Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program
gizmodo.com
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In addition, many of the large US companies have a military component. Examples are GE, Boeing, United Technologies. How many of those companies want something like what happened with Maven to happen to them.
Finally, the success of this project will further embolden Google employees to use these same tactics of leaking and hurting Google's image in the future. Given how things progress, the next protest is likely to be about something that is even more gray area than Maven.
You're also correct that this is a victory for those workers and a defeat for the corporation.
Not to mention that historically, moral progress tends to happen because of the unreasonableness of small groups of people. Demanding that people sit on their hands until they get 51% support for their cause, is asking that nothing ever get done.
Whomever started this project certainly did not poll the employee base, and establish 51% support of it.
I seriously doubt the majority of Google Employees would support defense contracting.
do you suppose the decision to support a military project was made by a large majority before? Committed minorities almost always steer decision-making within business ventures.
By framing this as a 'moral crusade' you're suggesting that there is an asymmetry here while there is not, participating in projects that can be used for purposes of war is no amoral default position. The stronger minority simply won.
Or framing it in another way, suppose Google would hold an employee vote tomorrow, do you think this would change the outcome?
Robots probably wouldn't be as bad, but the other autonomous killing machines we have are pathogens, and all countries have pretty much decided it's counterproductive to develop pathogens for warfare at this point
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-attacks/tw...
Better in this context means more bombs on foreheads.
This is not the same problem posed by AI sorting of imagery (Maven) or armed UAVs in general.
Also, with automated offense, a lot of people may die in short order if you encounter a systemic failure in your targeting + execution
Last line of google company motto. They moved it but “don’t be evil” is still in the motto.
https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html
Google wanted to emphasize so they put it on the last line that you read with the document.
The alt right was who made up the story that Google removed it and then picked up by conservative media and then all media was misreporting it.
Typical Google they do not defend themselves and just let it go.
That's an odd way to emphasize something. I don't remember any time that I wanted to emphasize something so I put it in the last line of the document.
It is what you are left with. Brains are closer to LIFO than FIFO.
It is why it is easier, usually, to remember things that were more recent than longer ago.
But there are exceptions. I have an incredible memory for things from a very long time ago and not so good at more recent. But I am unusual as my siblings can't remember the same things I can when we were kids and I am younger.
https://theintercept.com/2018/05/31/google-leaked-emails-dro...
The fate of Google is the fate of Alphabet.
The story that has been spun this year has been that Google tacitly accepts politics in the workplace. They might come to regret that.
Why would it terrify them?
You are green either created the account to shield your normal one, or you don't post here.
This is actually excellent news for companies with nothing to hide. And for companies with something resembling a moral compass.
Your comment is extrapolation hyperbole and paints a dichotomy that either the corp is control or the employees are in control when in actuality, it is a vast collection of individuals and groups.
That may seem as something that's not worth too much, but on the other hand there's a lot of popular opposition to this kind of thing and companies are starting to notice. Consider this: https://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/new-deutsche-bank-policy-e...
Lights are shining through the cracks in the conflict dominated narrative of these times, and we have never had greater means to analyse and resolve our troubles with each other and with our environment.
Thankyou Googlers for showing up for resolution.
It still gives them between 6 months and 18 months (whenever the contract expires in 2019) to continue working on this project. They may even finish it during that timeframe. This is purely PR fluff.
[added for the down-haters]
Examples of the lies:
- concerned employees were told that Google’s DoD contract was worth only $9 million
- "Google downplayed its work, saying it had merely provided its open-source TensorFlow software to the Pentagon"
In the name of building real-time, total surveillance in support of automated killing by drones.
At the same time... there's a real don't-rock-the-boat problem here. The last 3/4 of a century of US military dominance has been notable for a decrease in military/para-military violence on an order that humanity literally has never seen. It's not zero for sure, it's not always just, we may not always be the good guys, but seriously: if you are a random person anywhere in the world, you are vastly less likely to be killed by someone's bullet than you were pre-WW2. And that's important.
