
A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project - dismal2
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/google-employees-resign-in-protest-of-googlepentagon-drone-program/
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detaro
this is primarily reporting what a news article on a different site says,
please submit the original article in such cases. That article also already
has a discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17064776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17064776)
(98 comments)

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manfredo
> "If ethical action on the part of tech companies requires consideration of
> who might benefit from a technology and who might be harmed," the letter
> reads, "we can say with certainty that no topic deserves more sober
> reflection—no technology has higher stakes—than algorithms meant to target
> and kill at a distance and without public accountability,”

My understanding from the reading I've done is that this project is to analyze
drone video after it's collected, to automate tasks like picking out when
people enter and exit buildings and to read the license plates off cars. If
that understanding is correct then this quote seems disingenuous. Google's
project is no more designed to "Target and kill at a distance" than the
designers of the drone's camera, or it's engine. Arguably even less than
those, since those components are in use when drone actually launches strikes.
Google's project only comes into play after drones have returned and they have
time to crunch the data.

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davesque
I don't think that's an argument. The truth is, even if the particular
applications of AI to tasks like this are innocuous in this case, they're less
than a stone's throw away from things that aren't. Uses like this for
technology are a perfect example of things we (we, the tech community, who
have always prided ourselves on being more fair and ethical than the rest of
the world) all promised we would _never do_. There is no more of a perfect
mis-application of AI tech than to military uses. It doesn't matter if the
military is currently only "counting people" in video footage. We all know
exactly where it will eventually lead. Counting people will turn into finding
people. Finding people will turn into killing people. We can't mince words in
our condemnation of this activity.

~~~
philwelch
It's really challenging to unpack this kind of dogmatic argument. Are you a
pacifist in general? Are you against violence and military intervention in
every conceivable case, up to and including Rwanda or WWII? Do you think it's
good for relatively liberal and democratic countries to have less military
capability than relatively authoritarian countries?

The cause of human rights, freedom, dignity, and survival would have been
actively _harmed_ if British and American scientists and engineers took the
same moral stance that you're taking and refused to participate in the war
effort. Do you think it was wrong of Turing to help break German encryption?

~~~
Jack000
not op but I don't think it's inconsistent to view the military as a necessary
evil while denouncing the use of drones in asymmetric warfare.

I'd have no qualms about supporting my own nation in a global conflict, but
ethically speaking the drone program falls on the darker side of gray.

~~~
philwelch
Can you expand on that?

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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

~~~
cjcole
Are there many AI opportunities out there without potential military use?
Warfare is a broad-spectrum human activity. I'm having trouble imagining many
things that can't be leveraged.

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whataretensors
Good on these employees. Now go work somewhere or start something that gives
you ownership and control of what you work on.

This is likely a result of massive corporate/government entanglement. Google
can't say no. Their stock could crash, their negotiating ability could go down
significantly, all the work they've done on lobbying could be in danger. Who
knows what other back room deals are happening.

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laurent123456
Lately, a lot of Recaptcha challenges are things like - identify the trucks,
the cars, the shops, etc. I really hate these challenges knowing what Google
will (at least in part) do with the data.

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romaniv
IIRC, original Recaptcha was about OCR of books that weren't readable. I'm not
sure why anyone uses it right now. Like you said, it's obvious where it's
going. Not to mention that it's increasingly annoying for users.

~~~
robin_reala
And completely accessible. RECAPTCHA is basically impossible to use if you
need a screen reader or have any sort of visual impairment. Hell, I’ve have
problems as a EU resident due to differences between street signs between here
and the US.

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Doctor_Fegg
Yep. “Click on the images containing a crosswalk.” I’m British. That’s not a
word we use.

~~~
raverbashing
I don't see what's so hard about it. Captcha descriptions are also localized
but I understand why they wouldn't do US<>UK.

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Doctor_Fegg
What's hard is that 90% of UK residents won't understand what they're being
asked to do.

