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Google Workers Urge CEO To Pull Out of Pentagon AI Project (nytimes.com)
Thousands of Google employees, including dozens of senior engineers, have signed a letter protesting the company's involvement in a Pentagon program that uses artificial intelligence to interpret video imagery and could be used to improve the targeting of drone strikes (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source). From a report: The letter, which is circulating inside Google and has garnered more than 3,100 signatures, reflects a culture clash between Silicon Valley and the federal government that is likely to intensify as cutting-edge artificial intelligence is increasingly employed for military purposes. "We believe that Google should not be in the business of war," says the letter, addressed to Sundar Pichai, the company's chief executive. It asks that Google pull out of Project Maven, a Pentagon pilot program, and announce a policy that it will not "ever build warfare technology."
That kind of idealistic stance, while certainly not shared by all Google employees, comes naturally to a company whose motto is "Don't be evil," a phrase invoked in the protest letter. But it is distinctly foreign to Washington's massive defense industry and certainly to the Pentagon, where the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, has often said a central goal is to increase the "lethality" of the United States military.
That kind of idealistic stance, while certainly not shared by all Google employees, comes naturally to a company whose motto is "Don't be evil," a phrase invoked in the protest letter. But it is distinctly foreign to Washington's massive defense industry and certainly to the Pentagon, where the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, has often said a central goal is to increase the "lethality" of the United States military.
What other kinds of weapons systems might the Pentagon pursue in the future, thinking they can always turn to Google to solve those niggling ethical issues...like killing completely innocent people in the name of collateral damage? This could force Google and its employees into the "Well if we don't, the new mega-bad weapon will kill civilians...we have to" way of thinking. It's not Google's job to ensure the safety or accuracy of weapons systems unless they want it to be. And at least some of the employees clearly don't.
Of course, minimizing civilian casualties should be a priority. A great way to start, is not to not bomb a populated area! But if you must, then sure, either hire engineers in-house or outsource. But if you do the latter, it's up to those contractors as a company, and their employees on a personal level, to decide what of the world's problems they want to apply their abilities and education solving.
They might feel their time is better spent solving a problem that may save millions of lives (like sanitary water), and not the hundreds or thousands of lives accidentally killed in combat.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Back when I did defense work (connected distantly to attacks), nobody ever had intention of hitting civilians.
Not as far as you knew.
The problem is, anyone who joins the military for any reason is supporting war in a variety of ways — not least signing on the line that they're willing to kill if instructed to do so.
It's not a popular opinion, but it seems to me that war is inevitable. People are always finding new means and reasons to kill each other, and they'll do it with or without my help.
War is not inevitable. Most wars are deliberately caused and/or fueled by people with something to gain.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"