A world without a dominant US military is a world with fewer US-driven injustices. That doesn't seem like a good bet to be a "better world", though.
The US is the most wildly insane, two-faced and upside-down country in the world right now in terms of military. The commander-in-chief routinely makes nuclear threats, actively hurts his own citizens in times of need, and seeks to decrease military stability by accelerating climate change and isolating his country from the world. The commander-in-chief lies about every single thing in his day-to-day life, as well as his political life; he is mentally unstable and not fit to serve.
The US military is 100% untrustworthy as its direct leader has shown himself to be literally insane.
> there's a real don't-rock-the-boat problem here
The US is the one rocking the boat. It has already happened and it happens daily.
> A world without a dominant US military is a world with fewer US-driven injustices. That doesn't seem like a good bet to be a "better world", though.
I disagree. That seems like a very incredibly great bet, to me. The time of US military leadership is over. That happened the day our Military Commander In Chief stood on his inauguration day and lied about the number of people in front of him.
Perhaps the US will return to a positive leading role one day, but it is not there now and it has not been for years.
All this aside, I do not agree that Google is the right place to develop US Military technology.
Edit: Additionally, the commander-in-chief of the US military also stated point blank that we may not have presidential elections any more in the future. This is not a time to champion US democracy, military might, etc.
- Sure it’s bad now, but the US military is made up of far more than just the president... many of which may be good, rational actors.
- Just because it’s bad now doesn’t mean it won’t get better quickly (there has been a lot of pushback on the president’s agenda)
- The US may still be comparatively better/benevolent than any other dominant superpower
Note that these aren’t necessarily my views (I’d need more time to think and consider). But I think they point out some decent possible counter arguments to OP
That's the thing though: it's not bad now!. Not by any historical standard, at least.
For most of our history and prehistory, right up to the past 70 years, stupid warfare has been the rule. Petty tribal disputes, armed insurrections, ethnic cleansing and suppression and random gang violence were absolutely routine for almost everyone even as recently as our great grandparent's lifetimes. Virtually everyone saw violence like this at some point. Now, in most of the world (no, not all of it, but yes: most), pretty much no one does.
And that's important. What we've been doing is working. Don't rock the boat.
But to clarify, when I said “sure it’s bad now” I meant that in the context of the current military leadership.
Unfortunately I can’t really defend that argument much further given that I don’t necessarily agree with it (it was just speculation on potential counter-arguments).
I'm not the one fear mongering. It is the US government doing all the fear mongering. The "stable genuis" leading the country is the one doing the fear mongering.
Seriously, the US is more insane than North Korea, a country that routinely launches ballistic missiles over countries that are essentially in a state of cold war with it? The United States' military position is more unstable than Venezuela, a county that is imprisoning it's own brass and experiencing large scale desertion[1] to the point that it's speculated that there may be a coup soon? I do not believe a reasonable person make either of these claims.
[1] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/...
And yes I would make both of those claims. And I am a reasonable person. If you think that my statements above make me an "unreasonable person" just for my comments of fact and opinion, then you are the one trolling and attempting to invalidate my entire existence as a person.
I stand by my points.
American military intervention is the main reason why the wars stopped. For the last 18 years it’s now peace.
I’m an immigrant here so I did not participated in these wars. But I asked locals who did, “do you think the wars would stop unless Americans intervened?” The answer is usually “no, I think we would be still killing each other to this day.”
Obviously the President is the final authority of the DoD, and the Chain of Command will obey legal orders, but as was made clear with the Transgender conflict between the SECDEF and POTUS it's not as clear cut as the POTUS saying "do as I say" and it just happening.
The Department of Defense isn't an overtly political organization and has a deep philosophy of operating largely the same irrespective of who the CINC is.
[1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/02/22/mattis-recomm...
Pretending Trump doesn't exist is a really, really bad idea. It's extremely dangerous to the democracy that exists in the USA and the world to pretend that the insane President, self-declared dictator of the country simply does not exist.