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raverbashing
Yes because "crosswalk" is an opaque word that doesn't have an obvious meaning
(and not present in commonly consumed media from the US).

While there is some potential for confusion, I don't think that stands for
that specific word.

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justinclift
It's where two footpaths cross each other? :)

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sillyquiet
Good on them. That's taking a stand, and it's admirable they are standing by
their beliefs. Maybe they can go work on making a product that could never be
used by the U.S. military they despise so much as they live their sheltered
and comfortable parochial lives.

I mean, I'd be hard-pressed to think of any such product, but maybe I lack
imagination.

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ralusek
Free market isn't just about buying and selling. Doesn't matter if you agree
with the politics, choosing to not to work somewhere on principle is a
beautiful thing, especially when the position being given up is a highly
coveted one.

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candiodari
I don't get this. This is about tracking humans. If you're worried about AIs
tracking humans through areal cameras ... let me put your mind at ease : this
is "tutorial" level stuff.

Granted. There's getting it to demoable state, and there's getting it to work
under all conditions, getting it stable, getting it tested, and so on and so
forth.

But still, this is not exactly state of the art anymore. This ship has sailed.
Over and done. Genie cannot be put into the bottle. The US army has this
option now, and very soon essentially any professional military will have it.
A quick course on AI will enable you to do this, and I assume that the US
military has enough such people available.

Same with tracking specific people in (high-res) cams. There's a computational
cost, but this has been done and described so many times. If anybody wants to
build a network of cameras that can track specific people by their faces,
there's nothing stopping them at this point.

So why get all worked up about this ? What's the big deal ?

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jononor
If the US army had or was easily able to build this they would probably not
pay large sums of money to Google. There are still many challenges in creating
scalable robust solutions using machine learning in computer vision,
especially when high degrees of response time and robustness is needed.

~~~
candiodari
Most, if not all types of machine learning networks are O(1). Keeping the
response time constant is not needed.

Robustness is harder, but for this problem, not very hard.

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ForHackernews
[http://neveragain.tech/](http://neveragain.tech/) a bunch of names on here.
Have any of them taken a stand?

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thisacctforreal
Looks like they are taking a stand by signing that pledge.

There is one section on resigning:

> If we discover misuse of data that we consider illegal or unethical in our
> organizations:

> ...

> If we do not have such authority, and our organizations force us to engage
> in such misuse, we will resign from our positions rather than comply.

From what I have seen, Google's help with the Pentagon seems limited to
software consulting. If Google had shared any data with the Pentagon for
military purposes then it would have crossed a line for the pledge.

The pledge says to try to fix it through: working with colleagues/leaders;
then whistleblowing; then legal defenses if they have the authority; then
resignation.

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trumped
Were they directly involved? Did they know what they were working on?

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davidf18
I wonder how many of those Googler's who objected to the development of weapon
systems have served in combat positions fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan?

I'm guessing not many which is a reason why it is important for firms such as
Google to prioritize the hiring of combat vets (besides the fact that they
risked their lives to serve our country).

For those who have not served in combat or lost a friend or relative that
served in combat, saving lives with drone technology is too abstract.

The drones are very effective at killing terrorists and technology which
improves the effectiveness of killing terrorists and enemy combatants (and
thus saving American lives) is a good thing.

In Israel, both men and women alike are drafted and the women can serve in
combat positions if they desire. Men serve on one month reserve duty until
they are 40. Some of these men have been educated as engineers and they
understand first-hand the importance of developing technology to save the
lives of combat soldiers.

This is something firms like Google are missing: there seems to be little
empathy for US military soldiers who are risking their lives defending our
nation and developing of technologies to save their lives.

~~~
grcshlep
I'm thinking that they have a problem with the military, period, and don't
think soldiers should have been in Iraq etc in the first place. Its an issue
of trust.

And then you have the argument that if you reduce the human cost of wars, you
make wars more likely.

