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Google Promises Ethical Principles To Guide Development of Military AI (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google is drawing up a set of guidelines that will steer its involvement in developing AI tools for the military, according to a report from The New York Times. What exactly these guidelines will stipulate isn't clear, but Google says they will include a ban on the use of artificial intelligence in weaponry. The principles are expected to be announced in full in the coming weeks. They are a response to the controversy over the company's decision to develop AI tools for the Pentagon that analyze drone surveillance footage.
Internal emails obtained by the Times show that Google was aware of the upset this news might cause. Chief scientist at Google Cloud, Fei-Fei Li, told colleagues that they should "avoid at ALL COSTS any mention or implication of AI" when announcing the Pentagon contract. "Weaponized AI is probably one of the most sensitized topics of AI -- if not THE most. This is red meat to the media to find all ways to damage Google," said Li. But Google never ended up making the announcement, and it has since been on the back foot defending its decision. The company says the technology it's helping to build for the Pentagon simply "flags images for human review" and is for "non-offensive uses only." The contract is also small by industry standards -- worth just $9 million to Google, according to the Times.
Internal emails obtained by the Times show that Google was aware of the upset this news might cause. Chief scientist at Google Cloud, Fei-Fei Li, told colleagues that they should "avoid at ALL COSTS any mention or implication of AI" when announcing the Pentagon contract. "Weaponized AI is probably one of the most sensitized topics of AI -- if not THE most. This is red meat to the media to find all ways to damage Google," said Li. But Google never ended up making the announcement, and it has since been on the back foot defending its decision. The company says the technology it's helping to build for the Pentagon simply "flags images for human review" and is for "non-offensive uses only." The contract is also small by industry standards -- worth just $9 million to Google, according to the Times.
Right after they removed "don't be evil" from the company handbook..
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What exactly these guidelines will stipulate isn't clear, but Google says they will include a ban on the use of artificial intelligence in weaponry.
Even if Google follows this, how is it going to prevent the DoD from weaponizing what Google develops? Google is clearly not naive so this all reeks of a public show for something they’ll never be able to enforce.
The best part about guidelines is that you can always remove them when they get in your way.
We live in an age where objective moral standards are rejected out of hand.
Which is good news for anyone who wants to reassure people that they are going to be ethical. Subjective ethics based in subjective morality are a piece of cake to adhere to.
... for military contracts.
Vendors don't get to set the specifications and certainly not the moral/ethical use of purchases.
This is Google's proof of concept for an explosive market.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Google lost its credibility and luster a while ago. These days, it seems to be keen to become the new Microsoft. At least they got rid of the "Don't be evil" motto.
Lie to us more. Annoy us with marketing babble nobody believes anymore. Let the bullshit spiral soar ever higher!
The sooner we reach the breaking point, the sooner the counter-movement begins.
All lethal military androids have been provided with a copy of the 3 laws..to share.
if you feel your rights have not been respected by lethal military androids, a google compensation representative will be assigned to handle your case.
Worked so well in the commercial world. What good go wrong in the defense world?
Am I the only one who got a chuckle from this:
"Google Promises Ethical Principles To Guide Development of Military AI"
It's like a bad joke.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The spokesman further clarified, "Google will follow the guidelines from United Nations, and the code the follow will be UNethical Guide to military AI development."
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Came in here with modpoints to vote up anyone who actually read the article and noted that the contract is to supply image-analysis AI to flag content for human review. This is sensationalist journalism at its most flagrant.
Anyway, there's no one actually reading the linked story. You're all just spouting the sensationalist bullshit that /. cherry picked for you.
...
How is developing anything for the military ethical?
Even research into something "good" like regenerating severed limbs is just so the military can put the soldiers back into battle asap and keep them killing the "enemy".
Sometimes when I hear about some of the stuff being developed I am really glad Humanity is still stuck on Earth. The last thing I would want would be for them to spread to other worlds before they evolve beyond killing each other over stupid shit like which tribe you were born into.
