It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue.<p>When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds.<p>Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic and not moral grounds. To do so, they have to couch it in language clarifying that they would love to support war, actually, except for these two narrow exceptions. And their careful word choice suggests that they are either navigating or expect to navigate significant blowback for asking for two narrow exceptions.<p>My, the world has changed.
There's an old German short film called <i>Nicht löschbares Feuer</i> (Inextinguishable Fire, 1969)[1] that I'm fond of. It was a protest film against Napalm and how some companies wouldn't really let their employees know what they were actually working on.<p><i>"I am a worker and I work in a vacuum cleaner factory. My wife could use a vacuum cleaner. That's why everyday I pick up a piece. At home I try to assemble the vacuum cleaner. But however I try, it always becomes a sub-machine gun.</i><p><i>...</i><p><i>This vacuum cleaner can become a useful weapon. This sub-machine gun can become a useful household appliance.</i><p><i>What we produce it depends on the workers, students, and engineers."</i><p>That last line is still very relevant today.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnpLS4ct2mM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnpLS4ct2mM</a>
Fun fact:<p>DOW Chemical was producing Agent Orange, but was getting a ton of public pushback - so bad it decided to stop production, forcing the Pentagon to look for an alternative supplier.<p>That supplier? A German privately owned pharmaco called Boehringer-Ingelheim. It's Chairman at the time? Richard von Weizsäcker, future President of Germany.<p>The production site was in Hamburg, is contaminated for the next thousand years. Boehringer is legally forced to operate pumps to prevent the dioxins in that site from reaching the water table. If those did, it would wipe out the full population.<p>Oh those righteous Germans.<p>Disclosure - Boehringer denies the above:
<a href="https://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/boehringer-ingelheim-did-not-manufacture-agent-orange" rel="nofollow">https://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/boehringer-ingelheim-di...</a><p>Judge for yourself.<p>NIH on Exposure, AO and BI:
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK230789/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK230789/</a><p>Deeper dive on that BI Hamburg site:
<a href="https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/consumer-health/dioxin-causes-chloracne-west-german-chemical-workers" rel="nofollow">https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/consumer-health/diox...</a>
Nitpick here:<p>They didnt produce the final Agent Orange, they produced on of the materials needed for Agent Orange:<p>2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic
Bhopal disaster comes to mind.
This sounds like the plot to the story Johnny Cash tells in One Piece at a Time, minus the machine gun, of course.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZuJivIwV8o" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZuJivIwV8o</a>
This question has been boiling in my brain for quite a long time.<p>Consider a hypothetical scenario where one spy chinese or russian programmer working in Google or Meta might have siphoned off (copied and uploaded) all the important code (Monorepo) to the Mothership and all of us are now sitting ducks.<p>I am sure, this question might have crossed your minds. I have no idea. if blueprints for the TPU chip design could get leaked, imagine what might have already happened?
That kinda happened already in 2009. See <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora</a><p>Industrial espionage also was publicly disclosed around the plans for the joint strike fighter. <a href="https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/july/chinas-cyber-economic-warfare-threatens-us" rel="nofollow">https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/july/chinas-...</a><p>I’m sure in the classified arena there are a lot more examples.
Minor point but this doesn't only have to be russian/chinese spies but rather this can be anybody including say the UK/Israel or even countries which can be considered "allies"<p>I'd also be surprised if this code isn't already available with the US forces too and sometimes the enemy can be from within too.
> it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds.<p>(spoiler alert)<p>Wasn't this one of the plot points of the Val Kilmer movie <i>Real Genius</i>? They had to trick the students into creating a weapon by siloing them off from each other and having them build individual but related components? How far we've fallen! Nobody has to take ethics during undergrad anymore I guess...
>I’m going to tell you about how I took a job building software to kill people.<p>>But don’t get distracted by that; I didn’t know at the time.<p>Caleb Hearth: "Don't Get Distracted" <a href="https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted" rel="nofollow">https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted</a>
Also in <i>Good Will Hunting</i>, when Will (Matt Damon) delivers a scathing job rejection to the NSA.<p>1997. The War on Terror has a lot to answer for.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/tH0bTpwQL7U" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/tH0bTpwQL7U</a>
The late 90s were full of media that questioned reality and authority - like X-Files, The Matrix, Dark City, all sorts of websites about conspiracy theories and UFOs, etc. The zeitgeist was full of speculation about hidden truths. The cultural mood was defiant and sardonic. There was rap, rap-rock, Beavis and Butthead, Fight Club, Office Space... One of the most popular pro wrestlers in the world played a character who beat up his boss and gave him the middle finger. Then after 9/11 it kinda seemed like suddenly the TV shows were all about cops and soldiers. Admittedly, my memories might be somewhat deceiving me. But I do feel that the mood suddenly shifted, much more than the actual damage done to America by the attack should have justified.
The late 90s were also a time of Law & Order, The West Wing, Apollo 13, and Saving Private Ryan.<p>And today is a time of Andor and Succession....
To be fair, West Wing, Apollo 13, and Saving Private Ryan all have very strong counter-authority veins.
Gen-X was making the popular new art at the time. It was a strong reflection of the feelings of our generation. We were (maybe still are?) known for not liking authority.
> Gen-X was making the popular new art at the time. It was a strong reflection of the feelings of our generation.<p>I posted this in a thread about the 90's film 'Hackers'.....<p>In the 1990's and for us Gen-X'ers, the worst thing you could do was to sell out; to take the mans money instead of keeping your integrity. Calling people and bands 'sell outs' (sometimes without justification!) was to insult them.<p>With the rise of 'influencers' the opposite appears to be the case; people go out of their way to sell out and are praised for doing so. This is a massive change in the cultural landscape which perhaps many born in the 2000's aren't aware of. (Being aware of this helps give some perspective to Gen-X media and films like Hackers).<p>BTW: Remember the 'product scene' in the film Waynes World?
Ethics are easy when you can afford food.<p>Post 2000s there has been a pretty fundamental change in the US economy. Things like rent and food were far cheaper. There was also a lot of potential income to be made by individuals by connecting buyers and sellers. Typically if you wanted to sell something like a car, you either went to a dealer that screwed you, or you put and ad in the local paper. If you watched around you could quickly buy cheap cars and turn them quickly for more than enough profit to make it worth while.<p>The internet quickly flattened this. First by pulling all the buyers and sellers on one advertising site it quickly turned into the fastest with the most capital won. Then the sites themselves figured out they should be the middle man keeping buying up the stock and selling it.<p>There has also been a huge consolidation to just a few players in many markets. This consolidation and many times algorithmic collusion has lead to the general ratcheting of prices higher. When you start adding things in like 'too big to fail' the market becomes horrifically unbalanced to large protected capital with unlimited funds from the money printing machine.<p>It's no wonder we quickly dropped ethics, most of us would starve to death in the system we've created.
Reality Bites captures the zeitgeist well.<p>I think the money craze that came with dot.com, War on Terror spending, housing bubble, really flipped people into money at all costs.
As Gen-Xer I fully agree, I don't get the way things are with obedience, the rediculous situation that American families can lose their kids by having them playing alone in the garden, how everyone sells out for money (Punk would not happen today), the always smile and say no negatives at work being rediculous false (this one really drives me crazy),....
I was absolutely disgusted by stuff like 24 and zero dark thirty when it came out. "If you cut the throat of the terrorist's son he'll break down and tell you where the bomb is" - they expected the audience to treat that as plausible narrative, and a lot of them clearly did.<p>A lot of the war propaganda from back then is also depressingly similar to what gets pumped out now: you can't argue with success, you don't want to be on the <i>losers'</i> side do you?
To give 24 some credit, it showed some Americans as complicit in the terrorism or corruption in the story. ZDT also touched on how torture wasn't as effective as assumed. I agree that the broader themes often feel biased/propagandized, framing the anti-hero, who's basically acting as a proxy for the government, as justified at almost any cost.
Similarly in the pilot episode of Designated Survivor. "Let's nuke Teheran" was seen as a valid, and brilliant, tactical move in order to get negotiations with Iran to go Kiefer Sutherland's way.
Add The Thirteenth Floor and eXistenZ to the initial list of movies.
> Then after 9/11 it kinda seemed like suddenly the TV shows were all about cops and soldiers.<p>There were some rare exceptions like Veep
<p><pre><code> > Beavis and Butthead, ... Office Space
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Mike Judge still does. Serendipitously there's a show called <i>Silicon Valley</i>... I also enjoyed the more recent <i>Common Side Effects</i>. But you even see it in <i>King of the Hill</i> and it's hard to miss in <i>Idiocracy</i>.
The release date of the show 24 is fun.
No, you're right, and I distinctly remember the conspiracy theorists and counter culture thinkers immediately circling around "this is going to be used to restrict our freedom." And of course they were absolutely right.<p>I also remember it was the worse possible cultural faux paux to indicate you thought invading foreign nations wasn't a good response to 9/11. I mean go look at the votes for invasion of Iraq, damn near 2/3 of both the house and Senate in favor. Every radio blaring patriotic songs, every school doing patriotic projects, every brown kid living in hell.<p>It sucked, bad.
You're right.<p>And the military in movies used to be depicted as inflexible, stubborn, paranoid, incompetent, and usually either "the bad guys" or authorities that impeded the progress of the main characters. (With exceptions; I'm not forgetting about Top Gun).<p>Then there was a sudden switch, with the military shown with cool gadgets, airplanes, tech, heroics, and generally being glorified. The transition must have happened before the first Transformers, but it was in full swing by then.<p>Were one of a conspiratorial mind, one would guess massive amounts of money were spent in changing this image.
No conspiracy necessary. The CIA bought the rights to the 1954 film Animal Farm, modified the ending to fit propagandist ends, and it went undiscovered for four decades. The original Top Gun was intended to recover the image of the US Navy after the Vietnam War. Etc etc etc.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93entertainment_complex" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93entertainment...</a>
Please lets also not forget computer games. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, oh what a glorious thing to be an american soldier...
So, no conspiracy <i>theory</i> necessary.
> No conspiracy necessary. The CIA bought the rights to the 1954 film Animal Farm, modified the ending to fit propagandist ends,<p>yea, I remember reading the book and then watching the movie and it had differences iirc, its available on youtube for free and I remember some comments talking about the different ending.<p>IIRC, in the movie, the animals finally kick the pigs out and everything. It was a good ending.<p>but in the book, there was not a good ending, the humans and the pigs were celebrating together and then ended up fighting in between each other<p>> Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.<p>This is the last paragraph I found from the book (had to download it via archive.org to find the last para)<p>So am I correct or is there more to the story?
Just rewatched Buffalo Soldiers with Joaquin Phoenix. Really don't think that movie could be made today.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93entertainment_complex" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93entertainment...</a>
If you are waiting until undergraduate level to take ethics, it's far too late to matter anyways.<p>Doubly so for "business ethics" classes which became à la mode in the post-Enron era. They attempt to teach fundamental ethics, when at <i>most</i> it should be a very thin layer on top of a well founded internal moral framework and well-accepted ethical standards inculcated from day 1 of kindergarten.<p>Morals are taught 0-9 [0], Ethics perhaps slightly later as it requires more complex thought processes.<p>[0] <a href="https://familiesforlife.sg/pages/fflparticle/Young-Children-Developing-Core-Values" rel="nofollow">https://familiesforlife.sg/pages/fflparticle/Young-Children-...</a>
Exactly. But, I would add ethics comes from worldview. The idea of teaching some sort of “secular” ethics has never made sense to me … even if you could pull it off it would never stick. Education is meant to make moral people, and that requires transcendent moral principles that come from somewhere outside of us — namely YHWH, our creator. Anything else is merely borrowing from our worldview — which is good as far as it goes but will always fall short.
<p><pre><code> > The idea of teaching some sort of “secular” ethics has never made sense to me …
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An intro ethics class won't shy away from religion, it comes up a lot. You'll most likely even discuss differences in different sects of Christianity. You should also have the discussion of if morals are universal (and if so, which ones) or are all made up.<p>Secular just means you discuss more than one viewpoint. The idea of teaching morality from only one perspective never made sense to me. You won't even get that limited viewpoint in Seminary school, even though it'll certainly be far more biased
> Secular just means you discuss more than one viewpoint.<p>Secular is simply the viewpoint that claims to equalize all viewpoints while at the same time discounting them all in favor of its own … and then stealing the good parts of my viewpoint. :) It means you can bring your priors into the classroom but I can’t. At least in a good seminary they are honest about priors and articulate why
their viewpoint is different / better than others. Ethics is and always has been applied theology, answering the question “what do we do?” You can’t answer that question honestly or fully without answering the prior question.
<p><pre><code> > It means you can bring your priors into the classroom but I can’t.
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I've heard about this from Fox News but I've never experienced it myself, even having grown up in a <i>very</i> blue state. I'm sure this happens somewhere, but I'm unconvinced it is the norm.<p><pre><code> > Ethics is and always has been applied theology
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This is trivial to prove false. You even do it! "What do we do?" You've implicitly added "if god exists". You're so strong in that conviction you claim there's a former question and yet never wrote one down. I'd even argue it is important for theologists to ask "What do we do if god doesn't exist?"<p>You seem to be under the belief that without god there are no moral convictions. Well I'll quote a very famous conman, as I feel the same as him.<p><pre><code> The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what's to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn't have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine. I don't want to do that. Right now, without any god, I don't want to jump across this table and strangle you. I have no desire to strangle you. I have no desire to flip you over and rape you.
- Penn Jillette
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You can even find in the Bible plenty of passages to support his point. If the only thing stopping you from doing evil is the belief of punishment, then you are not a good person. Conversely, if the only reason you are doing good is because you are seeking eternal reward, neither are you good. One does not need god to have morals, one only needs have society and a theory of mind.<p>Hey look, we did Secular Ethics, and discussed religion! I disagreed with you, but you'll notice I never made claims about if I believe in god or not. You'll notice I make no judgement on you for believing in god. You'll notice, my entire argument is based on the origin of morals and really we've discussed is what is in a man's heart matters. This is no different than "Is an act of kindness good if one films themselves doing it?" There's a lot of gray in that question, obviously.<p>No ethics class is going to exclude you for being religious, as that would be unethical.
Agreed. I find that people who argue that religion is necessary for ethics tend to ignore the history of their religion and the fact that the original text largely serves as a jumping off point for religious philosophers to connect older “secular” texts to this new religion. Modern Christianity is a complex combination of Platonic, Aristotelian, Syrian, and Roman ideals which are taken out of their original context to align with the Bible even though the original writers would say they knew nothing about Jesus. The base texts which many of these ideas are based on make almost no appeals to God and focus more on what it means to live a “good life”. To be fair a lot of great ethical arguments are made by Christian writers but I think that’s more just a consequence of their cultural upbringing and the fact that the thing the New Testament really added to the discussion was that your ethical responsibilities generalize beyond yourself and your friends/family.<p>Religious ethics are just as fluid and complex as secular ethics, it’s just that the concept of God makes people think they can claim that their way of thinking is the only one that’s real. I would guess if you self-reflect though you’d see that even within one lifetime the definition of what’s moral in a religious context changes as well.
Yes exactly.<p>Golden rule does not need the existence of any god.<p>There are godless religions too that have strong ethical traditions. They are not religions in the Abrahamic sense.
I have to strongly disagree.<p>I've met people who have never been in touch with organized religion. They generally have excellent ethical frameworks. I've also read the bible, it does not have a consistent moral or ethical framework.<p>How can it be that areligious people have ethics if they need god for ethics?<p>Ethics is all about being human, it does not require a god, and it does not require anyone to understand even what a human is, or what process led to us living life together. The subjective experience of life and the subjective experience of life in a society is all you need to develop ethics.
At this point theists often try to smuggle God back in as the source of morality through culture.<p>But I agree, empirically religion and moral behavior seem at best uncorrelated.
Bible is quite permissive of killing if it's in the name of god. Genocide is quite a recurring theme.
sorry, perhaps I misunderstand, but dont you /wouldn’t you take the best from others as well? Is that outside of consideration for some reason?
You don’t need religion for ethics or worldview. How about: we all appear here on this rock, none of us know why, we’re all in it together, we all struggle, none of us know if we’re alone in this universe or what the universe really is. This unifies us all and puts us on an even playing field. We should be compassionate to one another as we all come from the same circumstance. We can create a concept of god to explain it, or accept that we don’t know for sure and maybe never will. God is a choice, but not the only one.
This exhibits the borrowing GP mentions: your ‘should’ does not necessarily follow from the stated priors. Why is compassion morally mandated by the priors and not competition, for example?
This kind of argument, while moral on a surface level, belies a misunderstanding of human nature. In Jungian terms, it assumes that the shadow self either does not exist or has been fully integrated without confrontation.<p>Once one has enough power and experience to achieve one’s goals despite opposition, and to use others instrumentally, the moral calculus can become difficult. We do not all start from the same circumstances: I am writing this on a phone produced by slave labour.<p>As Lenin might have said: “compassion for whom?”<p>You say “God is a choice”. Solipsism is a choice.
Transcendental moral principles can still be secular.<p>One that I find compelling is that Rawls' veil of ignorance lets us imagine that we might be on either side of a conflict, and that therefore moral actions are equitable to both sides. This gives us a secular morality that doesn't come with the baggage of religious outgroup dynamics.
All of our current leaders as using God to justify their terrible actions. So religion doesn’t seem to be very good at teaching morals either.
This happened throughout history, not just now. Religion is used as an instrument, but does not necessarily reflect the underlying meaning.<p>There's only hunger for power. Man's essence.
Erwin Schrödinger might have abused children because why not, "everything is a wave after all. does it really matter what one wave does to another?"<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger#Sexual_abuse_allegations" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger#Sexual_...</a>
Both can be true that Leaders can use god to justify their terrible actions and Scientists can use theories/philosophies to justify their terrible actions too.<p>Justification of any evil action to consider oneself as a good guy might be a human quality.<p>That being said, Majority of wars/conflicts in the past have sadly been because of religions and that number doesn't seem to be stopping and is still continuing to this day sadly.
That justification is so rediculous for anyone that can think, like which side should He take?
Either god is me (secularism) or god is something outside me (Christianity). One is going to be better than the other. It matters which one. Everyone has an answer, and it affects your morals. Whether or not you are consistent brings you back to that same question: “who says?”
I understand the argument, but the number of reprehensible Christians (or other flavor of religion) out in the world doesn’t seem to back up the claim that viewing God outside oneself leads to better moral results.
Option C: God doesn't exist as far as is currently known
Option D: God may exist but has no perceivable after consequence and doesn't take part in any aspect of our day to day lives which are governed by physics (Deism)<p>Option E: God may or may not exist but once again, has no effect on our lives. (agnosticism)<p>So all option C), D), E) [I don't think that the concept of hell/heaven exists in it] have the same impact IMO that esentially there isn't any consequence on our day to day live and we are all gonna be just void when we die. Nothingness,<p>From here, we can approach towards what is the meaning of life and add onto the existenialism to find ones own meanings and that itself becomes a bedrock of morality<p>I personally fall somewhere along C), D), E) myself but I don't like to wonder about where exactly because it doesn't really have an impact on my life. I also sometimes fall into B) (God is outside me) in times of troubles to somehow get out of trouble or find strength if I am unable to find within myself during that time.<p>Logically, it might not make sense for me to believe in god during times of troubles if I can't have logic find the same meaning during not times of troubles. But I do think that humans are driven by emotions not logic at its core so its best to be light on yourself.<p>Also I feel gratitude towards the universe rather than god and the things which help me in my life during times of joy sometimes.<p>I also sometimes believe in rituals/festivals because they are part of my culture/community and it brings me joy at times.<p>But I have enough freeway leverage within all of this that I dictate this as my choice of life and If I see any religious figure person or anything being misused or see faults in any rituals being cruel. I don't feel dear to them and can quickly call anything out and be secular in the sense that I respect other people's rituals to be in co-existence with mine as long as they are peaceful about it because the element of coexistence is only possible within the elements of being peaceful/society being cooperative at large and I hold both people of my community/outside my community to the same standard and am quick to call out if new faults start to happen from my community but also from any other community. (Calling spade a spade)
> who says?<p>Only people can say things. And following people that start by lying that they have unique and superior insight into what things ought to be is not a good strategy. Secular is just saying, we are all in this together as equals, let's figure things out, here's what we got thus far.
