[gdy]

Nope, you've made yourself a straw man. I hope you did not do it intentionally because it's plainly disgusting. Please don't do that again.

You've said that she didn't just leave Google instead of protesting because she didn't 'want to see the thing you [she] worked so hard to build misused to build killer robots and "war minds"'.

You was asked what she actually did at Google and you've come up with 'her work on AI ethics was much appreciated and celebrated' as a response.

Looks like she was not working 'so hard' on anything that can be of any use for building 'killer robots and war "minds"'. In fact, for building anything.

[dang]

You crossed into personal attack and name-calling in this thread. Would you please review the site guidelines and follow them when posting here? Note particularly: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[KirinDave]

> Looks like she was not working 'so hard' on anything that can be of any use for building 'killer robots and war "minds"'. In fact, for building anything.

This looks like you've subtly dodged the complaint I raised by trying to insinuate that she doesn't have a right to express opinions aboht functions of Google she herself did not personally participate in. This leverages the information asymmetry in disclosure; we can't publicly discuss the bulk of her work and therefore you can suggest that there was none.

I find this to be no different from suggesting that she has no right to protest and therefore deserves to be run out. You're just trying to run the standard "she wasn't that important and therefore doesn't have credibility" playbook. Gross.

But despite the disingenuous argument, I'll accept it head on. I challenge the entire premise. I certainly can and do express opinions about my employer's involvement in weapons development and I am glad they are not doing it. I'd fight to avoid doing any more of it, and I'd be willing to resign over it. I don't work in AI, but my work supports any such system at Google and therefore I'd feel responsible to help prevent building killer robots in any capacity.

I, like many such employees, am both a shareholder and an employee in a company that claims to have an interest in a transparent and egalitarian corporate culture. This practice will naturally introduce friction between different parties and I expect us to work through them as fairly as possible. So I will not simply eject at the first sign of something I don't like. But if I feel that there is a line crossed while I was there strenuously objecting to that line and I haven't been given adequate reason to change my mind, I won't hesitate to resign.

I make these facts clear to folks when they hire me. If they don't like it, they shouldn't hire me. Hopefully you respect your own agency and intellect enough to give yourself similar license in your own life.