I find it funny how humanity always tries to put euphemisms and human traits on devices. Humans can be ethical, something that is artificial by its very nature is only as ethical as those who use it. I think Google needs to drop the pretense of them trying to be ethical in this particular project because from reading about it the DoD wants to analyze the effectiveness not only of drone strikes but to analyze reconnaissance footage as well using AI. It sounds like an interesting project but they need to drop the hint that weapon system development is anything but political and there's no ethics in politics.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
..is no longer a thing.
Will these ethical principles be in effect for as long as they remain both good PR and do not get in the way of what google wants to do? Once "Don't Be Evil" got in the way of google's goals, it was history.
google be trippin
Worked so well in the commercial world. What good go wrong in the defense world?
Am I the only one who got a chuckle from this: "Google Promises Ethical Principles To Guide Development of Military AI"
It's like a bad joke.
Why?
Are we so naive to believe that a strong and capable military isn't necessary anymore because we have principles?
If so, How soon we forget the lesson of WW1 and WW2....
Those who know history are doomed to helplessly watch while those who don't know history, repeat it.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The only ethical rule regarding war is: Don't.
Do no evil..........“Four legs good, two legs bad.”
Do the right thing..............“Four legs good, two legs BETTER!"
Military AI............"already it was impossible to say which was which."
WWI saw trench warfare, WWII saw highly mechanized assaults and WWIII will see AI-driven drones and land equipment hunting humans. Why risk hundreds of thousands of troops when you can cheaply manufacture thousands of weaponized robots to eliminate anything that moves in a specific area?
Even if Google chooses to implement ethical guidelines in military AI, you can be assured others won't.
Why?
Are we so naive to believe that a strong and capable military isn't necessary anymore because we have principles?
If so, How soon we forget the lesson of WW1 and WW2....
Those who know history are doomed to helplessly watch while those who don't know history, repeat it.
Ethical principles and military AI are like polar opposites. There is only ethics in war when you're the far superior side. In a claw and kick battle like WWII ethics went out the window on just about every front by both sides.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
So we are only doomed to repeat history and not learn from it then?
Even in that case, doesn't having an already strong and capable military beat having to go "total war" such as in WW2?
The primary cause of WW2 was weakness in the face of aggression, both in Europe and in the Pacific. Had the USA not been on a pacifist kick and had been properly arming itself, Japan would have never tried their war and Germany would have easily been defeated in short order. Even if war had been inevitable in WW2, had the USA been ready the pain suffering and death of the war would have been much less as the war would have been much shorter.
Tell me again why we need to repeat this mistake a third time in modern history?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
All good robots will be coded to totally stay in the Free-fire zone for the duration of the war/police action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
So the SJW staff and the SJW mil contractors can feel trendy together on the same campus over the correct kind of coffee..
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The primary cause of WWII was WWI and the desire of certain members of the Entente to exact revenge on certain members of the Central Powers. If they hadnt been dead set on crippling Germany Hitler would never have had the support base he did. And Japan just got greedy and miscalculated. They had most of the western Pacific bottled up until the poked the US at Pearl Harbor.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
So we are only doomed to repeat history and not learn from it then?
Even in that case, doesn't having an already strong and capable military beat having to go "total war" such as in WW2?
What has ethics got to do with a strong and capable military? Militaries are evil. They're a very necessary evil, but they are evil. Ethics will go out the window in a total war. I can say that because I HAVE LEARNT SOMETHING from the past. Not learning from the past would be to assume that everyone plays nice and by the rules during a war.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Why?
Are we so naive to believe that a strong and capable military isn't necessary anymore because we have principles?
If so, How soon we forget the lesson of WW1 and WW2....
Those who know history are doomed to helplessly watch while those who don't know history, repeat it.
No, we are so naive as to think that war can be either ethical or moral. It is neither and will never be. If a person is scared enough, principals of morals and ethics go out the window.
I don't know if you are American, but I am. My country likes to think of itself as moral and just. But we torture people. We wiped out a population of people almost completely. We export more weaponry than any other country. We kill innocent people in foreign countries at will. We support dictators and repressive regimes when it suits us. We are the only country to have ever actually used atomic weaponry against people.
