
The ties between Silicon Valley and the military run deep - raleighm
https://www.cjr.org/the_new_gatekeepers/silicon-valley-military.php
======
chriselles
Steve Blank has probably done the best job yet of conveying the historical and
intergenerational connections between Silicon Valley and the military:

[https://steveblank.com/secret-history/](https://steveblank.com/secret-
history/)

The video and slide set do a great job of covering it comprehensively.

I had a chance to learn directly from Steve and his Hacking 4 Defense team.

BIG changes since WWII when military R&D was nearly all R&D.

Today, most R&D is commercial with a lot of duel use potential for
Defense(hence the desired ties).

It’s quite interesting that military/commercial R&D proportional parity was
achieved the year the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War paused.

Here’s an article I wrote that borrows a bit from Steve Blank’s presentation
and blog posts.

[https://www.cove.org.au/trenchline/article-the-v-twin-
effect...](https://www.cove.org.au/trenchline/article-the-v-twin-effect/)

The military is utterly dependent on commercial off the shelf technology
modified to suit its needs.

How the tables have turned in R&D.

~~~
gumby
> Today, most R&D is commercial with a lot of duel use potential...

I am sure "duel" was a typo but too wonderful not to point out

~~~
chriselles
Good catch!

My bad.....I wasn’t intentionally trying to be cheeky. :)

------
joshe
It's weird to put their Darpa funding together with this decision and then
lump the whole thing as Google being confused or hypocritical.

Darpa funds fundamental research. They try to look ahead to what the military
could use in 15 years, but it funds open and fundamental projects. They funded
Google when it was 2 graduate students trying to search web pages. It was part
of the "Digital Libraries" project to make libraries more usable. They funded
research that led to the internet and self driving cars (Darpa Grand
Challenge). Right now they are funding exoskeletons and implantable health
sensors.

This project was to _deploy_ tech to the military that could search drone
footage for targets to bomb. It is a purely offensive technology that leads
directly to killing people.

They chose to draw a line at not using artificial intelligence for weapons
that target human beings or for surveillance that violates human rights.

Amazon is drawing a different line, something like it's ok to use our AI to
target human beings as long as it's legal.

It all seems pretty straightforward, they hadn't drawn that line before or
needed to and now they did.

------
DonHopkins
I haven't been able to dig up a copy, but I remember there was a file named
something like AI: HUMOR; LOGO TURTLES that was a grant proposal written by
some people in the LOGO group at the MIT-AI Lab, in response to a military
request for proposals, about how they could hatch thousands of LOGO turtles to
swarm around the battlefield in geometric patterns to confuse and bewilder the
enemy.

[http://www.donhopkins.com/home/code/llogo.lisp.txt](http://www.donhopkins.com/home/code/llogo.lisp.txt)

    
    
        ;;HATCH CREATES A NEW TURTLE WITH THE SPECIFIED NAME.  ALL PROPERTIES OF THAT
        ;;PARTICULAR TURTLE ARE AS INITIALLY WHEN A STARTDISPLAY IS DONE.
    
        (DEFINE HATCH (TURTLE-NAME) 
            (PUTPROP TURTLE-NAME
                         (FILLARRAY (*ARRAY NIL T TURTLE-PROPERTIES) 'HATCH-PROPERTY)
                         'TURTLE)
            (OR (MEMQ TURTLE-NAME :TURTLES) (PUSH TURTLE-NAME :TURTLES))
            (USETURTLE TURTLE-NAME)
            (SHOWTURTLE)
            TURTLE-NAME)

~~~
ruricolist
What Lisp is this? I can understand what it's doing but it's clearly pre-CL.

~~~
lispm
That's MACLISP.

[http://www.maclisp.info](http://www.maclisp.info)

Common Lisp was later a joint successor to MACLISP

~~~
DonHopkins
Not to be confused with Mac Common Lisp!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Common_Lisp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Common_Lisp)

------
rumcajz
It's nice that in addition to the compulsory Google-bashing this article
explicitly points out the other companies involved. Specifically, it mentions
Amazon and Microsoft who did much less yet ethics-wise than Google did and yet
are rarely called out in the press.

Anyone working for Amazon or Microsoft here? Is this just a skewed press
coverage? Or is there any dissent going on there?

~~~
adventured
Microsoft and Amazon are both less liberal cultures than Google. Microsoft
particularly historically has skewed much closer to centrist politically, in
its culture, business operations and ideology.

Microsoft is more like old IBM in that regard, which makes sense given how old
its cultural foundation is (dating to the 1970s) and its history of working
with more conservative old-line enterprise businesses. As are Oracle, Cisco,
Intel, etc. All will very happily serve the military industrial complex. You
won't find any serious dissent in Redmond.

