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Comment by credit_guy | Hacker News Reader

Maybe.

I would not do business with Kim Jong Un. He is murdering a lot of his own people. Or with Putin. He is murdering a lot of Ukrainians.

But guess what: both North Korea and Russia are under sanctions. You can't do business with them anyway.

But the UAE is not under sanctions. Which means that in the opinion of the US Government it is ok to do business with them. Then who is Open AI to say otherwise? Why should it be any of their concern to determine who is a good guy or a bad guy in the world? Shouldn't there be a division of responsibilities? Let the Department of State determine who is good and who is bad, and let companies do business with those who are not on the sanctions list.

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for a while the Pinochet regime was our perfectly acceptable ally in Chile, even though we knew he was a mass murderer. its silly to throw up your hands just because the state department (itself not exactly a bastion of morality) says that its not illegal to do business with someone.

Let me guess: you were against Bush's war in Iraq to take down Saddam. Why? Wasn't it moral to try to eliminate a known mass murderer?

Either is our duty to be the the moral arbiters of the world or it isn't. Which one is it?

We didn’t go in to Irag because Saddam was a mass murderer - we went in because Bush lied to America that Saddam was trying to get yellow cake uranium to build a bomb. A lot of Americans were against the war because we knew Saddam was not involved in 9/11 but Bush jr wanted to finish what his father couldn’t in the first gulf war. Honestly I would love it if we cared enough about mass murderers to actually go in and help, but I just don’t see that being a reason.

We tolerate quite a few mass murderers in charge of countries. We attacked that one because, supposedly, he had the tools and intent to attack the United States with chemical weapons.

Many were opposed to that war, not because they didn't feel it was right to eliminate a mass murderer, but because that was not the stayed reason. The stated reason in fact turned out to be false, and was arguably an abject lie.

In other words ... it's not a great example of what you're trying to claim.

We tolerate quite a few mass murderers in charge of countries

including our own…

US was never a moral arbiter, isn't and will never be. Plenty of spaces would have been better of without US involvement

One can be against a war and at the same time be against the government that war would remove. We killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, many of those troops were conscripts who didn't want to be there, yet we bulldozed them into the sand to suffocate, or burned them alive on the highway while they retreated.

There are more than two answers to everything.

> Wasn't it moral to try to eliminate a known mass murderer?

Given the context and the means. No.

Obviously that’s not true. Pinochet and Saddam were both direct product of US policy and intervention.

At the, end, Saddam ultimately pulled too hard on the leash and miscalculated his power. Murder, mass or otherwise and morality has little bearing on matters of empire.

Thinking otherwise is naive.

Because the war killed literally hundreds of thousands of people, and one can reasonably argue that while Saddam was bad, the overall amount of suffering caused by the war was worse than his excesses.

> Why should it be any of their concern to determine who is a good guy or a bad guy in the world?

Because helping someone do something bad is itself bad.

> Shouldn't there be a division of responsibilities?

It sounds like you mean an abdication of responsibility? We are already responsible for our own choices and actions, as well as their effects.

No, I'm not talking about abdication of responsibility. I'm talking about modesty. It is very appealing to think you know better than other people. That we know how a society should be governed, and we are able to label another country as totalitarian, or undemocratic, or illiberal, or such. But looking around the world, you can see that a lot of evil is perpetrated exactly by people who think they know better than everyone else. Osama bin Laden himself thought that what he was doing was for the advancement of good over evil, and a lot of his followers thought the same.

A lot of the people reading Hacker News right now think they have a better solution for the societal problems of the UAE. I personally have no idea about what's going on over there. But let's say that I'm in charge of the business decisions at Open AI. Should I start thinking that I know a way to solve their problems, and part of that way is for my company to apply some form of AI embargo on them? Or should I simply know my limitations, and restrict my judgment to the matters I am familiar with.

"Abdication of responsibility". What grand words. Why exactly has Open AI a responsibility to guide the UAE towards a better future? And, more importantly, why should Open AI feel confident that they know what is better for the UAE?

> I'm talking about modesty.

And I am talking about not doing bad things, which includes helping others do bad things.

> It is very appealing to think you know better than other people.

Not really. Responsibility, principles, and morality are work. It's far more appealing to claim they are someone else's job, dispense with them, turn your brain off, and do whatever feels good.

> A lot of the people reading Hacker News right now think they have a better solution for the societal problems of the UAE.

With all due respect, the percentage of HackerNews readers who are thinking about the UAE right now can be counted on one hand. This discussion is about generalities: Don't help people do bad stuff.

You're arguing about what's bad, and what isn't, and who decides. Interesting topic (perhaps for someone else or for another time)! Would you help someone do something which you think is bad?

> Would you help someone do something which you think is bad?