Your example is a logical fallacy. Merely because the President's orders via tweet were not enacted does not mean you can simply ignore the current situation.
'I have the absolute right to PARDON myself' he said today. He is not a President, the US military is unstable presently due to his leadership, by definition.
You are spouting unsubstantiated nonsense.
https://ourworldindata.org/slides/war-and-violence/#/title-s...
See page 6 for a charge that shows exactly the fact I was citing, though the data as a whole is much broader and worth reading.
So now I'm "substantiated", I guess. You have numbers showing the opposite effect?
I over reacted in the way I perceived how your statement was framed.
Two oceans, a navy, and thousands of nuclear weapons are the national defense of the United States. The rest is empire-building.
Don't forget "a rifle behind every blade of grass". [1]
Even if the quote is apocryphal, the overall point is valid.
Or we don't, because autonomous killing machines are a big enough risk to all life they're not worth it. For example, you don't see an arms race to develop nastier strains of the flu or ebola, because that would be stupid for everyone.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15570335
All your comments start out hidden, but I vouched for this one so it's visible.
China is in the process of forcibly taking over an enormous chunk of geography in the south china sea. They have fired on and intimidated their neighbors such as Vietnam and Philippines in connection with this. They continue to undermine and isolate Taiwan. They are a big part of why N Korea has nuclear weapons and ICBMs.
Russia is illegally occupying a big chunk of Ukraine, is involved in shooting down civilian airliners, and assassinating people they don't like with chemical weapons.
At what point would it be advisable to see a trend and try to do something about it?
2 Google was claiming they were doing open source work, so China would have access to it anyway
3 If there are enough money in this there will be people going to work on the project, so I am sure the US will have good droning software
4 US brought this on itself with the way they used the drones , like you have the verb "droning"
It's not unthinkable, especially if they feel confident that they have a technological advantage that would shield them from detection or in-kind retaliation. They also have somewhat different notions of citizenship/nationality than Western countries, and they have a few diasporas they'd like to control.
> 3 If there are enough money in this there will be people going to work on the project, so I am sure the US will have good droning software
What makes you so sure of this, or that those people will have the necessary talent? Lower quality software could lead to more collateral deaths.
> 4 US brought this on itself with the way they used the drones , like you have the verb "droning"
Contemporary drone-strikes are literally just regular airstrikes: for instance, the weapons the drones use were actually developed for other military aircraft [1] [2] and adapted to drones.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-114_Hellfire
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Direct_Attack_Munition
The only real difference is that there's no pilot in the plane, so less risk he dies in a crash. And I say crash because most of the drone-strikes happened in places where there were few hostile anti-aircraft weapons to actually shoot anything down. Most of the pilot risk would have been from mechanical problems and human error.
We do not deploy F-35s to assassinate people in Pakistan. But we've been deploying drones there since 2004. Note that a key issue here is that the drone strikes aren't even military actions: They're controlled by the CIA.
There is no technical difference with drones, the issue is entirely in how they are used. This is what makes your arguments about the weaponry being the same mostly irrelevant.
The US hasn't been officialy "at war" in a long time. I think the last one was World War II.
> We do not deploy F-35s to assassinate people in Pakistan.
Of course not: F-35s are more expensive to operate and I'm not sure they've even attained the level of readiness to attempt such a mission.
I disagree. I would call operations conducted with military equipment and with the participation of military personnel (e.g. USAF pilots) military operations.
"under the operational control of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division". Feel free to click in and read what SAD does, these are assassinations, not military actions. Remember that military actions are something a government does officially, and assassinations are something denied and covered up for over a decade.
"The drones are flown by United States Air Force pilots located at an unnamed base in the United States. US Department of Defense armed drones, which also sometimes take part in strikes on terrorist targets, are flown by US Air Force pilots located at Creech Air Force Base and Holloman Air Force Base."
If you believe that then how you call the military operations in recent years and present?
Also if there is no war then people that are killed are just murders/assassinations this murders makes the scientists not want to get involved
>> The US hasn't been officialy "at war" in a long time. I think the last one was World War II.
