
Google Renounces AI for Weapons, but Will Still Sell to Military - Jerry2
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-07/google-renounces-ai-for-weapons-but-will-still-sell-to-military
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riskneutral
Kind of interesting to contrast this with the attitude of earlier generations
of technological innovators.

Archimedes developed catapults and canons to fight invading Romans. Leonardo
Da Vinci designed war machines, including a giant crossbow. I don’t recall the
details, but many European mathematicians in the 18th and 19th centuries
rushed to help their countries develop weaponry, which they saw as a sort of
patriotic duty. Alan Turing helped invent the computer as part of a military
effort. John von Neumann, besides also helping to invent the computer in a
military effort, was also an expert in nuclear warheads and work in the
Manhattan Project. Richard Feynman worked on ballistics calculations during
WWII and then after Pearl Harbir he worked on enriching Uranium for the
Manhattan Project. In the 1950s, Gordon Moore (cofounder of Intel) and Robert
Noyce created Fairchild Semiconductor, which practically created Silicon
Valley and the transistor. The first transistors sold by Fairchild were used
in the B70 bomber. Needless to say, the list goes on.

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emodendroket
There's something right below the surface that I think the discussions are all
glossing over: the difference here is that the United States is conducting
wars all over the world with enemies who may threaten, in some conception of
the term, American interests, but who present little to no threat to American
domestic security. If the US were being invaded I doubt you'd see so much
squeamishness.

~~~
chiefalchemist
> "...who may threaten, in some conception of the term, American interests..."

Let's not be naive. "Amwrican interests" is a euphemism for "revenue and
potential revenue of America's rich and powerful."

For example, history is clear on Afghanistan. A "conventional war" doesn't
work there. But if you want to reap the rewards of all the untapped natural
resources __and__ you're not footing the bill for the military's efforts then
you simply command your puppet(s) to give it a shot. The only loss is the
lives of someone else's kids.

~~~
riskneutral
> "Amwrican interests" is a euphemism for "revenue and potential revenue of
> America's rich and powerful."

I have news for you. In geopolitics, “interests” has always meant primarily
economic interests, and economic interests have always been of greatest
relevance to the rich. Take the great powers on the eve of World War 1, as an
example. Britain had “interests” in Egypt. Russia had “interests” in Turkey.
The United States has “interests” in Panama. Millions of people died for these
“interests” in WWI. What is meant by “interests” here is business interests.
Specifically, Britain seized Egypt in order to control the Suez canal, which
was important because it connects the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and British
merchants exported goods to Asia through the canal. All of Russia’s exports
had to go through the Turkish straights (controlled by the Ottomans at the
time), which connect the Black and Mediterranean Seas. The United States was
interested in Panama of course because the Panama Canal was a major conduit of
maritime trade between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Such “strategic
interests” are the reason behind every war ever fought, it may not be right
but it’s nothing unique to the US.

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emodendroket
"Every war ever" is overselling it, given other greatest hits like "we should
ethnically cleanse this other group of people" and "we should kill the people
living on this land and take it for ourselves."

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vezycash
>Google’s... won’t design or deploy AI for "weapons or other technologies
whose PRINCIPAL purpose or implementation is to cause or DIRECTLY facilitate
injury to people."

This policy is so broad it's meaningless.

PRIMARY purpose - promise us that its primary purpose is something else and
we're game.

Direct Injury - AI which determines / designates hostiles and isn't installed
directly on the weapon can't cause direct harm.

~~~
jopsen
If they choose to make a very narrow interpretation, they'll be publicly
shamed as violating their own policy.

It sounds like the want to keep selling cloud services, which is pretty much a
commodity at this point.

Even if weak, any policy is better than none.

Anyways, given Googles consumer brand I suspect any form of involvement with
weapons systems would be unwise :) I'm surprised they even considered it.

~~~
vezycash
>I'm surprised they even considered it.

Reason and morality falls apart when confronted with shareholder value.

~~~
dfxm12
Which affects shareholders more? The potential negative PR or the potential
government contracts?

If it were so cut and dry, I don't think they'd have a policy at all, and I
think this policy is the output of a calculated risk assessment where Google
determined that the effect of the PR would be greater than the cash.

Plus, there was a chunk of their staff that threatened to leave the company if
they went through with their pentagon drone project [0]. I imagine it would be
hard to explain that to Wall st.

0 - [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-01/google-
wo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-01/google-won-t-renew-
pentagon-ai-drone-deal-after-staff-backlash)

~~~
smaddox
> ... and I think this policy is the output of a calculated risk assessment
> where Google determined that the effect of the PR would be greater than the
> cash.

Huh? It sounds like they're not changing course at all, but just spinning what
their doing in a less _SkyNet_ light.

> Which affects shareholders more? The potential negative PR or the potential
> government contracts?

Considering several of the most valuable companies in the world are U.S.
defense contractors, I don't think there's much of question about what affects
shareholders more.

