[bigyabai]

> Even if Google had adopted your Framework, the Pentagon would have refused

> I agree. xAI would still have given over their AI. But if Google had given signs of independence earlier, it could perhaps have built a coalition with OpenAI and Anthropic.

This is like saying that Google and Apple might build a coalition to prevent App Store regulation. These are competitors, they all see moral flexibility as an advantage. They're not going to take a moralist stance if their federal protection is predicated on federal cooperation. All of these FAANG businesses have already bent the knee in anticipation of this, xAI is just riding the coattails of the federal quid-pro-quo.

When you go to work at a megacorp, you're always leaving your ethics at the door. Yes, there's an attractive pie-in-the-sky fantasy that Apple does care about human rights, or that Google isn't evil, but they're always just lies. I disagree with a lot of GCP's customers, but I'm still shocked that a DeepMind employee would make it this far in the career pipeline before seeing the soylent green get made.

[awakeasleep]

Competitors often wish they didn't have to compete.

For example, a cartel is "a group of independent market participants who collaborate with each other and avoid competition in order to improve profits and dominate the market"

It's something that could happen in this world, through the collective action of employees, that corporate strategy can be changed.

[worldthruword]

I hope he becomes the seed crystal around which crystallization of peaceful use of AI happens.

[bigyabai]

> through the collective action of employees, that corporate strategy can be changed.

I just don't agree with this. I'd like to, but the corporate strategy is not being set by rank-and-file engineers. Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Elon Musk - these are the executives that are steering the ship. You can change the culture internally and cause a lot of strife, but typically you don't have control over the strategy. If the executive says you're giving API access to the NSA, then that's what is going to happen.

[khalic]

apple and google are regularly on the same side against eu regulations

[pcald]

Working anywhere requires ethical compromise… a 2 person company can disagree on ethical questions

[bigyabai]

Ethical compromise is part of participating in society, even the unemployed have to follow the law. Moral compromise is typically avoidable though, and some principled people will hold those morals equal to the value of a job.

[busterarm]

On the upside, I guess maybe DeepMind is hiring.

... I'm sure I'll get flamed into oblivion for this but it's weird to me how the zeitgeist is anti-colonialism but also against enforcing borders and national sovereignty. I guess maybe they are okay with it unless you're a western nation. Whatever, there's no room for nuanced opinions anymore in modern online discourse.

I'll admit to being a weird outlier on this. I may not like what certain parts of the government are doing but I'd go work for the Voldemort companies in a heartbeat -- they just require in-office and aren't anywhere near me. I'd rather my nation develop the best technologies than let other nations do it.

Just look at how far behind the eurozone is by not making the right investments.

[anticorporate]

> I'm sure I'll get flamed into oblivion for this but it's weird to me how the zeitgeist is anti-colonialism but also against enforcing borders and national sovereignty

Let me try a reply that is perhaps a little more constructive than where this discussion went.

I think most folks would frame home rule and freedom of movement in the context of basic individual rights, not national rights. I suggest you might fare better explaining some context about why you believe they should care about nation states to begin with

[busterarm]

Fair comment and thank you.

"Freedom of movement" is a fairly loaded term, but is defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is: - "Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state." - "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

Freedom of movement isn't the right to go live anywhere you want across any national jurisdiction (although some people/organizations would disagree, but that just doesn't survive any legal test). Every nation on the planet has very explicit rules around this. Even the unrecognized ones.

I guess I don't necessarily agree with elected officials systematically not enforcing laws that they don't agree with. It's hard to be rigid about this when there's things like Executive Orders, but I'm very pro "Change the law". And admittedly that's very difficult and it should be so -- new law should be hard to get to.

This process happens all the way from the local to national level, but we have terrible governance. Every structure seems to be abdicating its responsibility and overreaching in one way or another. It's precisely in these conditions that I think leaning into rule of law is more important than ever.

Otherwise we're just playing Whose Country Is It Anyway? Where the rules are made up and your rights don't matter. I also feel that this should be a compelling enough argument regardless of your political persuasion, but we've gone just about completely tribalist.

[bigyabai]

If it's any consolation, I'd have upvoted the original version of your comment before you appended the hand-wringing about karma points and personal opinions.

It's not lacking nuance to oppose both empire politics and nationalist jingoism. I don't think that the author is wrong for holding that opinion - I just think they shouldn't have joined Google if they sincerely believed it. Their personal conviction is not going to be enough to overturn Google's policy, even if they're the LeBron James of AI research. This was a pointless exercise in getting crushed under the boot that they claim to oppose. And anyone with the ability to add two and two together could see where this was headed.

Outliers like you are what the state counts on. Morally deaf, money and status-obsessed, easily placated with remote work and fat pension payments. As the middle class shrinks and the collective insecurity of a generation expands, more people like you will trade in their morals to make a "dignified" living doing horrible things. It speaks volumes to your character, but maybe you'd have a hard time hearing it from your boat with your hearing aids turned off. It's a tricky market for people that want to make genuine positive change in the world, and money talks.