> If you believe that then how you call the military operations in recent years and present?
Wars, for the most part.
My point is there's no meaningful difference between dropping a JDAM on a particular target with an F-35 or dropping a JDAM on the same target with a drone.
Either way, you dropped a JDAM on a target. Doing it with a drone doesn't magically make the result worse or different somehow.
Where, exactly did I say that? You're putting words in my mouth.
Those technologies aren't for defense; every nation in the world throws loads of money to military expenses -including those countries who have zero chances of being ahead of any other- for a single reason: war is a very profitable business. Everything else is propaganda.
> Those technologies aren't for defense;
Have you ever heard of Mutually Assured Destruction? Basically the idea is having "credible deterrent" actually prevents the use of the weapons, because the side that makes a "single deadly upfront attack" will lose along with their opponent. The only winning move is not to play.
The problems happen when one side has capabilities the others lack, or when there are options for a "single deadly upfront attack" that aren't suicide.
In short, "offensive" technologies can be defensive.
To me also there's not that much difference between mutual assured destruction and severe damage. Let's say the US has 100 nukes and Russia only 20 (random numbers just to make an example), all of same power, and let's assume that most of them will be neutralized before hitting the targets so that in case of mutual attack Russia would be hit by say 30 nukes and the US by just 4. History 100 years from now would surely regard it as an epic victory for the US, but today anyone ruling over there would have to explain their citizens how on earth they couldn't take a step back and spare millions of lives.
It's probably much simpler than that. The US, Russia, China, North Korea, etc. have zero intentions to go at war with each other, but is in everyone's interest to keep fueling the weapons industry, so they keep playing the plot: citizens are hooked using nationalist arguments to make them supporting their rulers etc. Weapons keep being amassed until the day they become obsolete and can be sold to less rich countries for their smaller wars, new more advanced weapons take their spot and the business continues. It's a win-win scenario for everyone but common people.
The USA would never permit them to be invaded. We'd go to an all out war before we'd let a next-door neighbor fall to another country, and every nation knows this.
> though I hardly believe there aren't others in a civilized world.
Where is this civilized World of which you speak? I, sadly, see that the Globe is on fire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict...
Of course war is a business, no question about that; however the world is a dangerous place, and humans are arguably the most unpredictable mammals alive.
Throwaway account (don't want my meager karma to be down voted to oblivion for speaking my mind).
And anyways, please explain the bogeyman: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17210194
Sure, employees may continue to protest actions like this in the future... if they find out about them. Bear in mind, a significant component of this incident involved Google lying and downplaying the importance of this project.
Shortly after yesterday's article containing leaked emails, a Googler expressed public shame of having promoted articles by one of the people in said emails, which explicitly talked about concealing Google's involvement with the military implementing AI, and shortly thereafter, announced intention to leave. This person had blocked me a mere couple months ago for saying that "Google is not worth saving", and today, perhaps they'd agree with me.
Eventually, Google will cross a line that everyone considers too far. For me, it was several years ago. For this individual, it was yesterday. How long will Google have people there who still object to the behavior the company engages in? Where's your line?
The public needs to take this event as a canary in the coal mine. Congress needs to limit AI use in the military. If it took Google to scare everyone into finally regulating this, than so be it, but there needs to be transparency and oversight and limits imposed by democracies on this, just like regulations on chemical and biological weapons.
Perhaps we need an "AI Weapons Proliferation treaty" or something. But the future of war is automated drone killing machines, they're just way cheaper to built and deploy and less risky. You can build hundreds of automated drones for the cost of one B-2 bomber, and mount a saturation offense against any defender.
People need to widen their gaze from fixation on Silicon Valley. The problem is in Washington, the problem is a $700 billion defense budget, a war on terror, and extrajudicial drone assassinations. Everyday people on HackerNews are complaining about ad tracking, navel gazing their industry, meanwhile, they silently accept their own governments tracking people and killing them with hellfire missiles. (I get that people feel helpless with respect to resisting the military industrial complex and feel they can have some say over an industry they're more closing associated with, but I'm pretty sure there's plenty of HN readers who actually favor the US military empire)
I agree we need strict regulations on the use of AI in the military. It carries the same risks as nuclear weapons and chemical and biological weapons for disproportionate harm, but without the extreme cost.
