What do mean? This is a great idea. So now instead of having plugins with security vulnerabilities we also have all kinds of escape scenarios within the main software package. Almost nothing can go wrong. Nothing at all. We need to be forward looking, AI for the win!
I don't really see the problem here. We're all getting laid off because AI I superior to us. I can now do the job of a product owner or even exceed it by simply prompting with some nuance, magic spells and bit of salt and pepper.
But down the road the AI bros promise us that this will reduce inequality and make human society better, somehow.
I really need to understand this shit and if anyone can weigh in on it I'd be most grateful. We will all eventually get replaced by AI and yet we need to pay Big AI to stay in the game. Even when nobody has any income.
I'm sure that there is someone here who can smack down this comment and put me in my place and give me a good and proper lesson in economics.
I'm not so sure "ai" (LLMs) is superior to us. LLMs are actually incapable of being superior, maybe some years down the road some new tech makes my statement mute, but today is not that today.
It's simple. AI companies don't have a long term plan besides "sell AI" and "reduce labor costs with AI". Any promises made outside of that are simply them saying whatever they think will help to sell AI.
Perhaps you software engineers are in a bubble - people I know from accountants, portfolio managers to mechanical engineers are barely using AI - they use it more to tell jokes.
Are your tokens earning dollars and do they translate into a sustainable form of income? Honest question. I know people who have been laid off and their answer seems to be "use AI make stuff and go forward for the win". All the while actually paying these AI companies to train on their thoughts or slop or whatever it should be called now.
I think there is some mass confusion happening right now (psychosis even) and things are getting scary.
You bring up a point that I have been wrestling with in my mind.
> "use AI make stuff and go forward for the win".
If anyone with AI access can do this, then what real value can one produce? For example, if one makes a nice little FizzBuzz widget, then why pay for their widget when I can just make my own? Sure, there is a cost to buy/time to recreate analysis to be had, but it's easier to recreate software now more than ever.
Exactly. Now not only does fizzbuzz exist, but there are at least 10k variants of it with all the colours and flavours you can imagine. I honestly don't know what to make of this. We can literally ask a machine monkey to make something millions of times. Does the human touch now come from the approval process? Where is the humanity? Gosh I wish it were 2015 or before, again. Thanks Attention Is All You Need, you really helped.
A friend of mine recently got headhunted by a "defense" company called, and I won't even post the link, it's a website which sounds a bit like Van Helsing with some AI thrown in as a twist. He got an offer of 50k EUR more than his current already ridiculous salary.
I had to say that it's up to you, but don't expect me to still be your friend and still talk to you if you go for that.
Friends who give ultimatums like this are usually toxic and worth ditching. Your friend would be better off cutting you off now, regardless of what they decide about the job, than continuing to associate with someone who'd emotionally manipulate them over a career choice. Healthy relationships simply don't look like this, and dressing it up as principle doesn't change what it actually is.
The fact that this feels like a normal thing to say to a friend tells on you a bit. Get out more, spend time with people who don't already share your priors, and the certainty starts to sand down on its own. Threatening your friendships over someone else's career is not the moral high ground, it's just an ugly way to treat people. Humility is understanding you can be wrong about things even when you're certain you're correct.
Yes I would and without question. If by "do" you mean remove myself from the absolute evil that these establishments are, and shame them for it then yes.
I can approve of just about any job unless it's about murdering people because some politician(s) want it.
Obviously, it's one thing to be a commander ordering an attack, vs a soldier firing the weapon, vs starting the company to make the weapon, vs being a supplier to the weapons company, vs being an employee at the manufacturer, etc.
What about working for a president who is going to inevitably order hundreds if not thousands murdered? Or voting for said president?
What about paying taxes, knowing those tax dollars will go to missiles and guns used to murder?
(This isn't a criticism of your worldview, by the way. I'm just genuinely curious about how others draw these lines.)
The line is simple, do you have the choice (personally or influentially) to avoid that? If yes, you draw the line. Can you avoid paying taxes? No, can you influence not to be used as you mentioned? You try. Can you avoid a job that obviously will use your expertise in questionable ways? Yes. The right and wrong is clear, people who try to muddy it they just seek justification.
