Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

It does says they still don't allow developing weapons with it,

> “use our service to harm yourself or others” and gives “develop or use weapons” as an example, but the blanket ban on “military and warfare” use has vanished.

so Lockheed and co won't be able to use it for most of their military projects. I don't personally see an issue with this change in policy given what you said: the vast vast majority of usecases is just mundane office spreadsheet stuff and the worrying stuff like AI powered drones is disallowed (DARPA has that covered anyway).

Americans, and every other country's, citizens all pay for the inefficiency of the large defense departments. A slightly more efficient DoD office drone isn't exactly a more dangerous world IMO.

View on HN

Making the DoD more efficient is absolutely dangerous, given the current state of things where Israel is being tried for war crimes in international courts & primary western media outlets only shows their defense, not the prosecution's case. When the president is unilaterally ordering strikes against Yemen because they make shipping more expensive for Israel.

Making this killing machine more efficient at doing anything besides dying or self-dismantlement is harmful to liberation around the world.

That's not what happened. A huge percentage of all global shipping got diverted, and US ships were attacked. This is literally --- literally, using the literal meaning of the word "literal" --- the oldest cassus belli in the American playbook (and the Barbary War was declared unilaterally by the executive); further, it is essentially the entire basis for international law, back to Mare Liberum (this is a point I shoplifted from someone else). This is about the most normal thing that could have happened in these circumstances.

If it matters to you, Congress has already unequivocally signaled unanimous support. That's how this works under 50 USC 33: the executive can launch attacks unilaterally with 48 hours notices (here it was negative hours notice), thus giving Congress the opportunity to pass a joint resolution ending the strikes. The opposite thing happened.

Adding onto your point, attacking civilian merchant shipping in international waters is piracy, and one of the most ancient traditions of international law is that pirates are considered hostis humani generis—enemies of mankind. Any nation that cares to do so has the traditional legal right to dispose of pirates by any means necessary.

"because they make shipping more expensive for Israel."

That is an extremely slanted view of the situation. The Houthis attacked plenty of ships belonging to (de iure or de facto) multiple nations and carrying plenty of someone else's cargo, thus disrupting about 12 per cent of the total volume of global trade. They aren't even trying to enforce a specific blockade ( blockade is act of war, but it must be limited to very specific cargo/ships).

That is piracy 101 and pirates have been generally considered enemies of mankind since at least Antiquity.

"liberation around the world."

Yeah, like the way the Russians are "liberating" Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Without the Western militaries and their help, they could have "liberated" the entire Ukraine into one big smouldering heap of ruins.

It seems you have it out for the US and Israel specifically, which is certainly a take, but not a very well rounded one. If you were, say, against the use of this particular technology for any military, that would be one thing, but you seem to only want the US DoD to not have it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com