"I'm pretty sure there's plenty of HN readers who actually favor the US military empire"
From the comments of many of the people defending Google's involvement in Project Maven, I am quite confident, unfortunately, that you are correct there as well.
In the last 10 years they have been the #1 place to work 6 of the last 10 years.
http://fortune.com/best-companies/2017/
http://reviews.greatplacetowork.com/2016-fortune-100-best-co...
http://fortune.com/best-companies/2015/
http://fortune.com/best-companies/2014/
So in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 it has been Google.
That does not just happen. Plus we have not had anyone else do it 2 years in a row let alone 6 straight years!
Plus a lot of engineers want to work someplace that is interested in the greater good.
So do things like what Google did in China with leaving instead of doing what was morally wrong for a buck.
Also a lot of the top engineers want to publish and share and Google allows their engineers to do this.
Google does tons of open source also which is attractive to engineers.
The younger people are much more into companies interested in the greater good then just to make a buck.
It is why you see Google on top of the list so often and a company like Microsoft way down on the list and do not think has ever been a top company?
Google more than most if we look at actions. The biggest was leaving China over principle and losing out on a ton of money versus Apple handing over their user data.
But there are so many more with Google. So many crazy ones.
Look at smartphones and Google continuing to give away Android for free. Even in China where there is not Google services and Google even lets Amazon use it for all their hardware.
Google doing this makes phones available to people that would not have the means otherwise. If just Apple they would be stuck.
But a huge one that is close to home is what Google has done for K12 in the US. Our school use to be all Apple but has now replaced the Apple with using Google for pretty much everything.
Our school is relatively wealthy but many are not has blessed as ours and Google offering ChromeOS for free and all the software makes it possible for these kids to have access to computer technology that without Google they would not.
But the big one for us is the analytics. Matching kids up to teachers is so,so,so important and can make a huge difference in a kids life. Previous it had been done by gut. Our school has moved to using the Google ecocystem and our school is a Google K12 showcase school. I forget what they call it. So they are working with our school to use analytics to match kid to teacher.
That just would never have happened or not for a long time without Google.
Also think about the schools that were using Microsoft before replacing with Google. We were lucky we had the money to buy Apple but some were not as lucky and the improvement will be far greater for the schools that were previously using Microsoft. Teachers have limited class time and Windows would cause them to lose a lot more class time dealing with silliness. Or more likely the laptops left in the corner has full of viruses and malware.
I can give countless other examples. Where would we be with data scientice without the Map/Reduce and GFS papers?
Why did Google give it away?
How about Borg and now we have K8s? Why did they give that away?
Or the source code to so many different systems. Or why on earth when you own the front and back end and come up with SPDY did you give it away? Then the standard group changes it and you still spend the money to make sure you are standard.
Probably one of the biggest is VP8 and VP9. The MPEG-LA was trying to exort us for license fees. Google not only gives away VP8 for free but then on top tells people they will protect them from patent infringement.
Google even gave it away to competitors.
Do you realize even though Google has tons and tons of IP they have not sued another company for infringement? I mean never! That helps all of us.
Waymo did go after Uber but that was not Google. I suspect Waymo will be handled differently as they are not giving everything away like Google.
The other case was a suit started by Moto before Google purchase that they let go.
Then we have Shellshock, Meltdown, Spectre, Heartbleed, Cloudbleed among others all found from Google.
Heck Google found the Cloudbleed bug and shared with Cloudflare for free including the mitigation even though they are freaking competitors!! Google spent money to help them. Now how on earth is that not morals? Doing the right thing? But what drives your posts?
Google shared the Meltdown mitigation with MS and Amazon so they could save money
I can not think of any tech company that has given back nearly as much as Google. So many times deciding to do what is right versus what would have made them a buck.
