[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.

[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.

[eggy]

I was following your argument until the parenthetical elitist remark about the tech community priding themselves "on being more fair and ethical than the rest of the world". Is this a truly held belief common in the tech community? Glad I don't subscribe myself to groupthink. The tech community seems to fill the news with sexual harassment and other unethical actions just as much as any other self-defined group.

[davesque]

The statement was meant to be slightly ironic.

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

Are you also against end-to-end encrypted messaging? Telegram is used extensively by ISIS - who does actual evil and deliberately targets civilians.

[tejasmanohar]

Frankly, I’m still sifting through the arguments here and don’t think I agree with the OP off the bat, but that’s a false analogy. Google’s work is directly advertised for military use— Telegram isn’t. I don’t think anyone is arguing against object detection research, more its military application.

[pc86]

> I don't think that's an argument.

Of course it is! It's an intentional mis-characterization of what the software does.

> Uses like this for technology are a perfect example of things we...all promised we would never do.

I didn't make any such promise. When did you?

[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?

[neuralRiot]

Who watches the watchers?

[pmoriarty]

Just because Google or the military say the tech won't be used to target and kill people doesn't mean it's true.

The letter that I read[1] states:

"Recently, Googlers voiced concerns about Maven internally. Diane Greene responded, assuring them that the technology will not “operate or fly drones” and “will not be used to launch weapons.” While this eliminates a narrow set of direct applications, the technology is being built for the military, and once it’s delivered it could easily be used to assist in these tasks."

and:

"Building this technology to assist the US Government in military surveillance – and potentially lethal outcomes – is not acceptable."

So the concern seems to be that the military can easily repurpose Google's technology to lethal ends.

[1] - https://static01.nyt.com/files/2018/technology/googleletter....

[some_account]

It's not obvious to everyone that Google has close ties to intelligence agencies already?

I don't see why their promises mean something, and I don't see why some people never learn that there are no good corporations. They all exist to make money. Except the non profits. And there is tons of money in war, as you know.

Building tech that kills people is therefore playing dumb or not caring.

[jadell]

The response to that is in the article:

> While a Google spokesperson says the program is "scoped for non-offensive purposes," a letter signed by almost 4,000 Google employees took issue with this assurance, saying, "The technology is being built for the military, and once it's delivered, it could easily be used to assist in [lethal] tasks."

If the object and intent recognition is made fast enough, and is able to be sent to and from a drone in flight, then the technology can be re-purposed offensively, regardless of its initial purpose.

[mratzloff]

Once Google engineers have trained an algorithm to interpret a video feed to determine when people enter and exit buildings, what do you think the very next step is? It will be applied to live video for use in determining where a target is located in order to kill him.

[travmatt]

Sometimes I’m convinced that hn’ers are just trying to argue the contrarian point of view, irregardless of facts.

Thats certainly easier for me to believe than someone who sincerely thinks that military spending millions of dollars on targeting systems doesn’t mean the military is planning on using targeting systems it spent millions of dollars to develop.

[h2olover]

...crunch the data so that they can more effectively kill at a distance and without public accountability