Microsoft Staff: Do Not Use HoloLens for War

I think that's a false dichotomy. Office software is general purpose, and maybe the military buys it like everyone else. AR gear for soldiers is not general purpose.

Similarly, criminals and non-criminals alike use public roads and internet, but only one of those groups would have need of a weapon with a ground-off serial number, for example.

So is the point the buyer, or the purpose?

Exactly. So is Linux, C++, and Java. I remember being at a conference where this was discussed ages ago. The speaker was describing a colleague chastising her for working on code for a guidance system. He had helped develop a mouse, which she pointed out was also used throughout the military. It’s good that there are people who do not want to find more and more better ways to blow each other up, but disingenuous to try to ban a particular technology. If MS doesn’t get the contracts, someone else will. Some exceptions-nuclear and maybe autonomous AI. But even the later seems inevitable. AR will either be a flop or ubiquitous, and so you can’t prevent that any more than Englebert could prevent the mouse being used for military purposes.

How about we start at someplace obvious like not assisting people carrying weapons from blowing other peoples brains out. Or marking people who need to be murdered on a projected display. That seems pretty obvious to me. We can even extend it to not being used by people who's job description involves killing foreigners (including countrymen of many Microsoft employees) on command.

We can refine from there.

What's more, it's extremely naive to work in big tech like Microsoft or Google and not expect your work to be used by military some day.

I see no objections regarding use for porn in the article.

What is the ethical consideration here? Augmented reality headsets aren't weapons.

I find it unrefreshing to see employees warping something benign to achieve personal attention. This is a fight in search of a subject.

Do something is better than do nothing.

... said some person about every single strike action, protest, etc. Yet it only depends on whether you can get a critical mass behind your idea.

It did at Google

I’d say your paranoia and justification for any tool to be used for a potential unknown threat deserves to get discounted like a child’s

Yes it would be better for the world if the US took a more collaborative approach with other regional powers that it disagrees with

Interesting thought experiment: if you think of the military as a business - then you’re basically advocating for the US to have a monopoly on military power.

> deserves to have their opinions discounted like children.

Although I agree with your general sentiment, there's no need for ad hominem attacks like this.

The problem with current weapon systems is that they are too powerful. The US military is now primarily focusing on weaker but more precise guided weapons to avoid collateral damage.

Since you said "for the world", I'll just point the obvious counter-argument - given how politically unpalatable large troop losses have become since Vietnam, less asymmetry in favor of the U.S. military might well make the kind of military adventures the world generally detests substantially less likely. Of course, given what we now know regarding the depth and quality of post-invasion planning for Iraq, it's questionable whether there would be any meaningful difference.

Then there's the other counter-argument with respect to Russia and China - and it's the same argument that was used against Reagan's SDI (when a few still thought some of it might work) and any meaningful ABM system. Namely, that inducing too much asymmetry in specific areas provides incentives for the potential opponents to engage in much riskier behavior, develop asymmetrical first strike measures, etc. Less relevant now than it was 30-40 years ago, but not without any merit (recall the recent Russian announcements regarding their new missile programs).

So your idea is that if maybe China/Russia(or the adversary of the day) does this then anyone should do it.

Even if China does not do it, does anyone else should do it anyway to be on top of China. Do you draw a line anywhere? like should everyone research weapons forever to try to get/remain on top?

My second point is even if you go ahead and do weapons let the people speak and have a debate, telling us that having more weapons is good is dogma IMO, debating this dogma and respecting the people that don't want to create weapons should be a given in a free society.

The US military has killed far more civilians and promoted far more terror around the world than the Russian Federation or Al Qaeda. Your belief that war is good when enacted by your country is so childlike that it is literally promoted by cartoons and action films aimed at children.

When a company finishes developing a weapon for one purpose, it thinks of all the other possible ways to profit from it, then you have several million reasons not to turn down foreign countries because of those "pesky ethical questions".

This isn't a theoretical discussion, because people are already selling combat technology based on HoloLens outside of the US.

Not really, because they need to keep HoloLens inside the company. They could create a subsidiary which buys HoloLenses and sells them to the government, but that would still mean that Microsoft is taking a contract to sell the units.

The only attack on american soil I can recall is Pearl Habor...

Almost invariably, to provide the american military with hardware is to arm an offensive force.

Luckily they are also completely free to use that leverage to pressure their employees to try to change decisions.

And are not free to speak? The only option is to shut up and resign?

They're all there on H1Bs so the soldiers aren't really defending the workers' countries

> help their soldiers defend their own country

When is the last time the US military actually "defended" its own territory/country, heck even just its own continent? How does droning people in Pakistan, and having troops stationed in Syria "help" with "defending" the US?

Even worse: This kind of logic is then used by NATO allies to justify their own partaking in US foreign military adventures. That's how the Germans "protective military" ended up "Protecting freedom at the Hindukush" [0].

[0] https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/protecting-freedom-at-t...

They're also completely free to protest, luckily.