Brought to you by the VC famous for InstallMonetizer? Make no mistake, it’ll basically back anything that makes money, there’s no moral high ground. And like it or not, this kind of AI (or should I say A-eye) is here to stay.
Yes. Quoting Paul Graham:
> Last week there was some controversy online about a company we funded called InstallMonetizer.
> They're working on something new, and all the office hours I had with them were about that. They're not even in our database of companies as InstallMonetizer but as the new thing. (I'm not sure if I can say the name because it may not be launched yet.) I knew they had some previous product that was called a Windows installer, but I don't think we ever talked about what it did. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5093047
YC has turned down many startups because they didn't think what the product was doing was right, and it has defunded and banned startups for ethical reasons over the years. It's not your fault that you didn't know this, since no one makes a big deal of it, but I think it's proper to bring it up when you say that the people at YC will "back anything that makes money".
I don’t have much against VCs investing in whatever makes money, to be honest, given how immoral the top dogs of this industry are to begin with, and I can’t claim I haven’t worked in an at least somewhat immoral company.
Edit: I only saw the second paragraph after a refresh. Sure, what I wrote about “back anything that makes money” was inaccurate so I should retract that, but I stand by the “no moral high ground” point.
Weapons development is at best helpful as it hopefully provides a deterrent to nefarious actors and at worst protects our interest as Americans if someone caused us to move beyond weapons as a "deterrent."
Pretending like national defense and development of weapons is a bad thing is hiding your head in sand and pretending that there's nobody that wants to hurt you.
Whose? Not mine.
To me, yours is the strange viewpoint. We have nukes and a massive air force. That is the bulk of the deterrence. Use good statesmanship and diplomacy and that covers the rest. Anything else being developed is for political suppression or fueling regional wars and imperial bullshit.
Further you have no evidence to back up your claim that anything outside of the Air Force and nukes are all that are required to properly deter threats.
I would imagine that you also have no credible evidence that "Anything else being developed is for political suppression or fueling regional wars and imperial bullshit."
If you don't want to be involved in developing weapons then that's fine, nobody is forcing you to do so. To claim someone as anti-ethical because they chose to do so in a legal way may be your opinion but surely not a fact.
> YC is funding weapon manufacturers lol. Where are the ethics there?
Circular reasoning? The reason we have a massive and more importantly effective air force is because weapons development occurred. It would not take very long at all for China to surpass the US in terms of air effectiveness if the US stopped working on defense projects.
Further weapon development just fuels arms races and puts the world in a worse place. That is why I find it unethical to fund it.
Also, btw, China already surpassed us despite all our spending. They are defining what a 6th gen fighter is, after all.