[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?