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Comment by WaxProlix | Hacker News Reader

Technologists who fancy themselves pacifists are naive. The history of human technological advancement is the history of violence and the desire for control. DARPA funded the early internet, DARPA funded AI and NLP research, DARPA funded computer vision.

It's not new, it's been going on forever - certainly in our lifetimes.

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Hey - I am a soon to be Xoogler who just gave notice in ethical objection to Project Maven (btw, I hugely appreciate even simple words of support over the issue from this community).

I don't identify as a pacifist - quite the opposite, I think we should fight Project Maven like hell. The DoD wanted to fund a communications network? Cool. A private company recruiting 10k+ engineers on a cool, creative "don't be evil" brand, and then backdooring their work into use by a defense department is not cool (I'm not saying the company doesn't have the legal right to, I'm saying it's a jerk thing to do).

Sharing research, open-source code, etc is fine, and of course defense is free to poach away top engineers. But they can do that through recruiting, not their IT budget. Or if Amazon and Microsoft want to do the work, that's their choice, I never wanted to work at those companies. I think Google is missing a huge opportunity to define itself uniquely here by not canceling immediately.

I believe true neutrality is to do defense for nobody, I would like there to be a premier technology company that international colleagues can work at that serves no military. I wonder how many of my coworkers can't express their solidarity because of their visa status, because the insane cost of living of the bay area, etc. I don't know.

Massive respect for you putting your morals before your paycheck. There aren't a whole lot of folks who do it. o7

Good for you for sticking to your moral compass.

Is it going to change anything? Probably not. At the end of the day everyone is complicit is some respect. Part of those taxes taken out of your paycheck are consequently going to defense and the military. The US spends 35% of the world's share of military expenditures[0]. Project Maven was going to happen with or without Google's help, it's just a matter of when. Who knows, they might even be using TensorFlow.

At the end of the day, there's little "defining" for Google to do. Google is not some angel child that fell into dating a bad boy with the DoD. Google does both good and bad things all the time, even when the consequences are not as highly publicized as with Project Maven. Google is a for-profit company that was following the money. Figureheads like Eric Schmidt dove right in to working with the DoD without even giving it a second thought, and there was little news from any C-levels on the matter prior to this PR issue for Google, which I think speaks for itself about the philosophy of the company from its leadership. Cynically put, Google now cares because their reputation, and by proxy their fiscal performance for their shareholders, is now threatened and somebody calculated that the risk is greater than the reward of the government contract.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

> Is it going to change anything? Probably not.

Google spends incredible amounts of money hiring and retaining people. They may not lead to any change, but I'm sure Google is keeping track of how many people are leaving over this issue.

Googler here. Really good engineers are difficult to replace, our hire/no-hire ratio for candidates is insanely small and and increasing recruiting efforts puts more burden on the engineers who do the interviews. Losing people over this issue definitely hurts.

No need to worry, lots of people you can pick up from the following companies they may want to shift a few levels up from hell on the morality spectrum.

Lockheed Martin Boeing Raytheon General Dynamics Northrop Grumman United Technologies L-3 Communications BAE Systems

"then forcing them to do backdoor defense work"

Can you provide a source that proves the engineers who were working on the project didn't want to work on it?

"I wonder how many of my coworkers can't express their solidarity"

Or maybe many of your coworkers don't mind, or simply support Google's involvement in the defense industry.

I never stated that all Googlers share my view, many don't. In fact there are far more than two views on the issue. The company is extremely divided.

edit: also to clarify, based on your quote, I made minor modifications to my original post to hopefully word things more clearly

Out of curiosity do you really feel "forcing them to do backdoor defense work" is an accurate depiction? Not a googler, just curious if the option to switch team or opt out of the work was available.

I am not sure about exact plans but I have ideas of the rough ones. Obviously this is not an official statement from Google!

Anyone will be able to opt-out of direct work on the project. Not sure about indirect work.

In the short-term, only a few people will work directly on the project. Long term maybe some more, since the goal is to get bigger projects. Many more people will indirectly contribute to it. For example, I recently TAed the ML101 class. Will one of my students work on the project, and whats the impact of that on my complicity?

Anyway, I basically think that if your company is a DoD contractor then you work for a DoD contractor, especially as an engineer. And I think the typical Googler is massively underestimating the implications of Google becoming a DoD contractor.

> Anyway, I basically think that if your company is a DoD contractor then you work for a DoD contractor, especially as an engineer. And I think the typical Googler is massively underestimating the implications of Google becoming a DoD contractor.

I think a lot of folks in tech are comfortable selling out other people (i.e. creating shitty products) to get some sense of financial security in the Bay Area.

raises hand

I am ok selling out, but we all have our lines. I just think defense is probably not an uncommon one which makes it an unreasonable pivot for a huge company. Trying to act like "they're just another customer" is worth a good laugh at least.