------
cmndrkeen
Everyone acts like military research is obviously evil.

Is it really so terrible to research arms for the people who risk their lives
keep us safe?

~~~
grumdan
> Is it really so terrible to research arms for the people who risk their
> lives keep us safe?

If this was the only thing the weapons were used for, then maybe people
wouldn't be upset about this kind of stuff.

The same arms will however also be used to extrajudicially assassinate people
based on nothing else than their phone signal, in countries we are not at war
with; they might be sold to regimes like Saudi Arabia that kills countless
civilians in places like Yemen; they might be used to fight wars based on
reasons the administration knows to be false; they might be used to gun down
civilians by private contractors; the list goes on.

I'd not be opposed to participating in military research if the weapons were
actually used "responsibly" (I know that's a somewhat subjective terms, but
most of my examples are quite clearly considered immoral by most people).

~~~
v_lisivka
Are you sure you want to be unarmed in front of enemy just because someone
else may use your weapons unresponsively?

Look at Ukraine then. Ukraine exchanged their nuclear arsenal for promises of
safety by Russia, Britain, and USA. Is Ukraine safe place now?

~~~
grumdan
Helping a military that is behaving immorally and being unarmed are also not
the only options. If more and more people refuse to work for the military on
these grounds, this may in the long run put some pressure on them to change
their behavior. I do admit that this is hopelessly idealistic though and I
don't expect this to happen anytime soon.

~~~
v_lisivka
Can I ask question first about "immorally" to be sure I understand you
correctly?

There are few different kind of morality in circulation, so I need to know
about what morality we are talking.

Liberal morale is used at the West: every person life costs infinity, so we
cannot exchange life of a person to save another person or even infinity of
persons.

However, at war or in military, Liberal morale can't be used, because Liberal
morale forbids to send soldiers to protect civilians: life of a soldier has
same cost as lives of all civilians in the country. So every military in the
world uses Utilitarian morale, where each life has a cost. In most countries,
order of life cost is: our politics > our commandment > our civilians > other
civilians > our soldiers > enemies, and goal is to minimize loses. In some
countries order can be different, e.g. religious leaders can send civilians to
kill other civilians or civilians can be used to protect soldiers (e.g. famous
speech of V.V. Putin: «We will put our soldier behind their (Ukrainian)
mothers and children. Not in front but behind. Will they shoot at them? At
their own mothers and children?»
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoQXvPsBBn8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoQXvPsBBn8)
), and so on.

So my question is: to which kind of morality you are referring when you are
talking about "immorality"?

~~~
grumdan
I didn't have a concrete moral framework in mind, but I was thinking of a few
baseline rules that should hold in most sensible systems, such as not bombing
hospitals (like what happened with that hospital in Syria a while ago), not
killing civilians without due process in countries where there is formally no
state of war (drone strikes in Pakistan and other countries), not starting
wars of aggression based on falsified intelligence (Iraq, Vietnam), investing
reasonable amounts effort to avoid harm to non-combatants (that "Collateral
Murder" video, US support for the Saudis' actions in Yemen, drone strikes
based on just cellphone signals); all of these points are arguably features of
many different moral systems and should be much less controversial than the
dilemmas you bring up. I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I know to they are all
standard components of rules of engagement (like the Geneva Convention).

Also, all of these have been repeatedly violated by the US military or its
contractors, making me more hesitant to want to help them, even under the
assumption that they are necessary to protect our liberal societies from other
regimes.

~~~
v_lisivka
In general, I agree with you that army should not do that. However, enemy
rarely tries to help to achieve that, i.e. they are not putting markers "we
are soldiers, shoot us" at their positions. So goal of typical army is to
minimize loses, not to avoid them completely, because risk is non-zero for
every shot.

> such as not bombing hospitals (like what happened with that hospital in
> Syria a while ago)

It looks like error (one bomb hit territory near to hospital), not a precise
strike. In contrasts, Russians (I will Russian-Ukraine war as example, because
I know it better) are shooting civilians pretty often. I had Uber-drive with
driver which served in Augustinian during USSR invasion. He told me that in
Augustinian they completely destroyed nearest civilian village with all
habitats when one of them was killed during mission. AFAIK, Russian army is
not changed much since then.

> not killing civilians without due process in countries where there is
> formally no state of war (drone strikes in Pakistan and other countries)

Completely agreed. We(Ukraine) are victims of hybrid war too.

> not starting wars of aggression based on falsified intelligence (Iraq,
> Vietnam)

Intelligence was not falsified in case of Iraq: chemical weapons are just
moved to Syria few months prior to invasion.

