Comment by _85oz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _85oz | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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