I personally turned down multiple offers/work when it comes to drones for example, I designed stuff back in 2020 that some companies now just knew about it and its potentials, but when you meet with them and discuss what they are trying to build, you know that whatever they are after can be used in bad faith if the company decided to do so, do you sell your soul for the cash or do you prefer to sleep well at night?
The only exception is whatever you built has no direct or obvious bad faith, you build a library, a gstreamer addon, etc., that can get a pass.
Of course you can. It's just inconvenient. You could leave the country, break the law or stop getting a taxable income.
It's not that "playing along" isn't a choice. It's just an easy one.
If the CEO of your company changes and turns out to do evil things with the company and the product of your work, would you switch the company?
If the President of your country changes and turns out to do evil things with the country and your taxes, would you switch the country?
The line you draw is always the one of the level of convenience you are targeting for yourself. Not saying there is no point having a line, but it's highly subjective.
Not if you are a US citizen, you pay taxes even if you’re living abroad.
And yes I would switch companies, it’s exactly what I did before, and I will do it again. I can’t switch countries and I don’t think it’s effective like switching companies, but there are other means if your president or PM turned things evil, from pressuring your MP/senator to campaigning against to others. You never succumb to evil things no matter what.
I'm not GP but I could've written a similar comment. Personally I don't draw the line based on "proximity to war", but on the choices being made. I think poorly of someone who freely chooses "job directly contributing to war" over "job mostly unrelated to war".
What interesting discussion could the answer to this question yield? People who view abortion as “killy” will possibly take GPs stance toward their family and peers. People who don’t won’t.
And anyways, nobody _likes_ abortion, even if they are committed to it being a woman’s right
This is insane and irrelevant. A whole other discussion which does not belong in the the same light as, let's call it "coding and engineering practices designed to kill people" under the guise of "defending democracies" as if there are any such democracies currently under threat.
Living in Europe I have a different perspective on defense. Without it, we would already be living in Russian labor camps. You can't just stop funding military and your military industry and expect other actors to just play along and be friendly from now on then.
When the Nazis attacked, it was important for the Soviets and the world that the Soviets had a huge army. So yeah that kind of supports my argument.
Doesn't have anything to do with the fact that Putin transformed the young post cold war democracy of Russia right back into a dictatorship and is now in a full scale war with another country and would have already invaded everything he thinks should be part of 'great Russia'.
A country needs an army because at any time there are just too many aggressors out there. Who that is exactly might change over time, right now Russia clearly is one of them. As the US threatened Greenland and it's raging war against Iran (which course itself is an aggressive dictatorship), it's also a current aggressor against which European countries need an army.
Nobody needs the Ukraine war. It's only 35 years ago that the cold war ended, and Russia just tried to invade another European country after invading parts of it (Krim), so assuming they might attack another European country is not fear mongering, from my perspective.
Finland agreed which is why they joined NATO basically over night when Russia attacked Ukraine.
I wonder what opinions and values you hold which someone could make a convincing argument for cutting you off about. Or who would find your job offensive.
My job doesn't involve murdering people. It does not contribute to the death of people nor animals. It is somewhat insignificant.
My job does pay my bills and put food on the table but is certainly less glamorous than something which changes the lives of millions of people (though in some way it might). It is definitively inoffensive.
Adding a line of code to a killing machine. That is something else my friend.
So you don't live in a country supporting another country that's at war or has been at war lately? Otherwise your taxes contribute to the death of people.
People feel much better having some distance from cruelty, that's why they prefer to eat meat from animals that were tortured their whole life and then killed, but somewhere else where your don't see it happening.
Worrying about what other people think is the biggest waste of energy. I'm glad a lot of people wouldn't be friends with me because of some of my ideals. I don't want to be liked by everyone. Why would you?
> I don't want to be liked by everyone. Why would you?
Eh, this is a bit of a straw man, no? It's one thing to be liked by everyone. It's another for a (presumably) long time, close friend to say they can no longer respect you due to your decisions.
In this case, it's someone who is already making a lot of money, who could make even more by working for a company that builds AI killing machines. Telling that person they are making a serious mistake is doing them a favor. Wouldn't you want your friends to do the same for you?
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. "Liking" or blindly accepting everyone regardless of what believe or do just because you have known them for some period of time is silly.
