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Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract (gizmodo.com)
Kate Conger, reporting for Gizmodo: It's been nearly three months since many Google employees -- and the public -- learned about the company's decision to provide artificial intelligence to a controversial military pilot program known as Project Maven, which aims to speed up analysis of drone footage by automatically classifying images of objects and people. Now, about a dozen Google employees are resigning in protest over the company's continued involvement in Maven.
The resigning employees' frustrations range from particular ethical concerns over the use of artificial intelligence in drone warfare to broader worries about Google's political decisions -- and the erosion of user trust that could result from these actions. Many of them have written accounts of their decisions to leave the company, and their stories have been gathered and shared in an internal document, the contents of which multiple sources have described to Gizmodo.
The resigning employees' frustrations range from particular ethical concerns over the use of artificial intelligence in drone warfare to broader worries about Google's political decisions -- and the erosion of user trust that could result from these actions. Many of them have written accounts of their decisions to leave the company, and their stories have been gathered and shared in an internal document, the contents of which multiple sources have described to Gizmodo.
Now they'll be a defense contractor like Boeing et al. While I can understand a company wanting to make money how does this line up with "Do no harm?"
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I'd have a hard time employing folks who "publicly" resigned in protest. My reason is that they'd similarly judge my company, and bring the wrong type of attention to my company. EVERYONE asks, "so, why'd you quit?"
That said, this type of move shows passion and putting their money where their mouth is. I really admire their conviction. Good for them.
I personally think Google has lost their moral compass. Stuff I've read about SREs doing, in flagging "bad" people who visit, would be grounds for immediate dismissal as traditional companies. Maybe, someday, ad words stop subsidizing the Googlers who get to go off and play on cool stuff, and protest and stuff. Until then, this ad word supported fantasy land will continue.
That's pretty much what already happens. Drone operators are told "we have a report of a training camp holding a meeting here... go find it". Then the op flies around looking for a meeting, sees a bunch of gathered people, and with no indication to the contrary, command orders the strike. The idea that it might be a wedding never crosses anyone's mind.
Adding an AI means there is now an unbiased process looking for alternative interpretations. The AI doesn't care what it's "looking for"... it just tries to guess what it's "looking at". It won't get a commendation for finding a good target, and it won't care how much the commander really wants to have a mission. It just says what it sees.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Our own military has enough people with advanced degrees that actual military members can create next-generation technology.
Nope.
One of the requirements of military service is "up or out". You either need to earn a promotion and move to a different station, or you're "asked" to retire. And you don't get promoted in-place, you get a new assignment with a higher rank.
Those officers with advanced degrees do not get to work on the same program for 10 years...and usually not even 5 years. It's also not uncommon for officers to "temporarily" deploy in support of one of our many lovely wars. This constant churn of the development team would ensure that the new technology can't be developed.
I don't understand the objection to precision drone strikes. Would the objects prefer to just fire a missile in the general area and kill everyone in the vicinity? Would they prefer dumb drones that can't determine who the target is and kills the wrong people?
Yes, they would. You see, their real objection to the military has nothing to do with innocents being killed. They just hate the very idea of the military as a whole. Even if every single strike took out some horrible monster of a man, and didn't harm a single innocent, they would still be opposed to it. The problem, in that case, is that they would have no way to rationally voice their opposition, so they need civilian casualties. They need weddings being blown up; the more the better. It lets them rant and rave about how horrible the military is; anything which reduces the civilian body count runs contrary to their interests.