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Pretty alarmist writing. "I therefore can’t resist showing a new piece of Google technology: the military robot ‘WildCat’ made by Boston Dynamics which was boug

Pretty alarmist writing. "I therefore can’t resist showing a new piece of Google technology: the military robot ‘WildCat’ made by Boston Dynamics which was bought by Google in December 2013". And goes on to show a video of something that was funded by DARPA well before Google purchased Boston Dynamics. Google has already said multiple times that it won't be pursuing any military contracts.

jodrellblank 12y ago
And goes on to show a piece of technology owned by Google. Who funded it and when is irrelevant to whether it belongs to google.
- maxmcd 12y ago
  Really? Google owns a fighter jet. What kind of conclusions am I supposed to draw from that?
  - nightski 12y ago
    Probably not much since they do not own the company that designed and built that fighter jet (at least that I am aware of).
  - desdiv 12y ago
    Google owns a fighter jet. The jet you're talking about is owned by a private company, H211 LLC, that's owned by Page, Brin, Schmidt et al. It's not a subsidiary of Google, nor does it have any relationship with Google[0]. [0] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/a-new-fighter-jet-for-googles-founders/?_r=0 http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/a-new-fighter-jet-f...
    - xtian 12y ago
      You must have a pretty sad definition of the word "relationship" to exclude two companies that share executives.
  - jodrellblank 12y ago
    I don't understand your point. I was arguing "the Boston dynamics robot is not Google technology because darpa funded it" with "it is fair to describe it as Google technology because Google own the technology". You can draw whatever conclusions you like about the fighter jet for all I care. But if you start saying things like "they bought a fighter jet but they don't own it because someone else paid for the design" then I'll argue about your reasoning.
yohui 12y ago
Rather disjointed, too. Even if Google were developing robots for the military, as the author implies, it's a bit of a stretch to jump from discussing Snowden, to Boston Dynamics, and then back to the NSA within the span of a paragraph. I felt a bit of whiplash there. (Incidentally, Google declined to pursue future military contracts after acquiring Boston Dynamics, along with a host of other robotics companies, so presenting that pre-acquisition video after accusing Google of being ”part of the military industrial complex” is bit of a non-sequitor.)
higherpurpose 12y ago
> Google has already said multiple times that it won't be pursuing any military contracts. And you so quickly trust one of the biggest corporations in the world to "keep its promise" over following whatever its biggest interest will be in the future? Google also said it won't deal at all with the military before they bought the robots, and a few months later it was selling them Google Glass...so yeah. And Google Glass is something anyone barely wants. Imagine Google's robots were so great that it would cause a "revolution" in what we can do with robots. Do you really believe that if Pentagon came knocking at Google's door saying "Here, we want 1 million of these robots for $100,000 a piece". Google would say "Um, no thanks buddy, we already said in public 10 years ago (under a different CEO) that we wouldn't sell to you...but you could pay that $100 billion to Microsoft's robot division if you like. Our shareholders won't mind". Is that how you imagine it going down? That said, I'm already pissed off because Oculus/Facebook have decided to sell Oculus Rifts to the military to make drone assassinations that much more convenient.
- pcthrowaway 12y ago
  That's not exactly the same thing though. Google glass wasn't made for the military, but of course Google isn't going to refuse to sell them a product that they have made publicly available. Perhaps the military will want to buy more of Google's tech, but it sounds like Google isn't (currently) planning on building robots for the military.
joelthelion 12y ago
Google also said they wouldn't be evil.

jodrellblank 12y ago

And goes on to show a piece of technology owned by Google. Who funded it and when is irrelevant to whether it belongs to google.

maxmcd 12y ago
Really? Google owns a fighter jet. What kind of conclusions am I supposed to draw from that?
- nightski 12y ago
  Probably not much since they do not own the company that designed and built that fighter jet (at least that I am aware of).
- desdiv 12y ago
  Google owns a fighter jet. The jet you're talking about is owned by a private company, H211 LLC, that's owned by Page, Brin, Schmidt et al. It's not a subsidiary of Google, nor does it have any relationship with Google[0]. [0] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/a-new-fighter-jet-for-googles-founders/?_r=0 http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/a-new-fighter-jet-f...
  - xtian 12y ago
    You must have a pretty sad definition of the word "relationship" to exclude two companies that share executives.
- jodrellblank 12y ago
  I don't understand your point. I was arguing "the Boston dynamics robot is not Google technology because darpa funded it" with "it is fair to describe it as Google technology because Google own the technology". You can draw whatever conclusions you like about the fighter jet for all I care. But if you start saying things like "they bought a fighter jet but they don't own it because someone else paid for the design" then I'll argue about your reasoning.

yohui 12y ago

Rather disjointed, too. Even if Google were developing robots for the military, as the author implies, it's a bit of a stretch to jump from discussing Snowden, to Boston Dynamics, and then back to the NSA within the span of a paragraph. I felt a bit of whiplash there. (Incidentally, Google declined to pursue future military contracts after acquiring Boston Dynamics, along with a host of other robotics companies, so presenting that pre-acquisition video after accusing Google of being ”part of the military industrial complex” is bit of a non-sequitor.)

higherpurpose 12y ago

> Google has already said multiple times that it won't be pursuing any military contracts. And you so quickly trust one of the biggest corporations in the world to "keep its promise" over following whatever its biggest interest will be in the future? Google also said it won't deal at all with the military before they bought the robots, and a few months later it was selling them Google Glass...so yeah. And Google Glass is something anyone barely wants. Imagine Google's robots were so great that it would cause a "revolution" in what we can do with robots. Do you really believe that if Pentagon came knocking at Google's door saying "Here, we want 1 million of these robots for $100,000 a piece". Google would say "Um, no thanks buddy, we already said in public 10 years ago (under a different CEO) that we wouldn't sell to you...but you could pay that $100 billion to Microsoft's robot division if you like. Our shareholders won't mind". Is that how you imagine it going down? That said, I'm already pissed off because Oculus/Facebook have decided to sell Oculus Rifts to the military to make drone assassinations that much more convenient.

pcthrowaway 12y ago
That's not exactly the same thing though. Google glass wasn't made for the military, but of course Google isn't going to refuse to sell them a product that they have made publicly available. Perhaps the military will want to buy more of Google's tech, but it sounds like Google isn't (currently) planning on building robots for the military.

joelthelion 12y ago

Google also said they wouldn't be evil.