Why do people in this thread detest that a pacifist with conviction exists? I’m not like them, and nobody is telling you to be like them. But having people like that in a population is important lest we become drunk on our ability to destroy our enemies.
I'm fine with there being pacifist. What makes you think I'm opposed them?
What this person is arguing is not for pacifism, its an argument that to be their friend you must agree with them on pacifism.
I have my own thoughts and beliefs. My friends have theirs. They arent all the same. Thats how it should be, and thats healthy. Thats diversity. This "you're dead to me if you dont believe what I believe" culture is idiotic and is not inclusive at all.
A logger working for a company cutting a few trees to make furniture is not the same thing as a logger working for a company shredding the whole forest to circulate money.
Because weapons will be used and you will have no control over how.
And it being a European company doesn’t mean this weapon won’t be sold to Israel eg
Given the current state of things I would say that it's really easy to pivot to "let's sell weapons to whoever wants them". Still presenting a product as a way to defend democracies is comical. At the end of the day, people with money will buy these things and it doesn't matter who because oversight is scarce.
Sure, but what _is_ the practical solution to the invasion of a foreign military power on your home soil then? Do you think these systems should only be developed by the government? And if so, do you then apply the same logic to anyone working in the government?
Idea. They can develop all they want, only the government should be the one buying and selling weapons. That way if a government decides to sell weapons to genocidal maniacs, people can vote that government out.
This is functionally what already happens. The market to sell into for defense is almost entirely B2G, the only exceptions being places where the existing government is not very strong or centralized
There are two broad reasons why the US has troops in Germany (and in Europe overall).
1. Because the Europeans wanted them there. NATO was a big security blanket, and certainly since the end of the cold war, up to say... 2014, America -wanted- a compliant Europe.
2. Because Europe is an amazing springboard into the middle east, and America just can't help but get itself involved in dropping bombs on the middle east.
1 ties into 2. A compliant Europe is less likely to raise objections to being used as a forward base for bombing Iraqis and Iranians. It's only in the last 10-15 years that the US realized that perhaps it was/had squandered it's lead to China, and dropped the ball (Europe at fault too) on properly containing (or addressing) Russia, and it would sure be nice if it could focus on the Pacific.
At this point the mask is completely off. For the last few years (and beyond) we've been hearing all the excuses such as:
"Well war is hell and we do our best to not target non-militants".
"Every child killed is a tragedy and definitely not our fault".
"They were used as human shields".
"Here's a spreadsheet with a name on it!".
"No really they were hiding in the hospitals, schools and under the bridges".
"..."
The mask is completely off, at least that we have.
Exactly. Let's do our "business as usual" thing but throw some flavour into the mix. Such a shame for her and the other thousands killed in Lebanon at the whim of Bibi Netanyahu and his cronies.
These where clan militias fighting for a headstanrt in the proxxy civil war to come. There is no iraq. Its a iranian proxxy with a sunni province and a basically split of kurdish region. That "nation" never existed except in western maps and heads. Those "freedom fighters" where the basis for isis and the iranian militias. None where patriots, just in it for the family wearing the state as skinsuit. They thoroughly disproved all neoliberal cultural ideals about universal nneeds and wants.
If we follow your logic, then I'd argue that similarly, there's no countries in the world. In particular, there's no United States, it's land colonized by Europeans who came to that land and slaughtered its indigenous people and claimed it for themselves.
The western culture forms meta families. We ostracize the sexual others like everyone else, but they form a nation wide "meta" family that connects everyone to everyone, allowing for the traditional clan family to flap open and dissappear with only nuclear families remaining. Oh and they form a ruling caste with working institutions. Western societies are one huge artifical clan.
Yes, for the sole reason that it's just a label assigned by an invading enemy government.
The problem is that the label is used in media to assign moral judgement, when it's just a political proscription that is typically assigned for entirely geopolitical reasons. Almost every country occupying a foreign territory, or is engaged in war with a group, or even another country, calls military action of the other side terrorism.
It doesn't mean anything. If it is to carry a moral judgement, it needs to be based on universally applied principles. It takes 5 seconds of thinking to see that it's absolutely not based on universally applied principles.
Terrorists specifically target civilian or government targets to make a statement or a demand. Those Iraqis were targeting American soldiers. The term doesn't apply here, no matter how badly the occupier wants to impose it on those defending their country.
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