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posix_me_less
> the argument that if you reduce the human cost of wars, you make wars more
> likely

Very good point! Drone attacks make the operators into drones themselves,
detached from feeling the consequences of their actions.

~~~
facetube
It's not clear that cost is even being reduced. PTSD rates in drone operators
are roughly equivalent to those who fly manned combat missions [1].

[https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-
to-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-get-
stress-disorders-much-as-those-in-combat-do.html)

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metalrain
Would there be article if company in question would not be as
large/influential?

~~~
eurticket
Well if they had very intelligent engineers that leveraged their positions and
knowledge for work that is directly opposing their personal views, yes.

------
debt
I'm staunchly opposed to war, but understand it's unfortunate necessity under
certain extreme circumstances.

If these types of projects make war machines more precise overall, they may
actually decrease overall collateral damage and reduce the total time war is
waged which could cause less lives to be lost during war.

Until us humans can collectively overcome the various problems that cause war,
might be worth it for the best minds to help make war machines as precise as
possible.

~~~
DINKDINK
Your argument is: "By making war more efficient/effective, we will reduce its
use."

Say a government only has nuclear bombs in its arsenal and they really want an
enemy of the state dead. Do you think they're willing to nuke an entire city
to kill one person?

Now imagine a government has electronic kill switches. Imagine it being almost
like The Matrix, they can just flip your life off at the flick of a button. Do
you think they willing to just flick off the lives of anyone who they don't
like?

You're effectively arguing that the latter is better than the former.
Societies use more of a technology the far down the learning curve development
goes and the cheaper the technology is. If there is no cost to violence,
violence will be endless.

~~~
philwelch
Violence is already endless. It’s just a matter of moral vanity whether or not
you feel better about not being personally involved.

We’ve tried non-intervention before, and places like Czechoslovakia, Poland,
China, and Rwanda have paid the price. And the adversaries we have faced, from
Hitler to Daesh, would not hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction as we
would. The reason asymmetric warfare works is that the terrorist is willing to
stoop to levels that we are not. The only counter to that is precision
warfare.

~~~
posix_me_less
> _" Violence is already endless. It’s just a matter of moral vanity whether
> or not you feel better about not being personally involved."_

Nonsense. Violence is still limited, in time and extent, by economic and
political forces, and by the fact that soldiers still have some respect for
life of other people, because they are in the field, risking their own life
and seeing the injustices of war. But put them in control of a violent video
game, and that may change.

> We’ve tried non-intervention before, and places like Czechoslovakia, Poland,
> China, and Rwanda have paid the price.

You've tried intervention, and places like Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Syria
also have paid and are paying the price.

Perhaps it is not about the intervention/non-intervention, but about _how_ you
engage in the world.

> The only counter to that is precision warfare.

Only if you already decided on the warfare part. An alternative is to stop
killing unknown people abroad and in so helping create new terrorists, and
instead doing something about cooperation between the governments to stop the
violence.

~~~
philwelch
> Only if you already decided on the warfare part. An alternative is to stop
> killing unknown people abroad and in so helping create new terrorists, and
> instead doing something about cooperation between the governments to stop
> the violence.

So your solution is to negotiate with people like Hitler and Bin Laden and to
appease groups like Daesh. Ask the millions murdered in the Holocaust how that
worked out for them, how Western non-violence was the solution.

While you're at it, ask the millions of South Koreans living in peace and
prosperity how they feel about Western intervention to protect and even rescue
them and their ancestors from the Kim regime. Ask the people of Bosnia and
Kosovo whether we should have left them to the whims of Milosevic, just as we
left the Tutsis to their fate.

We're not the ones who have decided on the warfare part. We're not the one who
expand their reach by slaughtering boys and men while kidnapping and raping
women and girls wherever they go. We're not the ones who commit ethnic
cleansing and hack babies apart with machetes. That's already been decided.
The only decision we have is between leaving these victims to their fate and
living up to the words, "never again".