I wouldn’t. But this is not the question here. The question here is if I would give someone a powerful tool that can be used for good, for neutral or for bad things, if I believe that there is a good chance it will be used for bad things. That puts a lot of responsibility on me to get into the business of predicting bad behavior.

> That puts a lot of responsibility on me to get into the business of predicting bad behavior.

Not a ton: you don't need to come up with a numerical probability, and erring on the side of caution is just fine.

That said, I think that IS the question here. If you think it's good or even neutral to give autocrats technology which they almost certainly will use for autocracy (even if they do other things with it), then this isn't a moral dilemma you need concern yourself with.

> If you think it's good or even neutral to give autocrats technology which they almost certainly will use for autocracy (even if they do other things with it), then this isn't a moral dilemma you need concern yourself with.

In the West, we have the attitude that autocracy is bad, if only autocrats were not helped by us, they'll fall and they'll be replaced by democracy, and perhaps by crowds singing in unison Beetles' "Imagine". In reality, democracy is a very unlikely outcome of a dictator being toppled. The top 2 outcomes, by miles and miles, are 1. the dictator is replaced by another dictator and 2. the dictator is replaced by some weak pseudo-state like Somalia, Lebanon or Yemen.

I think we should re-calibrate our self-confidence that we know what's best for others. As I said, I have no idea who is governing the UAE, but I know that it's much easier to criticize them than to come with a realistic better alternative.

> In the West, we have the attitude that autocracy is bad

Many other places, too. Obviously it's not a universal thing: every sufficiently large group of people has fans of autocracy. There has historically been evolutionary advantages to wanting a big, strong hand to control everything. Any alternative has not had sufficient time to evolutionarily propagate through humans.

The rest of your post kind of veers off-topic, so remember we're talking about individual people's decision to not work on something based on their own judgements. I don't think it's worth arguing at them that their judgements are wrongly made.

Again, If you think it's good or even neutral to give autocrats technology which they almost certainly will use for autocracy (even if they do other things with it), then this isn't a moral dilemma you need concern yourself with. Nobody is trying to convince you personally to change your morals. So, as long as you don't try to change theirs, there is no need to be defensive.

> I think we should re-calibrate our self-confidence that we know what's best for others.

I think a good place to start with this, would be to be less confident that you know what's best for others who are deciding whether to empower autocrats. It's much easier to criticize them and their decision, than to come with a realistic, better alternative.

You've got it backwards. Open AI wants to do business with the UAE. A lot of the people here think this is bad, and you are one of them. I am saying: Open AI is engaging in business that is legal as far as the US laws are involved, because the UAE are not under sanctions. We (the US) are a democracy, and the US government acts as a representative of our collective will. As a democracy we decided, through our representatives, that is ok to do business with the UAE, otherwise we'd have sanctions on them. I am ok with that, and I was pointing out that private businesses should concern themselves with doing business, and the State Department should be trusted with making the value decision if a regime is autocratic enough that the US wants to put is on its sanctions list.

You think for some reason that this type of position is one of arrogance. That I should show modesty and let people, such as yourself, criticize Open AI for getting in bed with autocrats. And if myself I have no problem with autocrats, then I should just keep out of this, because nobody around here asked for my opinion.

But this is very backward. When Jesus said that only those who never wronged in their life should throw a stone, one could retort that only people who never wronged should tell other people what to do with the stones they find on the street. Does that type of argument make sense to you?

you're confusing what is legal with what is moral – the two dimensions are orthogonal

importantly, we are not forced to adopt the morality of 1 particular government, out of hundreds of thousands – this is an appeal to authority (and not even a good authority)

if someone thinks that empowering autocrats is immoral, even if it's not illegal, then it is indeed arrogance to say that you have decided their morality is wrong

> You think for some reason... That I should show modesty and let people, such as yourself, criticize Open AI for getting in bed with autocrats

not really: modesty in judging others was your suggestion. you can stand by your suggestion or not, but you don't have the power to "let" or not "let" anybody criticize autocrats or their enablers

remember here: them criticizing autocrats and their enablers, is equally valid to you criticizing them for their criticism; which is equally valid to others criticizing you for criticizing their criticism; etc... we could keep going, but as you undoubtedly see, there is no good discussion to be had in the meta-direction of criticizing criticism, rather than directly addressing the issues raised in the initial critique

as for the jesus analogy: I wish I could follow it, but I could not, likely due to a failing on my part (I'm not familiar with jesus) -- would you mind rephrasing the point as a non-analogy (directly)? perhaps an analogy won't be necessary because the message is clear!

> Why exactly has Open AI a responsibility to guide the UAE towards a better future?

OpenAI is not responsible for UAE government. However, it's responsible for its own actions, and for their easily predictable consequences.

> should I simply know my limitations, and restrict my judgment to the matters I am familiar with

Sure, but the course of action that best reflects this is to not get involved in such business at all (because you just admitted that you're incapable of judging its consequences).

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