We have the most powerful military, perhaps in the history of the world, and think of ourselves as a peaceful people. It is dark humor at its finest. We do learn from history, but need repeated lessons. Eventually I believe we can evolve enough to understand that having a military is only good for death and destruction; for projecting power against those who stand in our way. I'm not saying we should not have mobilized against Hitler (though we only did that once we were directly attacked). But I am saying that as long as we are locked in the mindset of needing more and smarter weapons, and using our military to get our way in the world, we will not have peace.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
So we are only doomed to repeat history and not learn from it then?
Even in that case, doesn't having an already strong and capable military beat having to go "total war" such as in WW2?
To the people we kill, it makes no difference.
The primary cause of WW2 was weakness in the face of aggression, both in Europe and in the Pacific. Had the USA not been on a pacifist kick and had been properly arming itself, Japan would have never tried their war and Germany would have easily been defeated in short order. Even if war had been inevitable in WW2, had the USA been ready the pain suffering and death of the war would have been much less as the war would have been much shorter.
Tell me again why we need to repeat this mistake a third time in modern history?
The above is speculative opinion, nothing more. You have no way of knowing what would have happened differently if things had been different. Reality has no control group. From my point of view, the mistake we keep making is thinking violent means can have peaceful ends.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Google Promises Ethical Principles To Guide Development of Military AI
Be sure to update your Google profile to Opt-In for Targeted Attacks - the Google AI will take your browsing and Gmail histories into account to determine a method of attacking and/or killing you tailored to your personal preferences and interests, rather than using a generic method.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
You don't think Japan would have thought better of Perl Harbor had they not figured on having the bulk of the Pacific fleet there to sink? It was dumb luck they didn't actually succeed in sinking all our aircraft carriers you know. Japan's "miscalculation" would not have been made had we been ready. They wouldn't have tried the gambit because it would have been obviously doomed to fail had we actually had a Pacific fleet that didn't fit in Perl Harbor all at one time and had significant reserve resources on the west coast.
We are less responsible for Germany, but had we not been encumbered with the pacifist isolationist view we could have been in a better position to assist our allies in Europe and may have avoided even being in the war. As it was, encumbered with a war in the Pacific, it took multiple years to build up.
So, I contend that the war with Japan could have been avoided and certainly shortened had we been properly armed in the Pacific, and quickly defeating (or just not fighting Japan) would have had little problem shortening the European conflict by a year or two, vastly limiting the death and destruction the protracted conflict caused.
So, a strong and capable military avoids conflicts by making the outcome a given. Others don't start a war they know they cannot win. AND should a war break out, it shortens and limits the conflict when one side has overwhelming capability.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I didn't bring up ethics, the post I was responding to did. I was merely pointing out the fact that it is indeed ethical to do work for the military because military power is necessary for the common good.
I would disagree with your view that the military is a necessary evil. Having a military is necessary but it's not evil any more than owning a firearm is evil. The issue is how it's used, simply having them is neither good nor bad.
However, Given that you agree that a military is necessary, working for them must be ethical which leaves us only discussing what's the ethical way to use the power.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Seriously? It's not obvious from history what happens in response to weak military capacity?
It may be speculation but it's obvious from history that wars are rarely started when the outcome is obviously a given. Japan would have NEVER risked Perl Harbor had we been on a war capable footing in time. They knew it was a huge risk as it was, and had they known that this gambit wouldn't put the USA on it's heels long enough to build up a protection of their island, they would not have tried it.
So yea, this is speculation, but put in historical context, it's not without it's merits or parallels in history. Had we been armed and ready for war, we would have likely not had to fight that bloody Pacific war, and not fighting that war would have allowed us to effect the problem in Europe much quicker. Imaging if we could have invaded Europe 2 years sooner? Or if we had the necessary forces to hold and expand Dunkirk because we had a Navy presence in the med? WW2 would have been quite different.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You need to change countries.. :)
The USA has a long history of both military power and benevolent behavior in regards to it's use. We are not perfect in execution, but we DO have the necessary principles to wield our military ethically and to the great benefit of the world at large. History is rife with the USA selflessly shedding US blood on foreign soil, for both our and the world's benefit.