Not sure about Vietnam, but I know a bit about war in Vietnam from USSR side,
and it not good. Not interested much in the topic.

~~~
DonHopkins
>Intelligence was not falsified in case of Iraq: chemical weapons are just
moved to Syria few months prior to invasion.

Now YOU are falsifying intelligence.

You can't win an argument by falsifying intelligence and not being interested
in topics that contradict your falsifications.

Iraq war 'waged on false intelligence':
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/09/usa.iraq2](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/09/usa.iraq2)

And in case you only find Russian news interesting: How Distorted Intelligence
Dragged US Into Vietnam War 53 Years Ago:
[https://sputniknews.com/politics/201708021056125095-us-
vietn...](https://sputniknews.com/politics/201708021056125095-us-vietnam-war/)

~~~
v_lisivka
«SADA: They were moved by air and by ground, 56 sorties by jumbo, 747, and 27
were moved, after they were converted to cargo aircraft, they were moved to
Syria.»

[http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/01/26/exclusive-former-
top...](http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/01/26/exclusive-former-top-military-
aide-to-saddam-reveals-dictator-secret-plans.html)

I newer read Russian news, because they are prepared and targeted. :-) I read
memories (many of them were released uncensored shortly after fall of USSR),
and I also listened to stories told us by our teachers, ex-officers of USSR
army.

------
ItsMe000001
The deep history of Silicon Valley is the history of WWII and unrestrained
debt-based government spending on R&D. Only after that foundation was laid did
the private businesses grow on that fertile ground.

"Secret History of Silicon Valley" (Computer History Museum, Mountain View)

[https://youtu.be/ZTC_RxWN_xo](https://youtu.be/ZTC_RxWN_xo)

> _Today, Silicon Valley is known around the world as a fount of technology
> innovation and development fueled by private venture capital and peopled by
> fabled entrepreneurs. But it wasn 't always so. Unbeknownst to even seasoned
> inhabitants, today's Silicon Valley had its start in government secrecy and
> wartime urgency._

> _In this lecture, renowned serial entrepreneur Steve Blank presents how the
> roots of Silicon Valley sprang not from the later development of the silicon
> semiconductor but instead from the earlier technology duel over the skies of
> Germany and secret efforts around (and over) the Soviet Union. World War II,
> the Cold War and one Stanford professor set the stage for the creation and
> explosive growth of entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. The world was
> forever changed when the Defense Department, CIA and the National Security
> Agency acted like today 's venture capitalists funding this first wave of
> entrepreneurship. Steve Blank shows how these groundbreaking early advances
> lead up to the high-octane, venture capital fueled Silicon Valley we know
> today._

Since the American public (and not just the American one) considers such kinds
of unrestricted government spending as a waste of resources the way left to
fund basic research apart from the little bit that doesn't lead to cries of
"government waste" \- because let's face it, a lot of it is, that's just what
happens when you do very basic research with no immediate goal in mind - is
military spending. If the role of military research is considered bad I think
there has to be a culture shift coming from all voters. As long as they allow
such government actions as long as it's "for defense" but not for anything
else (at least not even close to the scale) then stuff _will_ get done through
the military. Apparently the demand (pull factor) is there, so if the only
path is spending through military channels this is what happens.

 _EDIT:_ Also see @chriselles's comment

------
nitwit005
I guess you can be a "Silicon Valley" company and be located anywhere now?
This article lists exactly 3 companies, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. Two of
those are headquartered in Washington.

------
huffmsa
It's seems like more than a coincidence that the first and most primary AWS
installation was built at Dulles Airport in 2002-2003.

Right down the road from the newly formed and growing DHS alphabet soup of
agencies.

~~~
hodgesrm
I always figured it was because of Internet connectivity, as Dulles is near
the original MAE-East network access point (NAP).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAE-
East](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAE-East)

------
leroy_masochist
From the title, I thought this was going to be a story about the HP garage,
Fairchild Semiconductor, and DOD dollars flooding the Valley with talented
engineers in the 60s and 70s.

------
isuckatcoding
Surprised that Palantir wasn't mentioned

------
bshepard
Have the armed forces of the United States subjected the civilian population
to inhuman treatment prohibited by international law? Yes (unanimously). Is
the United States Government guilty of genocide against the people of Vietnam?
Yes (unanimously).

([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tribunal#Conclusions_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tribunal#Conclusions_and_Verdicts_of_the_Tribunal))

------
lizardskull
Is it true without the atomic bomb you do not have the chrome browser?

------
_trampeltier
Todays war are different than WW2. Today is more like the US military needs a
country to play with (also NSA, ...). Today is more like let's bomb a random
country in the middle east.

~~~
bshepard
ww2 was more like that than you think. Check out Nicholson Baker's "HUMAN
SMOKE"