Can you name any company in history that has given back as much as Google? Look at the papers they have shared with things like Wavenet, and AlphaGo and BigTable and a big new one Google Beyond Corp and literally 100s of others?
Parc gave back a lot as well as Bell labs but if we look at the benefit to the industry I would say Google has given more. Part of it is the industry is also much bigger.
Long post but not what I care about. I am insanely curious by nature and I just have to know what drives the half truths over and over again you post on HN about Google?
Is it your job? Why?
It seems to be the only contribution you make to HN is to make something up or twist something over and over again.
Please share why?
Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17216633 also.
Am I allowed to refute when things said are not true? I will post with facts to support?
Perfect example is him posting all over that Google removed "do not be evil" from employee code of conduct.
Here is a link to the actual agreement. Please read the last line and what employees are left with.
https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html
"And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!"
Now this is a factual matter. Not an opinion. So him posting something that is blatantly untrue I am not allowed to refute with facts?
He does this same thing constantly.
Just looking for help how to handle someone that does this over and over again.
Thanks in advance!
Occasionally it happens that a user fees so strongly about a company that they have to comment about it every which way. For or against, this is a problem: it's repetitive and provokes worse. As I've tried to explain to you elsewhere, you've crossed the line with this Google stuff where you're not having a curiosity-driven conversation, but rather prosecuting an agenda and inundating the threads. Other users have been complaining about your comments for some time now. Lest you think we're favoring one side, I've said similar things to ocdtrekkie.
In the past, we've had to ban people who couldn't or wouldn't stop doing this. If you want to participate on HN, please remember the site's purpose: the gratification of intellectual curiosity. That's not an emotion that gets fixed on any single thing, and it flourishes with variety, not repetition.
Here is the agreement.
The very last statement is
"And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!"
https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html
How is that not a fact?
My issue is just things that a clearly, factually, untrue like the example above. NOT things that are opinion.
I love HN and it is a great source because we do NOT have people doing what ocdtrekkie does. But I feel things that are very, very black and white like the example I gave above should be allowed to be countered. Or better yet just NOT allowed.
(It doesn't matter that it's about Google—the same is true for any X. X just happens to be Google in this case, as it is with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214242. And when two of these get going on each other...hoo boy.)
The NSA programs disclosed by Snowden seem childish by comparison.
Maybe the next co. who fills the contract will be the one where the AI engineers who quit now work?
TLDR: Get the program killed, or control it on your terms ethically. Don't pass it off on the next highest bidder.
Note Nov 2017 was the first annual meeting: the law on this is literally being determined on the fly, so simply running from it rather than providing input and working to determine limits isn't very helpful.
https://www.icrc.org/en/document/expert-meeting-lethal-auton...
https://www.un.org/disarmament/publications/occasionalpapers...
Operation Meetinghouse, 1945: ~100,000 killed in 2 days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_194...
Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965-68: 30,000-100,000 killed over 3 YEARS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder
The numbers are all over the place for Pakistan drone strikes, but even the high-end estimates are <10,000 over the past 10 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._... https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/
Oh, and none of that will make a difference because a competitor of yours will pick up the slack and be in a position to offer really interesting work to attract and retain researchers.
I am still sure there are enough industrial, medical and civil applications for Google to work on, no need to resort to "photo albums" immediately.
Business works by creating a product that someone will pay for. Then they reinvest those profits, grow the company, etc to improve that product.
Maybe we’ll eventually get the robotic butler that consumers will pay for, but in the meantime the Apple II robotic/AI revolution has been a little slow to materialize.
The fact that everyone doesn't feel like they'd like to work on AI military drones doesn't even mean that they are opposed to them in principle.
How is it not OK for a company to collectively decide that maybe, even though killing machines are going to exist, they would rather not be the ones working on them?
There is more than enough work, money, and intellecutalism in bringing AI to medicine, safety, transportation, supply chain optimization, law, art, music, and many other applications.