That statement makes sense in the context of the article. People on the project objected to it's being used in a weapon platform. If I build a self driving car and you attach an auto-targeting turret to it you've forced my work into a weapon platform even if I didn't turn the wrench attaching the turret.

Thank you for having the moral courage to call things that are wrong wrong and taking action. The world needs more people like you.

> I believe true neutrality is to do defense for nobody, I would like there to be a premier technology company that international colleagues can work at that serves no military.

I'm not sure what the problem is with the military specifically as opposed to other government contracts. The military largely just does what they're told, so if you're bothered by how the military kills people, you should be blaming our elected representatives. You should object to all government contracts.

Thanks for this. I do blame them. And we elected them so I blame us. And also it's still wrong to make it easier, cheaper or faster to kill people.

> And also it's still wrong to make it easier, cheaper or faster to kill people.

I don't see how that follows. In fact, I think it's flat out wrong. The military is absolutely, unequivocally essential. You're effectively arguing that we should have stopped weapons development after we realized rocks smash in skulls, but then we would have been conquered by whomever invented knives, arrows, muskets, and so on. Military power is an arms race, and it will never stop advancing, nor should it. Weapons development leads to development of countermeasures. Not pursuing weapons development means you're at the mercy of whomever is less scrupulous than you.

It's a very interesting moral dilemma; one the people on the Manhattan Project surely had. On one hand, you don't want to be responsible for creating something that kills a bunch of civilians, but on the other hand, if your adversary particularly in a time of war, is doing the same thing, your civilization would be at risk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project

Oppenheimer's famous Bhagavad Gita words, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

When Oppenheimer said he felt compelled to act because he had blood on his hands, Truman angrily told the scientist that “the blood is on my hands, let me worry about that.” He then kicked him out of the Oval Office...

https://www.history.com/news/father-of-the-atomic-bomb-was-b...

Truman later referred to Oppenheimer as a "cry-baby scientist."

Anyway, it's good that you are able to recognize something that may haunt you for the rest of your life. It's you that has to live with it. Good luck.

Look at the effect nuclear weapons had on the world. There have been half a dozen near misses in total annihilation. The Russians got the technology almost immediately after it was created. We have lived in fear ever since. Rogue states, fear of nuclear terrorists. Now imagine the smart and capable people on the Manhattan project didn't push, didn't apply their brilliance. Simply said "the amount of uranium necessary to create a chain reaction is on the order of several tons, it is therefore not a viable weapon" and went on to work on more worthwhile creations. I argue the world would be a better place. Sure, maybe someone else would do it, but that person would be smart too and susceptible to the same sound argument. I'll say it again. We all have an ethical obligation not to build terrible weapons.

Congratulations! You are a very brave man. Very brave. I know it takes way more courage than I am currently able to gather.

Good for you for acting on your values. Too few people do.

One question - under what circumstances would you entertain the idea of supporting the military with your labour?

I mean, imagine you lived somewhere like Switzerland. Neutral, with a military that genuinely exists as a "defence force". Would that be okay?

Consider me impressed. Thank you very much!

That's admirable!

But didn't Google work on search technology for the NSA? That's what I get from The Silicon Jungle by Shumeet Baluja. And maybe it was just dystopian fiction.

I can't comment on every tangential thought related to this topic. But basically we live in a very morally ambiguous world , but this specific issue seems more clear cut to me. In discussing this issue with some people, I've been offered a lot of weird moral comparisons and analogies I don't think are worth seriously considering too much.

OK, thanks for the reply.

I do agree that this is clear cut evil, and acknowledge your integrity.

You don't have to "fancy yourself a pacifist" to not want to work on military projects directly.

For one, you may pragmatically think it hurts your brand more than it helps your company.

For another, you may think that is you wanted to work in defense, you would have gotten a job in defense. If your company starts chasing defense, maybe it's time to change companies.

For another, you may think the government of the United States doesn't or no longer deserves the best weapons in the world. Perhaps another Western country does.

That last point was a major driver of leaks to the Soviet Union during the Manhattan project. Many of the scientists thought it was simply too much power to be in the hands of one nation.

Jordan implicated Harry Hopkins and other high officials in the transfer of nuclear and other secrets to the USSR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Racey_Jordan

He also promoted the idea that fluoridation of water was a Communist plot.

Weren't they under some sort of NDA? The sort that gets you and your family killed if you break it, perhaps?

They were guilty of treason, however not everyone's morals are directly inline with the law. That isn't to say that all spies were of a noble nature, some just did it for the money or to feel important.

That's true - I left academia because I figured a lot of my work was possibly going to go to killing brown children in faraway lands, so I understand that pretty well.

