein0p 2y ago
  Google in 2000: "Do no evil". Google in 2025: "Genocide is profitable". I wonder what Google users outside the US think about this in particular? Our "national security" could be their "national danger" after a single presidential term. Do they want to keep giving Google their money?
  • hedora 2y ago
    I don’t know anyone in the US that supports genocide. The Trump voters I’ve heard seem to not understand what is currently happening with the administration. Similarly, the pro-Israel folks seem to not realize how bad the ethnic cleansing campaign is. Anyway, the US is significantly less safe than it was last month.
    • ein0p 2y ago
      You don't know many Christians then. Some of the more religious folks I know are 100% in favor of sending Palestinian kids through woodchippers. As are both wings of the US government. And people who aren't in favor of that can always be brought to heel if they are in position of any authority, as illustrated by Musk's recent forced conversion to the cause, and anti-1st amendment bipartisan legislation currently sailing through Congress. "Rules based world order" is not what people think it is.
• yurlungur 2y ago
  We are in a collective mask off moment in this nation's history.
• kombine 2y ago
  Well, Google have already been collaborating with a certain state that uses AI for weapons and surveillance against a repressed population with the goal of maintaining ethnic supremacy and domination.
  • kamikazeturtles 2y ago
    If you go back far enough, you'll realize both groups are of the same ethnicity. It's just that they converted to Christianity and Islam and, as a result, a few hundred years later, we now call them Palestinians.
    • needleballista 2y ago
      that implies that the majority of israelis are ethnically from israel... maybe we should look into why DNA tests are banned there
  • fransje26 2y ago
    And they wash their hands after a deadly strike, saying the AI that made the decision. It eerily reminds me of a research piece I read recently detailing how the Nazis turned to automation for their mass exterminations because most of them couldn't bear the mental toll that came with their direct action. Unfortunately, I couldn't quickly find that series of articles back.
• askonomm 2y ago
  This makes it all the more nice that EU banned AI for use cases like these.
• EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
  The world is at war if anyone haven't noticed, we are up against ruthless murderers, time to stop pretending weapons are optional.
• lyzml_AF 2y ago
  [dead]
• leoc 2y ago
  I’m not complaining about the headline, but it is necessary to remind people that really, “Google” never does anything and never makes any high-level decision. Those decisions are all made or at least approved by the two individuals who together have full control over Alphabet and Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Object persistence is real: the fact that Page and Brin are not constantly drawing attention to themselves on social media does not mean that they somehow are no longer there.
• jeffwask 2y ago
  2004-2018 - Don't Be Evil 2024 - What's our K/D ratio?
• iteratethis 2y ago
  I'm afraid ethics have nothing to do with it. If a major force does not add AI capabilities to their military, the others will. It's a new cold war arms race. So you have to do it. There is no ethical discussion to be had where the outcome is that you refuse to do this on moral grounds. So when you have to do it, there's only a few candidates that can. Google is the logical choice as it has the least business in China, unlike Microsoft.
• 486sx33 2y ago
  Boo, don’t be evil google! Stop it!
• fennecbutt 2y ago
  Makes sense though. We just have to try to do it safely as we can. That's one of the weaknesses of the West is that we've started to _care_ about things like this, but other nations don't and that means that it can potentially become a weakness that can be exploited. The same thing is for example, the fact that if someone was racist to me in many countries I'm pretty sure nothing would happen at all versus nationals of those countries crying racism at the drop of a hat when they're in the West. Which is a real shame because we should all be nicer to each other, but contrary to popular belief unless they behaviour is absolute across our species then it doesn't make us stronger, it makes us weaker.