
Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year - Nemant
https://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2018-acpoy-winner
======
drak0n1c
Unfortunately, the divide between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon will be bad
for national security in the long run. Recent news cycles keep revealing yet
another piece military equipment suffering from software weaknesses.
Technology does not stand still, if Russia and China have more of their most
talented engineers willing to work on national projects than us that will
inevitably lead to a competence gap.

Here is an interesting article about the cultural divide and how it can be
mediated:

[https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/12/divide-between-
sili...](https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/12/divide-between-silicon-
valley-and-washington-national-security-threat/153562/)

~~~
jka
Transparent de-escalation is the solution, not the age-old rhetoric of
'staying ahead in the arms-race'.

_Most_ people regardless of country of residence or origin want a peaceful and
fulfilled, free life. You can never please everyone but arguing from basis of
'fear of the other' is a bit disingenuous and leads to these literal arms
races.

That's not to say defense spending isn't important, but it has to be stressed
with the word 'defense' and with an inherent bias towards security and safety.
(I don't believe technology products are inherently neutral; as a result of
design they are better or worse suited towards particular usages, and that
needs focus too)

~~~
chibg10
> _Most_ people regardless of country of residence or origin want a peaceful
> and fulfilled, free life. You can never please everyone but arguing from
> basis of 'fear of the other' is a bit disingenuous and leads to these
> literal arms races.

This is all fine and dandy, but some of the most powerful militaries in the
world are run by authoritarians who optimize for their own interests rather
than what's good for their population. Russia's people generally gain nothing
from Putin's belligerence, yet the belligerence happens. The CCP rolled the
tanks on its own people; do you really think they'll hesitate to roll them on
foreigners if it suits their interests?

I don't worry about the aggregate opinion of Russians or Chinese; I worry
about Putin and the CCP.

~~~
jka
You're potentially a bit unfair to militaries here; good standing forces have
separation from their governance, their own chains of command, and ideally
ways to ignore and report inappropriate orders (especially ones which violate
terms of engagement and the rules of war).

Yes individual cases will always overstep those, often due to extreme power
dynamics, but those should be taken as lessons to learn from rather than
taught as the normal order of things.

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throwaway010919
> The runners-up in the vote for the 2018 Arms Control Persons of the Year
> were the founders and co-chairs of the International Gender Champions
> Disarmament Impact Group... The impact group developed specific aims for
> expanding knowledge about the importance of gender issues and practical
> actions for bringing gendered perspectives into disarmament discussions.

I find it just a little bit hard to take them seriously if they feel this is
the second most significant group in arms control last year.

~~~
mbo
I don't understand why you don't think gendered perspectives regarding
disarmament discussions are useful. Feminism has a long and entrenched history
within peace and conflict studies and international relations, and its
insights are often useful, particularly with respect to things like
disarmament and post-conflict peacekeeping.

~~~
justtopost
I'll bite. Got any concrete examples of this in actual application? To say it
sounds like a parody of the current mess of 'gender studies' would be an
understatement.

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Whygul
There is a lot of cynicism here in response to a strictly positive social
effort. If we (nationally) are actually behind in some kind of "AI" drone-
targeting arms race, I suspect a great many of these objectors would be
willing to do work to, say, disable incoming drones, or develop systems to
scramble/mislead automated targeting systems.

I feel that it is the responsibility of every moral and conscious agent to
oppose dark patterns and negative trends within their place of work whenever
possible, and while it is easy (and apropos) to accuse Google of perpetrating
malicious patterns, I think we ought to laud and publicly encourage internal
currants that oppose that trend, not smirk at them or deride them for not
doing enough.

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chrisco255
Isn't it inevitable that AI will be used to improve targeting technology for
weaponry? Am I wrong in assuming that if U.S. doesn't develop this tech some
other country will?

~~~
BurritoAlPastor
It’s not inevitable if we aren’t willing to let it happen. It used to be
“inevitable” that poison gas, napalm, cluster mines, etc. were inevitably the
future of war, but as a species we decided we weren’t okay with the effects of
those technologies, and we’ve subsequently been reasonably successful at not
using them.

~~~
cortesoft
I mean, all of those things are still being used, though....

~~~
sfotm
Don't let the perfect stand in the way of the good. If the treaties help
prevent 90% of the usage, they seem worth having.

~~~
xvector
That doesn't work in the real world where the remaining 10% of countries are
willing to use their superior military technology to dominate others.

The only way for a country to be _truly_ free is to be either equal in power
to other countries - or barring that, the most powerful country on the block.
Since the former is impossible due to the nature of reality, all countries aim
for the latter.