But I didn't get the impression that this was the case here. It was a fairly generic object recognition program (as far as I've heard; could be wrong there).

> For another, you may think that is you wanted to work in defense, you would have gotten a job in defense. If your company starts chasing defense, maybe it's time to change companies.

Totally. Great opportunity to move teams at a big company like Google or quit and move elsewhere. But what happened was more of a statement, people walking out together. I don't think it's wrong, and I admire them for it. But I think it belies a certain naivete about the whole setup we've found ourselves in.

> For another, you may think the government of the United States doesn't or no longer deserves the best weapons in the world. Perhaps another Western country does.

Sure again, or an Eastern one, or a Southern one. Western hegemony has been very, very bad for the rest of the world, so a change might be just what we all need.

> But I think it belies a certain naivete about the whole setup we've found ourselves in.

You can only vote with your feet.

If companies learn that employees don't want their companies to work on this...

... are you kidding me?

Yes, Western governments have their problems. But honestly what alternative is there?

Chinese "communism" (really Fascism)?

Russian dictatorship / oligarchy?

African tribalism and anarchy?

Middle Eastern theocracies?

There are a lot of things I'd change about Western states. Making them truer to the Western values of reason, individualism, justice, peace and voluntarism would be a good start :)

But really, the only reason we're not living in the dark ages is those same Western principles. (Which we might now refer to as Eastern, had not Ibn Battuta and others rolled back the Islamic renaissance, plunging the world back into darkness until the Europeans caught up. What might have been, etc.)

Gah. I meant al-Ghazali. I blame sleep deprivation.

This type of thinking is why we haven't escaped from the prisoners dilemma yet. One day, two of our "world leaders" are going to commit to a war and all the soldiers of both sides are going to look at eachother and say 'nah, you fight it!' - and we will realise that its been the fault of the people who do the actual fighting all along.

> One day, two of our "world leaders" are going to commit to a war and all the soldiers of both sides are going to look at eachother and say 'nah, you fight it!'

Nah. With autonomous weapons that's not going to happen.

Then it's the fault of the people who made the autonomous weapons, which is kind of what the issue is at Alphabet right now.

This isn't really about supporting "the military", it's about supporting an illegal assassination program of innocent children and civilians.

One's warfare, one's mass murder, I still believe there's a difference between the two.

The civilian deaths are horrifying. But terrorist groups have made a practice of using non-combatants as human shields for propaganda purposes. If a terrorist leader who has killed many people in the past and intends to kill more in the future is located in a house filled with children do you take him out or let him live and continue his activities? Innocent people are likely to die either way.

That's why you don't fight terrorism by blowing up buildings from robot sky drones.

And to be clear: If you make the decision to murder a household of children, there is no justification, you are a sick, twisted individual. The justification that you might prevent other indeterminate future innocent lives doesn't change that you carried out a heinous act.

You cannot claim the moral high ground against terrorism when you are acting like a terrorist.

You fight terrorism by using soft power to give people less or no reasons to commit terrorism.

You fight terrorism by education.

You blew up a house with 10 children and terrorists. 10+ new terrorists are born. (Think fathers, uncles, mothers of their children).

>If a terrorist leader who has killed many people in the past and intends to kill more in the future is located in a house filled with children do you take him out or let him live and continue his activities? Innocent people are likely to die either way.

so, the real choice i'm facing here is _who_ is going to kill innocent people and children - me today or the terrorist leader tomorrow. Do you really think that it is a non-obvious choice?

That's assuming those are the only two choices. In real life there are many more. The US could learn from France who have fought islamic terrorists far longer and tend to assassinate the guilty with a bullet rather than taking out a bunch of innocents with bombs.

France bombed us down here in New Zealand in an act of terrorism over a peaceful nuclear protest and has a brutal history in the Middle East, even quite recently. They are far from a shining light.

Rainbow Warrior?

Yes.

That's one very black page in history.

> The history of human technological advancement is the history of violence and the desire for control.

It's certainly not given, though. Post-war Japan is an example of enormous technological progress (that surpassed other nations at some point) without military emphasis.

Ever since I learned about Sapolski's baboon troupe, I have been always wondering how many things that people call "natural" for humans to do are actually quite easily culturally changed. I think a fair bit.

Post-war Japan is an example of enormous technological progress (that surpassed other nations at some point) without military emphasis.

This oversimplifies the issue, and insinuates that the Japanese became pacifist.

In fact because of a long imperialist history Japan chose to become personally defensive - while being protected by the US forces through the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation [1]. So postwar Japan effectively outsourced their strategic capability to the US and UN.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Mutual_Cooperation_a...