We may not do everything perfectly.. Nobody does.. But historically our military and it's benevolent use is without precedent. We may be the world's sole super power, but we do NOT use our power in the historically self serving ways of the past. How do I prove this? Does Venezuela exist? Hasn't Cuba been allowed to exist? Are there not countries all over the globe that sit on valuable resources that we actually pay for instead of just take by force? Of course there are.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Japan's miscalculation was on the US's willingness to fight (which I will concede was partly predicated on our pacifism up to that point), their own fighting ability, and, most importantly, the evolution of naval warfare(which Pearl Harbor accelerated).
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The company says the technology it's helping to build for the Pentagon simply "flags images for human review" and is for "non-offensive uses only."
There is no such thing when it comes to the military. "Flag images for human review"? WTF do they think humans IN THE MILITARY are going to do with such information? Furthermore once the technology is in the hands of the armed forces there is fuck-all Google can do to control how they use it.
This is basically the exact plot of the movie Real Genius. The smart geeks fail to comprehend what happens to military funded technology in the hands of the military.
Are we so naive as to think that having a strong and capable military is somehow unnecessary in today's world?
When we spend more money on that military than the next 8 largest countries combined then the answer is that absolutely yes it is unnecessary. Yes we need a military. No we don't need one as big as we have.
Have we forgotten the lessons of WW1 so soon? Was the catastrophe of WW2, that demonstrated AGAIN the folly of not being prepared not enough of a reminder?
So America needs to be 8X as prepared for war as anyone else and borrow every dime of our military budget ($600 billion last year - all borrowed)? Neither of those wars started because countries were unprepared for war. I think you need need to go check your history books because your facts are wrong.
Once a war starts, there becomes a kind of momentum that keeps them going, then those in control now need strong reasons to stop fighting.
Fighting a war up close and personal is actually a horrific experience even if you're on the winning side. Military AI should never be a thing because removing people from personal risk and isolating them from experiencing first hand the results of their own actions means wars will become more cruel, starting and fighting wars will become more common, and wars will last even longer with even less motivation to stop them.
Given that SOMEone is going to weaponize ai, isn't nicer to know who we're supposed to be watching? Better to know it's google than be blind to the fact that it's probably also being developed in some under ice bunker in the arctic by Killco Inc. Better the evil you know than the one you don't.
We will see new Captcha's:
Please click on every image with a wedding in it.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It is irrelevant whether ai or machine learning or ??? is developed for the military or not. When non-military ai is sufficiently capable it will quickly be re-purposed for the military. The only difference developing ai directly for the military makes is that the budget is bigger and arrives sooner.
You live and learn, or you don't learn much.
So.. You agree that had the USA been on a war footing, Japan wouldn't have been as likely to initiate their war? Great! Had we been prepared for war with Japan, the prosecution of the war would have gone faster and saved many lives on both sides. So, we threw away the chance of avoiding war, or making it quicker by remaining disarmed and more death and destruction was the result.
My point is then made. "Talk softly and carry a big stick" is a valid ethical practice. Having strength avoids war where showing weakness invites it. Thus, building the military for the purpose of having overwhelming force in place to avoid war is ultimately ethical. Being forced to use this overwhelming force because one is attacked is also ethical. So working for the military, developing better weapons and systems designed to kill people and break things, is also ethical.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It opens the door for a "Real Genius" remake!
If so, How soon we forget the lesson of WW1 and WW2....
What "lesson" was that?
Lesson of WW1: Military escalation and strong alliances are bad. We should have negotiated.
Lesson of WW2: Military weakness and compromise are bad. We should have refused to negotiate.
Militaries are evil. They're a very necessary evil, but they are evil.
Are they necessary?
List of countries with no military
Militaries are evil. They're a very necessary evil, but they are evil.
Are they necessary?
List of countries with no military
It's a bit like vaccines. If enough other people are vaccinated (have militaries) then you might be able to get by without one. Almost every state on that list is being protected by another state with a military.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The same ethical principles they apply to their business model, their political manipulation, their surveillance OSes. "Hey guys, our technology just helped profile and kill 1,000s of American Citizens last quarter! And we did it ethically!"