~~~
Phrodo_00
In practice that top 10% is generally the one holding itself accountable to
arms treaties, it's normally smaller groups that go for the cheap-and-
horrible.

------
bliblah
>The second runner-up was South Korean president Moon Jae-in. He was nominated
for promoting improved Inter-Korean relations and a renewed dialogue between
Washington and Pyongyang on denuclearization and peace that has led to a
number of significant steps to decrease tensions, including a North Korean
moratorium on long-range missile and nuclear testing, a halt to U.S.-South
Korean military exercises, and steps to avoid military incidents along the
demilitarized zone that divides North Korea and South Korea.

IMO this is the only one that matters in the list. The Pentagon will get
another US Based Tech company to aid them in the pursuit of new weapons
because there is just too much money to ignore it. Meanwhile peace talks
between South and North Korea actually reduces the chance of a thermonuclear
war between two nations. We can only hope that other nations follow suit.

------
neaanopri
I think younger engineers' morality towards the military distinguishes between
technology for great-power warfare, and technology for bombing weddings in
Yemen. Aside from some real outliers, nobody of any age wants to lose a war
with China. However, it's the "wars of choice" that are problematic.

~~~
izacus
Why are you talking about a war with China? Is USA preparing to attack China
in the near future? There has been a very concerning rise of targeted anti-
Chinese articles on this site, is that a preparation for war?

------
avar
I'm cautiously optimistic that increased AI use in the military is going to be
a good thing for everyone.

Realistically we're not going to solve the problem of nation states wanting to
protect their interests halfway across the world, which'll among other things
mean killing some "combatants" from a drone.

But we can hope to do things like improve targeting, and a reduction in
civilian casualties or collateral casualties. Right now the "AI" is some group
of 20-somethings sitting behind a computer in Nevada, what if we trained an AI
instead, and could e.g. hold legislative audits on what that software was
configured to target?

~~~
brokenmachine
_> I'm cautiously optimistic that increased AI use in the military is going to
be a good thing for everyone._

 _> what if we trained an AI instead, and could e.g. hold legislative audits
on what that software was configured to target?_

You are much more optimistic than me.

If those audits ever happened, they would be held in secret, and have very
different goals than most people would consider moral.

------
threatofrain
Perhaps for political purposes the businesses which bid over government
contracts ought not also be consumer-facing ones.

------
sodosopa
They're perfectly ok with scanning emails and providing that data to hostile
countries and getting someone shot in the face, but if the person is shot in
the face with an AI-powered weapon, they're not?

Wow the faux ethical reach-around they've giving each other over this is
comical.

------
PHGamer
I wonder how many of these employees are actual us citizens or not.

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heyjudy
Beware of the hubris of those surrounding Peter Thiel, whom are war hawks and
pro military startups of all sorts... including Palantir which is used to
target and eliminate dissidents. And even more troubling are a few of the
Ukrainian and Russian "entrepreneurs" whom come to the Valley as being flag-
waving capitalists, but it's difficult to ascertain their actual allegiances
because the Valley lets people pop up out of nowhere without references, and
hands them money and influence.

------
buboard
Title Confused Me To No End

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ve55
But yet all 4,000 of them still work for the largest surveillance corporation
that has ever existed. At least now they think they have the moral high
ground.

~~~
DannyBee
Ah, the ole "sitting on the sidelines is helpful" argument. It's morally
defensible for sure, and neutral, but pretending it is actually helpful is
wrong. It doesn't help in any meaningful way to change things (in any
direction) if you sit on the sidelines. Ironically, people who are the ones
who always seem to think the have the moral high ground.

Of course that doesn't mean you _have_ to join google to make a difference,
but pretending that you have to _not_ be working at Google to be helping
change things is just silly nonsense.

~~~
lallysingh
No it's different. It's closer to this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-
cooperation_movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cooperation_movement)

It has an effect, you just need to have a large mass of people to make it
work.

~~~
DannyBee
I agree you can have an active non-cooperation movement. That does not appear
to be suggested here.

It's the difference between "i won't participate in patenting software" vs
"i'm actively avoiding any companies or software that file patents"

The former i see a lot, and it does not help in any meaningful way, in part
because their participation is not required. It doesn't help, it's just
something people do to pretend they are helping without having to do anything
real.

The latter would be something useful, though it does take large groups.

Not working for google "as a way of helping" is clearly the former. Google
doesn't need their help, they will do no good by leaving. They have plenty of
other jobs, so it's not hard either. They likely can do more good by staying
and agitating than by leaving and being ignored.

Additionally, the argument that they must leave google to have an impact is
also clearly silly.

------
crb002
Meanwhile Amazon makes $$$ and increases their overwhelming user base from
D.C.

