
Google employees reportedly quit over military drone AI project - senoroink
https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/14/google-project-maven-employee-protest/
======
joebadmo
seems like a dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17074148](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17074148)
which has more comments

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detaro
dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17064776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17064776)
(98 comments) (discussion of the Gizmodo article thats the source of this
article)

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mmjaa
I once worked for a large industrial group in Europe. The kind that has a bit
of a piece of every little pie there is - military, transportation, etc. I was
pretty happy working there .. until I got a demo from the 'defence' group.

They demonstrated the willingness to push the company's technology into
heinous, heinous territory. The kind of thing where a drone would be able to
follow a single person in a crowd, and target them for execution - unguided,
of course.

I quit the next day. Those of us who make technology, need to be very sure we
see that it is not used destructively against the human species. The
responsibility is very, very high. And, the danger is extreme. These people
were revelling in the fact that they could develop targeted assassination
drones and sell them to any country in the world.

Heinous.

~~~
sametmax
That's the thing isn't it ? They can't do anything alone.

It always amazes me that those big entities exist, because they require such a
huge highly educated and skilled human power. What are all those genius at the
NSA thinking ? I can't imagine somebody smart enough to work here is not smart
enough to understand the consequences of working there. So why are they not
quitting ?

Social pressure and money are part of the equation, certainly. I remember when
I turned down a Google interview, my close circle though it was weird that I
did that, even more for ethical reason.

Having the best toys, budgets and projects certainly helps as well.

But still, I wonder.

~~~
relics443
Have you considered that there are people out there with values that differ
from yours? It's not wildly impossible, regardless of what the screaming
minority would have you believe.

Maybe they don't have a problem with working on such projects, because they
agree with their end goal?

~~~
vokep
They probably understand others have different values. The confusion is, some
values seem so self evident that its bewildering anyone with a certain level
of intelligence wouldn't realize the same values.

I think the answer might be that they _do_ have the same values, but they have
a different model of the world overall, which calls for different ways of
achieving those values.

To take this to an extreme, imagine a person fighting for their life against
actual criminals threatening vs a person fighting for their life against a
random person they think is a shape-shifting alien impostor. Both are
internally justified by the same values, one is externally justified by a more
correct perception of reality.

~~~
p1esk
How can you tell that your perception of reality is more "correct" than mine?

------
whb07
I’d like to offer the point of view that if the drones become better and more
surgical in their precision, it would reduce civilian casualties.

Like it or not the world is full of extremists who would like nothing more
than to hurt innocent people. There is no “oh just send the cops and arrest
them!” route to take.

Shit, just look at the time Osama bin Laden could have been bombed with a
tomahawk missile during Clinton’s presidency. He didn’t do it because of the
potential to kill a Saudi prince he was meeting at that time.

Would those angry Googlers be against surgically killing Osama? I think not.

Better drone software might help track a potential target and present with the
optimal window in which a target could be shot and have reduced civilian
casualties. It could also present with better intel to let a surgical ground
strike which would put more American soldiers at risk but would allow for
better intel and again less civilian deaths.

Lastly, it could offer new knowledge and experience in tracking humans with
drones during humanitarian disasters. It could also help in tracking victims
of kidnapping, are the Googlers opposed to rescuing the hundreds and thousands
kidnapped by Boko Haram and company?

Who is going to go into the African heart of darkness to rescue those people?
Is it the arm chair Googlers who pretend to know better?

~~~
sametmax
But again this assume the people giving order to the drone are the good guys.

But I never seen any good guys in my history books or in the news.

Hence I always assume, when given a power to somebody, that the person doesn't
have my best interest in mind.

Let's all remember it's possible any of our country become one day a
dictatorship. Just because we enjoyed a lot of freedom for the last decades
doesn't exempt us from still working like we can loose it at any moment.
Because we definitly can.

More pragmatically, with powerful AI, giant communications nets, huge database
of everything and everybody, cameras with facial detection and wire typing
everywhere, do you really want to add drones to the collections of what the
power that be can do ?

~~~
whb07
If you can foresee what potential benefits each technological application has,
then maybe i agree with you. There are plenty of examples where military
applications and research has led to a bonanza of side applications which
improve the human condition.

Look at the MRI imaging. They are a downstream invention that came from the
development of nuclear weapons (nuclear magnetic resonance). How many lives do
you think that has saved and improved in the past 70 years?

~~~
sametmax
We could have gotten nuclear tech without the will to kill people. There are
smart scientists outside of the military, and a need for power plants. Which
everybody agree would have been built with safer tech without the need for the
bomb.

Now the problem is never the tech, as usual. It's that the society we are
living is not constructed in a way that can prevent the tech from being
abused.

We are talking about a country that attacked Irak while lying out the WMD and
against the vote of the majority of the world, killing countless people for no
proven result and living a country still in ruin decades after that.

I'm not really trusting with the governments we have.

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flyinglizard
I wouldn’t say that developing military hardware necessarily negates the
“don’t be evil” principal (especially if the developed articles are dual use,
for both military and civilian applications). The western world, our
principals and values have prospered for more than half a century in Pax
Americana afforded, in a large part, by the prosperous US Military Industrial
Complex.

I totally get the objection to developing combative AI - that’s a separate
ethical question - but you can contribute to the military and still maintain
your humane values.