I don't think having a good defense is in contradiction with pacifism. Unfortunately, "defense" in the U.S. is more orwellian term.

Anyhow, I was addressing the perception that you cannot have technological progress (or prowess) without significant military applications. Of course you can.

You’re right that Japan’s rapid technological progress wouldn’t have been possible without hiding behind the US shield, but that’s just because it allowed them to divert resources. The development itself was distinctly civilian and not dependent on the military as GP mentioned.

Also, Japan’s imperialist history was about 50 years; that’s certainly not “long” in the scheme of world history.

National Science Foundation grants had nothing to do with DARPA, and they started the avalanche that is the modern internet.

DARPA and colleges bought you an anemic internet. NSF and Silicon Valley brought it into your homes.

You could extend this argument to pretty much anything since our own history as humans is completely tied to violence, but not because of this one should consider every person who opposes violence/war naive...

Yes, this is true. War has been a constant for all of human history, so practically any technological advance can be attributed to warfare. Anyone who thinks that war is necessary for technological progress in 2018 has been drinking too much US military koolaid.

War has been forever, but you have to ask in service of what? For the US, it appears to be in favor of world dominion. The words empire and constitutional government don't really go together very well. Project Maven helps the drone program in some fashion. It helps provide support for a program that assassinates many innocent people. If you choose to not be "naive", then at least pick something that materially contributes to national defense or international peace. This program can only be seen as offense, which is a violation of the UN charter.

Modern computing only exists because of wartime codebreaking and artillery calculations.

This reddit post is a good writeup on the latter:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3kbt3w/was_a...

And the Nobel Prize only exists because of dynamite. So what? Now it honors peaceful efforts.

Just because something is born one way doesn't define its entire existence.

The current context of this discussion is the primary driving force behind technological innovation, you seem to be addressing a different context entirely.

No, you assert that that's the context.

I assert that inventors and inventions need not be shackled to their origin.

Case in point, it's entirely possible that ARPANET was used by foreign powers to subvert American Democracy in the 2016 election. I'm not advocating that, I'm saying it's worth recognizing.

You can retort, yes, that's continued weaponization.

And I can respond, that I can want to work on altruistic internet projects, and not feel "guilt" that the internet was invented by the military. And if someone subverts my project to military uses, I have every right to voice my objections.

>I assert that inventors and inventions need not be shackled to their origin.

How did you get the idea that I disagree with this?

We'd have modern computing without those things. There was enough demand to develop computing even without military purposes in mind. The transistor was invented at a telephone company.

"There was enough demand to develop computing even without military purposes in mind"

No, there was not.

Zuse started developing his computers and programming languages before the war.

Of course there would have been.

The Difference Engine was instrumental in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.

It was later used by Dred Pirate Roberts to manage logistics of rum and parrots to his fleet of leased pirate ships in the Caribbean.

Zuse actually built modern, electromechanical computers, and developed software for it.

One earlier example that comes to mind is Galileo demonstrating his prototype telescope to the doge of Venice in the early 1600s. The potential of the new instrument to detect far-away ships who might wish to raid the port city was apparent to the government, and they doubled Galileo's salary.

Not to mention the Atomic bomb.

Yeah I'm just thinking recent history -- you could probably make a case for fire, flint knapping, etc.

All I can think of is people who eat meat, but find animal slaughter abhorrent. They can find another nice valley office to work in, put their fingers in their ears, and refuse to think about how America was built on the back of war and an effective defence force.

I'm watching the show "War" on PBS and it is very interesting. They start in boot camp and the soldiers (of multiple generations) discuss the process of transformation from a me first attitude to a group first attitude. I find that interesting to think about society in general and how we seem to be just a nation of me me me or at least that is how it is marketed... however, success really only comes by working together for a common cause.

> he process of transformation from a me first attitude to a group first attitude.

Interesting observations - some cultures have that inbuilt. I wonder how bootcamp is like for them.

I'm not sure whether the point you're trying to make is:

- that the high standard of living of all of the wealthy in the USA is enabled by its position as the world's main military power - you can try to appear noble and above it by quitting your job when your employer is too close to the military but you're basically complicit

- that these snowflakes need to realise that computers couldn't exist without the military

If it's the first then I can sympathise - however it's getting into "oh you dislike capitalism but you bought an iPhone" (or laptop, bank account, home, clothes etc) territory. I would definitely prefer more people open their eyes to the suffering our governments are causing, but objecting to your employer working directly with the military doesn't mean they're ignorant to this.

I really hope it's not the second - there are a few comments floating around are getting into this direction.

The first point is what I was getting at. Although more from the perspective of “enjoying the fruits of”, rather than “complicit in”. Which seems hypocritical to me, no matter how you look at it. Especially considering we’re generally among the most highly paid professionals in the world.

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