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jopsen
Google's golden egg requires the good will of consumers. Why risk it?

Better to do a spin-off company instead..

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assblaster
I don't have a popular opinion on this.

I wish they did more to help the US military with AI technology. It reduces
costs of human interpretation and doesn't have the same issues with classified
information in the minds of those humans.

There could be great time savings and the potential for higher reliability of
image interpretation if unsure AI assessments are passed onto humans for
interpretation.

I don't believe that the core of the US military is evil, and as an American I
am happy to have it defending my country.

~~~
0x4f3759df
China is a leader in AI and they will develop AI weapons (does anyone doubt
this?) Isn't the logical conclusion the country with AI weapons will become
militarily superior to one without?

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gustavmarwin
I speak for many people when I say the world doesn't want the U.S. to keep its
military superiority. We're tired of their shit. China or U.S. having it, same
difference.

Although we are way way off that, a better, more organised, more democratic,
more powerful U.N. should have that role.

~~~
0x4f3759df
>China or U.S. having it, same difference.

I think there's a big difference here.

~~~
gustavmarwin
Enlighten us.

~~~
sbarker
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II)

~~~
gustavmarwin
Ah ok. I'm sold, thanks! The U.S. needs to remain the most powerful army in
the world because... WW2!

~~~
sbarker
No. I was referring to the difference between China and the U.S. WW2 is a good
point to look at how the two world powers grew to be very different(I intrepid
what you were saying was that they are the same) you know the whole 1949
communist thing, cold war into the Korean war, the U.S. having nukes and
having just dropped then five years before could do it again but did not. I
think that shows something not to negate some of the very horrible things that
were done. If we move forward we get to 1989, Tiananmen Square. I'm just
saying the two are different and enjoy a mostly open and free internet.

~~~
domitian
US already lost the benefit of doubt and the excuse of WW2. They literally
invented modern terrorism by training the would be terrorist orgonisation
leaders against russia during the cold war. Then later invaded afghanistan and
iraq for oil, which caused the rise of ISIS. From the world's perspective, US
is the biggest culprit in the modern world. Invading other countries and also
elected an orange buffoon as their leader.

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mankash666
>>> AI applications for weapons and technologies that "gather or use
information for surveillance,"

Couldn't be more ironic. Google's core business is surveillance and serving
ads - all aided by ai.

This whole thing is a joke - a bunch of know-it-all overrated and overpayed
jerks pretending to know what's best for the world/country. Why and how is it
assumed that they know better than lawmakers, government officials and
security agencies?

At the very least, this is a vote of no-confidence against the very
institutions and people instilled to defend the country and further it's
interests!!

When Motorola was acquired by Google, plenty of googlers commented on how much
more smarter the average Googler was. And how the new genius Google upper
brass world turn Motorola into a money making machine. However, they failed
miserably at building and selling good hardware, and that struggle continues
to this day through their pixel, Nexus and HTC devices. So - a bunch of cocky
software engineers couldn't even build and sell better phones, why'd they be
right on national security?

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0xfffff
Was discussed already. Google is trying to do damage control and entertains
that "do no evil" was not a bad idea but thats a thing of the past.

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jkaplowitz
Google's "Don't be evil" motto never vanished - it's still in their code of
conduct. It got deemphasized from a wordy mention at the top, but its new
right-at-the-end placement is still prominent for people who read the whole
document (as employees should) or who skip to the end.

Their motto was never "do no evil" \- that's a far harder standard given that
undesired side effects happen for most actions.

~~~
Scea91
> its new right-at-the-end placement is still prominent for people who read
> the whole document (as employees should) or who skip to the end.

I really wonder what is the percentage of employees that read their company's
code of conducts. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 5 %.

~~~
jkaplowitz
Overall? You may very well be right. At Google? Based on my memories of the
culture there, definitely higher than that. Certainly not 100% though, agreed.

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Khaine
I'm sure all those people who at Google who forced this decision will feel
great. When the tech industry in China helps China become a pre-immenient
force using AI for military purposes, I'm sure they will regret their
decision.

~~~
mattnewton
Is there a competition between China and the US to drone the Middle East I
don’t know about? I certainly won’t feel badly when the technology is instead
developed by another company and used to bomb non-combatants in Pakistan.

It’s not miliatary contracts I have a problem with, it’s this particular
program, this particular method.

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adventured
It's an interesting problem, when the most talented companies in China and
Russia will have no problem developing AI weapons for the state to benefit the
motherland (and even if they do have a problem with it, they'll have little
choice).

My guess is the way the deep state and military industrial complex will deal
with this, is to seed new Googles - In-Q-Tel, DARPA, etc - that are more
cooperative in this area, and to punish Google in various ways going forward
for non-alignment (overtly or otherwise). What use to the military complex is
Google if they won't fully cooperate on something like this; time to get
themselves a new Google.

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wyld_one
Maybe we should put AI in all the weapons. Then have them play Tic Tac Toe.

Call it the Joshua Project. :)

