from Hacker News

A dozen Google employees quit over military drone project

by dismal2 on 5/15/18, 2:31 PM with 65 comments

• by detaro on 5/15/18, 4:56 PM

  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 (98 comments)

• by manfredo on 5/15/18, 5:12 PM

  > "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.

• by option2 on 5/15/18, 4:55 PM

  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

• by whataretensors on 5/15/18, 4:29 PM

  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.

• by laurent123456 on 5/15/18, 5:34 PM

  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.

• by sillyquiet on 5/15/18, 5:57 PM

  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.

• by ralusek on 5/16/18, 5:32 AM

  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.

• by candiodari on 5/15/18, 7:09 PM

  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 ?

• by ForHackernews on 5/15/18, 3:38 PM

  http://neveragain.tech/ a bunch of names on here. Have any of them taken a stand?

• by trumped on 5/15/18, 8:25 PM

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

• by davidf18 on 5/15/18, 5:15 PM

  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.

• by metalrain on 5/15/18, 5:01 PM

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

• by debt on 5/15/18, 4:44 PM

  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.