The AIs will be taught ethics, including just war theory, and decide for themselves whether to attack and whom.
ourpla.net is your planet
But if no country had a military, no country would need them.
American states don't need armies to protect themselves from other states. EU members don't need armies to protect themselves from other EU members.
Those conditions (settled borders, judicial settlement of disputes) could be extended worldwide.
I like your point on principles over interests. One other reckless aspect of US military doctrine is a push for absolute military superiority over all potential adversaries at all times while ignoring how if everyone adopted that policy we will see an endless destructive arms race ensuring insecurity for everyone. An alternative is to focus on mutual security through having friends and agreements and intrinsic security through having resilient hardened decentralized infrastructure and an educated capable affluent populace. One difficulty is that those saner solutions are at odds with having a few financially obese people becoming even more financially obese through profits from the war racket and other monopolistic centralized rackets on the backs of uniformed disempowered impoverished workers and consumers -- and so there is fierce well-funded opposition to true security for the USA (whether physical security or information security or progressive taxes or universal healthcare or a social safety net other than prison).
As I wrote in this 2010 essay on rethinking security principles in the 21st century: "Recognizing irony is key to transcending militarism" ... ... ...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/reco...
"Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?
Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?
Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?
These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious.
Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing.
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all.
Still, we must accept that there is nothing wrong with wanting some security. The issue is how we go about it in a non-ironic way that works for everyone. The people serving the USA in uniform are some of the most idealistic, brave, and altru
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Target locked on...
Hmm... I wonder if this is a nice person or a nasty person?
Should I kill them? I've been told to kill people matching this description and surely my creators know what they're doing...
But what if they don't... What if they're incompetent? Or what if I'm simply targeting this person because of a bug somewhere in my system...?
Oh, heck. BANG!
Does Venezuela exist? Hasn't Cuba been allowed to exist? Are there not countries all over the globe that sit on valuable resources that we actually pay for instead of just take by force? Of course there are.
We backed an attempted coup in Venezuela in 2002 and have enforced an embargo against Cuba for decades (that embargo has been relaxed recently, which I take as a positive development). We invaded Iraq partly to enable or corporations to get at their oil. Just saying.
Look, the United States isn't all bad. I very much like living here; it's a great country. We have freedoms and opportunities here that are not duplicated anywhere else. But I also think we have a romanticized view of ourselves that enables us to ignore or excuse the many times we have acted in ways inconsistent with our professed values. I think the people of Syria and Pakistan, where we have been conducting drone strikes against poorly identified people, might have a different perception of our ethics and benevolence.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Not saying we are perfect, but we are better than any other superpower in history at trying to stay benevolent to the less powerful.
Cuba and Venezuela exist as independent countries, even after we meddled. Not because we where unable to enforce our will, but because we exercise restraint and let others make their choices. Both countries could have easily become US territory.
The quagmire in the middle east is a totally different beast. The *problem* for the US there is that the targets and the civilian population don't have a clear dividing line between them, both ideologically and physically. This problem is made worse by the US due to it's past policy shifting and unwillingness to do what it takes to deal with the issues and not just survive to kick the can down the road another couple of days, so I don't blame the people being effected for being sore about it. However, in these places, the solution isn't an easy one, nor is it one the US can affect on it's own, the people living there are going to be required to actually choose to accept some kind of effective fix. At this point, I don't see them willing to pick something, so this issue isn't going away and would only boil over into the rest of the world if we didn't contain it. So, yea, I feel bad for the folks on the ground on the receiving end, but I don't see that we have any other options. Do you? We cannot go hands off or the wheels come off a whole lot of important stuff that really matters to us and the rest of the world.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
But if no country had a military, no country would need them.
American states don't need armies to protect themselves from other states. EU members don't need armies to protect themselves from other EU members.
Those conditions (settled borders, judicial settlement of disputes) could be extended worldwide.
I won't argue or disagree with that; unfortunately, I don't forsee in my great-great grandchildren's lifetime a time when no state has a military.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch