I don't think that's an argument. The truth is, even if the particular applications of AI to tasks like this are innocuous in this case, they're less than a stone's throw away from things that aren't. Uses like this for technology are a perfect example of things we (we, the tech community, who have always prided ourselves on being more fair and ethical than the rest of the world) all promised we would never do. There is no more of a perfect mis-application of AI tech than to military uses. It doesn't matter if the military is currently only "counting people" in video footage. We all know exactly where it will eventually lead. Counting people will turn into finding people. Finding people will turn into killing people. We can't mince words in our condemnation of this activity.

Just because Google or the military say the tech won't be used to target and kill people doesn't mean it's true.

The letter that I read[1] states:

"Recently, Googlers voiced concerns about Maven internally. Diane Greene responded, assuring them that the technology will not “operate or fly drones” and “will not be used to launch weapons.” While this eliminates a narrow set of direct applications, the technology is being built for the military, and once it’s delivered it could easily be used to assist in these tasks."

and:

"Building this technology to assist the US Government in military surveillance – and potentially lethal outcomes – is not acceptable."

So the concern seems to be that the military can easily repurpose Google's technology to lethal ends.

[1] - https://static01.nyt.com/files/2018/technology/googleletter....

The response to that is in the article:

> While a Google spokesperson says the program is "scoped for non-offensive purposes," a letter signed by almost 4,000 Google employees took issue with this assurance, saying, "The technology is being built for the military, and once it's delivered, it could easily be used to assist in [lethal] tasks."

If the object and intent recognition is made fast enough, and is able to be sent to and from a drone in flight, then the technology can be re-purposed offensively, regardless of its initial purpose.

Once Google engineers have trained an algorithm to interpret a video feed to determine when people enter and exit buildings, what do you think the very next step is? It will be applied to live video for use in determining where a target is located in order to kill him.

...crunch the data so that they can more effectively kill at a distance and without public accountability

Are there many AI opportunities out there without potential military use? Warfare is a broad-spectrum human activity. I'm having trouble imagining many things that can't be leveraged.

IANAAIExpert, but it seems that many such jobs might have questionable ethical implications?

Google does not hire AI people exclusively.

IIRC, original Recaptcha was about OCR of books that weren't readable. I'm not sure why anyone uses it right now. Like you said, it's obvious where it's going. Not to mention that it's increasingly annoying for users.

If the US army had or was easily able to build this they would probably not pay large sums of money to Google. There are still many challenges in creating scalable robust solutions using machine learning in computer vision, especially when high degrees of response time and robustness is needed.

Looks like they are taking a stand by signing that pledge.

There is one section on resigning:

> If we discover misuse of data that we consider illegal or unethical in our organizations:

> ...

> If we do not have such authority, and our organizations force us to engage in such misuse, we will resign from our positions rather than comply.

From what I have seen, Google's help with the Pentagon seems limited to software consulting. If Google had shared any data with the Pentagon for military purposes then it would have crossed a line for the pledge.

The pledge says to try to fix it through: working with colleagues/leaders; then whistleblowing; then legal defenses if they have the authority; then resignation.

> "and technology which improves the effectiveness of killing terrorists and enemy combatants (and thus saving American lives) is a good thing."

There are other than American lives at stake. I suppose what you say would be true, if the U.S. used the technology to kill only those universally bad terrorists and if this somehow significantly decreased the damage terrorists do around the world.

But this is fantasy. The U.S. will most probably use this technology to detect more and to kill more, with much less regard to foreign lives than to American lives. If the technology flags a building that most probably contains a terrorist, the non-terrorist people present won't matter much to a drone whose work is killing terrorists. The building with all people near it will be gone. I do not believe the U.S. government or U.S. military care about the lives of poor people who are on the other side of the world.

Drone attacks also probably aren't that good of a service to U.S. in the long term. They generate strong opposition world-wide and probably also generate new terrorists. Killing one terrorist now in this way may mean creating 10 terrorists 10 years from now.

I'm thinking that they have a problem with the military, period, and don't think soldiers should have been in Iraq etc in the first place. Its an issue of trust.

And then you have the argument that if you reduce the human cost of wars, you make wars more likely.

This is a very good comment and perspective. I am not a vet and don't have anything close to the experiences that it seems that you have. That being said, many of my friends and roommates from college are in active duty military positions, and it's scary to hear when they're being deployed.

Even though a program like this might save some lives in the short term, training machines that don't have empathy and can be programmed for whatever means to kill seems like a Pandora's Box that we should be damn sure we want to open before actually doing so.

Also, my apologies for the less-than-respectful replies that you are getting. You should not be chastised for respectfully sharing an important opinion, and their behavior is unbecoming of what we should expect of American citizens.

There's also precious little understanding of the fact that the US isn't the only high-tech military power in the world, and that there's nothing stopping countries like Russia and China from developing this kind of technology. And you're a fool if you think they would use that technology more ethically than the US military.

Not are many Google employers American or European. So if I were of e.g. Russian or Chinese nationality, I would not want to partake into activity that in all likelihood can be used to advance 'wrong' interests.

On another note, how about everyone that works for Intel, or ARM or in any of the EDA companies? Or on Open Source? Should they all quit unless their comfortable being accomplice to creation of machines of mayhem? Or what about everyone that works for BoA or Wells Fargo - how can you in good faith work for the companies that have again and again shown to engage in questionable business practices? Oil companies neither have ever engaged in questionable activities in Africa and elsewhere - how can people work or them? And then there are medical, forest, make-up and, well pretty much every other major industry. Full of people who choose to put their moral obligations a side. Never mind us wearing clothes and such that are result of child labor and such.

Unfortunately they’re also very effective at killing foreign nationals with nothing to do with any conflict. And if you reply with the weasel words “collateral damage” then, with all due respect, fuck you. (Sorry dang, I’ll take any downvotes as deserved, but this comment is unacceptable in my eyes).

Well if they had very intelligent engineers that leveraged their positions and knowledge for work that is directly opposing their personal views, yes.

Your argument is: "By making war more efficient/effective, we will reduce its use."

Say a government only has nuclear bombs in its arsenal and they really want an enemy of the state dead. Do you think they're willing to nuke an entire city to kill one person?

Now imagine a government has electronic kill switches. Imagine it being almost like The Matrix, they can just flip your life off at the flick of a button. Do you think they willing to just flick off the lives of anyone who they don't like?

You're effectively arguing that the latter is better than the former. Societies use more of a technology the far down the learning curve development goes and the cheaper the technology is. If there is no cost to violence, violence will be endless.

> I'm staunchly opposed to war, but understand it's unfortunate necessity under certain extreme circumstances.

> If these types of projects make war machines more precise overall, they may actually decrease overall collateral damage and reduce the total time war is waged which could cause less lives to be lost during war.

"I'm staunchly opposed to beating my children, but understand it's unfortunate necessity under certain extreme circumstances.

If these types of projects make child beatings more precise overall, they may actually decrease overall harm to children...."