~~~
titzer
Given that the US military has killed nearly 4,000 people with drone strikes
in Pakistan over the past decade, a country in which no formal military
conflict exists, nor any formal enemy, just vague accusations of terrorist
networks (and likely a bunch of political dissidents fed to them by the
Pakistani government), I am really wondering where the "Pax" is coming from.
Because if you do the math the odds of any given person knowing someone who
was killed by a drone strike, or someone who knows someone who was, are pretty
damn high. The US has brought hell to Pakistan.

I say fuck that.

~~~
wilsonnb
If you're going to say that the US has brought hell to Pakistan, you should at
least back it up with some reasoning. What would Pakistan look like right now
without the US killing those 4000 people? What would surrounding countries
look like? Why did the US kill those people? Would any other country in the
US's position have reasonably killed them?

It's a complex issue that can't be summed up by saying "fuck that".

~~~
titzer
Just imagine your friends' mother was killed as collateral damage in a drone
strike. Or your cousin. Or your friend in school. From a missile from an
invisible unmanned machine in the sky. You don't know why. You don't if they
were a terrorist or mistaken for a terrorist. They were killed by a foreign
government that is colluding with your own corrupt government and you have no
recourse within the law, can't even fight back. Yeah, it's like that.

Would you really like to justify killed 4000 persons of unknown status with
zero legal proceedings because of...opportunity cost? Because Pakistan might
look different if they _weren 't_ killed? I am not sure I could keep a
straight face through that one. No. Just no.

And yes, missiles from the sky killing people: FUCK THAT. Rule of law. Round
up those "terrorists" and interrogate them, charge them with crimes. I have no
forgiveness for psychos on any side of this that want to push us back to
barbarism.

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option2
Kudos to those who is ready to stand for their principles.

If you are at G and thinking whether you should resign or not, remembers this
- the market for AI talent is super hot. You will immediately find lots of
great and challenging AI work pushing humanity forward

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Corollary: plenty of skilled engineers with fewer moralistic constraints will
jump at the chance to do interesting work for high pay. For a company as large
and wealthy as Google, they can continue to raise offer salaries until they
are adequately staffed.

There is a school of thought that recommends “moral” people doing “immoral”
work because if those people left then other “immoral” people will take those
jobs and more readily implement “immoral” features. So the “moral” engineers
have an incentive to stay and act as a front line against “immoral” actions,
or at least have an insider’s position for whistleblowing.

Military drones are here to stay, and whether or not the US builds them, other
military powers certainly will.

Ultimately, I don’t think this changes anything.

~~~
sp332
"If you don't do it, someone else will" does not go infinitely far. It's
entirely possible that if enough people don't do it, no one will.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
The military industrial complex is a huge employer, both in the state of
California and the rest of the county. The likelihood of enough people saying
no to a high paying job like this is effectively zero.

And even if - wave a very large magic wand - every AI/ML engineer in the
United States pledged to not work on military applications, the U.S, would
just contract that same work out from the U.K., Canada, etc...

~~~
sp332
There is a limited amount of total work that can be done by those people.
Every low-level employee who refuses to work on this decreases the overall
capacity. Every manager who has to deal with recruiting new people and getting
them up to speed reduces capacity. Every company with reduced ability to
compete for bids reduces capacity. Pushing the work to foreign companies and
getting more red tape involved reduces capacity. It's not zero.

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flurdy
I am worried we are not too far away from this becoming a reality:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM)

~~~
Lionsion
That video seems to have been copied _everywhere_ , and the copy you linked to
seems to be on a fringe UFO conspiracy channel.

As far as I can tell, this is the original:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA)

~~~
totalforge
This video is fictional, and was made as a warning about where current tech
could take us. I have no doubt that generals who have seen it are quite upset
that they can't have it yet.

~~~
Lionsion
I realize that, I just wanted to drive the traffic to the original source
rather than to some weirdo who uploaded a copy.

~~~
flurdy
Thanks. I thought I had found the original upload after sifting through a lot
of copies on youtube. Wish youtube was a little proactive with detecting
dupes, rather than reactive. Or at least some sort of an automatic note/link
to original even if it is a legal derivative.

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carlosrg
> runs contrary to Google's ethos -- the mantra "don't be evil" has long been
> at the heart of Google's principles

Thinking that the military of your own country is "evil" seems a bit puerile
to me. Watching too many movies and TV shows can have that effect.

~~~
peterwwillis
For years we have known that US drone strikes can very accurately kill
anonymous people - often civilians (such as women and children):

 _" Every independent investigation of the strikes has found far more civilian
casualties than administration officials admit. Gradually, it has become clear
that when operators in Nevada fire missiles into remote tribal territories on
the other side of the world, they often do not know who they are killing, but
are making an imperfect best guess."_ [1]

 _" Leaked military documents reveal that the vast majority of people killed
have not been the intended targets, with approximately 13% of deaths being the
intended targets, 81% being other "militants", and 6% being civilians."_ [2]

 _" strikes have killed 3,852 people, 476 of them civilians. But those counts,
based on news accounts and some on-the-ground interviews, are considered very
rough estimates"_ [1]

Not only that, we bomb inside of countries that are (sort of?) our allies,
without informing them and without their consent:

 _" Pakistan's Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, has repeatedly demanded an end to
the strikes, stating: "The use of drones is not only a continual violation of
our territorial integrity but also detrimental to our resolve and efforts at
eliminating terrorism from our country"_ [2]

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/world/asia/drone-
strikes-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/world/asia/drone-strikes-
reveal-uncomfortable-truth-us-is-often-unsure-about-who-will-die.html) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan)

Yeah, I have no problem calling our military evil.

~~~
wilsonnb
Well, you should have a problem with calling them evil based on a few actions
that you consider evil without taking all of the other things the US has done
into account.

Doing one evil thing doesn't necessarily make someone evil. Doing a few evil
things doesn't necessarily make someone evil either.

If a doctor who has saved thousands kills one person, are they evil? What if
that person was a convicted child rapist? What if it was in self defense? What
if killing them would save a thousand more? What if killing them would save
10,000 more but the doctor doesn't care about that and would have killed them
anyways?

Deciding whether a single person is good or evil is a very complex process.
Deciding whether a country or a military is good or evil is enormously more
complex and needs to take a lot more into account that you just did.

------
DINKDINK
You'd think that killing people would be covered by "Do no evil"

~~~
ythn
It's not directly killing people. That's like saying helping improve GPS
satellites kills people because weapons systems use GPS and would benefit from
increased accuracy.

~~~
astrodust
Just like the "do no harm" oath taken by doctors means "If you gotta kill like
twenty people to save a hundred, get on with it."

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archagon
I wish there was a legally-enforcable version of Douglas Crockford's "Good,
not Evil" license. I haven't released any source code that could have military
applications yet, but if I ever do, I want to make it 100% clear that it's
_not_ to be used for any task related to the killing or injuring of other
people. We're in a unique position as programmers where even the tiniest bit
of our code can affect thousands or millions of people across the globe, and
this terrifies me.

The GPL has already shown us that a license has the power to change culture
and behavior (in however small a way). We should be able to extend this
approach to other values we hold dear.

~~~
raverbashing
Pacifism is nice on paper, too bad not everybody adheres to it

~~~
archagon
That's fine; they can use someone else's code. I just want the power to
license my software in line with my own values. I'd find it very hard to live
with myself if some code I wrote ended up being used to fire missiles at
people, even if they "deserved it".

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neves
I just want to congratulate those Googlers. It isn't something usual to quit a
good job due to ethical concerns. The World would be a lot better if there
were more people like you.

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dfsegoat
Somebody else will fill the gap. It is simply a consequence of military
science: If a human in the loop makes combat systems less effective, then
other countries will seek the advantage over others by removing the human from
the loop. It's a classic arms race at this point.

... This is a pandoras box that has already been opened I am afraid.

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mr_rheee
I've been asked to work for military industry companies before. And I have
always declined for ethical reasons.

But as I sit here and think about it, I wonder if its a good thing that a
person like myself (that believes I'm on the ethical high-ground) decline
these types of jobs.

Someone is going to take the job. Perhaps someone less skilled than myself,
perhaps someone less ethical than myself ? What is the result of that ?

As another poster wrote, it's "good" that the targetting gets more precise,
meaning less collateral damage.

But to each his own. We need to be able to sleep at night aswell. And that to
me also seems like a really good reason to decline.

I'm kind of on the fence about wanting to work in that industry.

~~~
obelix_
It's not complicated. Stick to your values. When you work on stuff that you
feel ambiguous about, you aren't going to be doing you best work.

~~~
mr_rheee
Yeah, you're right. I quickly realized that after posting my comment.

------
kelukelugames
Regardless of your opinion on military projects, I hope we can agree that
voting with your feet is a good thing.

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throwaway6497
some incoherent ramblings...

I would be curious to see the list of employees who quit for this purpose.
They are making a statement. They might as well publicly disclose their
identities to inspire more people.

Also, wondering. Are most of them financially independent to have made this
decision? When money is not an worry, people have freedom to truly align
themselves externally with their internal core values. If you are constantly
worried paying rent or securing your kids future - people make compromises.
That is not ideal to build a great society.

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cobookman
The list internally is pretty small. Its like 2-4 people total. Which isn't
statistically significant.

------
21
I have a question for the people who applaud them.

Do you think USA should have no military?

Would you vote to dismantle it?

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ythn
> Google recently sponsored the Conservative Political Action Conference, for
> instance.

Of course, there would be no conscientious objectors if it were a liberal
event

~~~
rainbowmverse
People who disagree with you often disagree with each other as well. This
doesn't come through in a media (of all political leanings) that tends toward
a narrow set of well-funded viewpoints.

