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Comment by unethical_ban | Hacker News Reader

I am dumbfounded at how many people are missing his point.

- When airplanes came out, their first application was military.

- When networks and computers came out, their first application was military.

- When satellites were first developed, their first application was military.

A.I. has a lot of uses, but it is another new technology, a whole new field of computer science that is rapidly evolving and has clear, identifiable military applications. And its early stage of development means that each breakthrough can pose a strategic military advantage.

This is true whether you agree with his point about the morality of Google partnering with China.

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New medicines also find their way into militaries. Should we hoard those?

What about agricultural technology? Modern farming methods feed a billion people, but armies march on their stomachs. Should they all go hungry?

Funny you bring up the meds thing.

One of the problems that just surfaced in the news yesterday is the realization that almost all prescription meds are manufactured in China. The risk that poses to the US population and DoD is incalculable. How do we get off China meds?

I note you avoided the question.

In your view, should we hoard medical technology? Doing so will lead to countless unnecessary deaths and tremendous suffering. Is that worth it in your eyes to preserve a military advantage?

It is also clear that not every technology is permanently hoarded or seen exclusively as a military advantage.

If the Chinese were known to have stockpiles of Mustard Gas (a bio weapon not otherwise applicable to civilian life), then perhaps the US having exclusive knowledge of a cure or preventative substance would be a military advantage.

Your premise is that AI at its current stage is equivalent to a cure for cancer. I disagree.

A few points.

First, mustard gas is not a bioweapon. It's a chemical agent. There will never be a cure because it's like saying that you have a cure for fire.

Second, the point raised above is that things like food preservation technology implicitly confer military advantage. The same is true of many lifesaving medical technologies, especially things like celox that treat trauma.

And then there's cryptography. I find it hard to believe that you (or anyone on HN) support Joe Biden's approach to restrictions there. But that's quite clearly a dual use technology.

Finally, I never said it was equivalent to a cure for cancer. I don't believe that, and it's disingenuous to put words in my mouth. But things like self driving cars probably will actually save lives, and even independent of that I think it's worth examining very critically what restrictions we as a free society are willing to impose to gain military advantage.

No. Med tech should be as abundant as can be. But with AI there too many unknowns we're still figuring out. How to defend networks against AI attacks, hardening in general, how to handle the containment problem, the proliferation of deep fakes, deep truth and decerning between the two. And what that means at different levels. What are the critical points? What's the optimal path?

Dropping the hyperbole for a second.

Is there a line for ML (what we're erroneously calling AI here) where you think sharing it is appropriate? Self driving car tech could certainly save a great many lives; is it more reasonable to share the next Viagra than to save those people?

Selling them cars and chips is fine, to a degree. That's different than transferring IP and giving them independent capability because you can stop selling to them if need be.

Not sure if you've ever been to China, but suffice to say that IP law is really not a major issue there. Reverse engineering ICs is very common, and basically the only thing really stopping that from happening for top end ICs is that RE time eats into profits.

Yes, fake chips have been a problem too, polluting the supply space. All the more reason to protect and verify IP. There's new tech for that. Maybe the next big thing. Hardware verified. Authenticity.

The problem for your argument isn't the parts that don't work, it's the ones that do-- and there are plenty of them.

You keep seeing the part while missing the whole. Kick your perspective up a level, and maybe you'll put it together.

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