First prove yhwh.
Then prove your favorite book is a direct transmission from yhwh. Disprove the claims of other peoples favorite books, there is a lot of competition there.<p>Demonstrate the telephone line by which this so called yhwh communicates his words and prove how and why it no longer does.
Fallen far, or maybe we are just more aware now, but anyway, I don't think that a lecture in ethics at university will fix things. That's:<p>(A) way too late, and<p>(B) without a strong character to begin with, this lecture will simply become a "necessary chore" for students, and basically go in one ear, and out the other ear. (Does that saying/phrase translate to English?)<p>By the time people start their undergrad, if they are not already at least trying to act ethically, that ship has sailed for most. Their upbringing and education did not manage to drill that into them before. I see it as more of an early childhood and parenting topic. If the parents are not leading by example and teaching their children ethics, then the children are often just going with the flow, not swimming against the current to uphold ideals. Why would they, if the other way is easier. I think it is rare, that people adopt ethics that they have not grown up with / raised according to.<p>So I would advocate ethics as a mandatory subject at school, if not primary school already.
Many prominent tech and science leaders have been disparaging philosophy for decades now. Not surprising that in the absence of any serious ethical thought, “make money = good” is the default position.
Your opinion seems to suggest that unless someone has the same moral view as you they must not have any morals at all?<p>What if their morals are “I am not responsible for how my products are used?”<p>You may not agree, but it’s a valid ethical stance to hold.
No, that isn’t what my comment suggests at all, on any level.<p>I don’t think you can have intelligent ethical opinions if you disparage and ignore the field that studies ethics (philosophy.)<p>Seems pretty straightforward to me.<p>I think there are definitely many positions with which I disagree, but are nonetheless well-thought through and coherent.<p>But it seems pretty clear that the people making these decisions haven’t done the work of thinking it through, and are instead just trying to maximize money. That’s my claim, at least.
To me this reads the same way some religious people believe that it is not possible for atheists to have morals because morals come from the Bible.
> No, that isn’t what my comment suggests at all, on any level.
I don’t think you can have intelligent ethical opinions if you disparage and ignore the field that studies ethics (philosophy.)<p>You're not suggesting that, but then put up your own requirements for someone's ethics to be "valid". So in the end you are filtering others ethical choices by your own requirements.<p>And your logic seems to work backwards: someone does something you disagree with based on your personal ethical view -> assume they aren't well thought out
My requirements for someone's ethical opinions to be "valid" are that they don't criticize the field of ethics as useless. I guess that is a "requirement" I have, but it's a pretty nitpicking, useless distinction to make.<p>If someone criticizes the French language, but doesn't speak a word of French, sorry, but I don't have much respect for their opinion on French.<p>And no, I don't "assume they aren't well thought out," because many of these people have explicitly said philosophy is a waste of time.
One of my best friends is a philosophy grad, and another is a very intelligent financier. What we've come to realize is that speaking and writing and making arguments is fruitless. You either have had the embodied experiences to recognize a statement is directionally correct -- to various magnitudes -- or you don't.<p>No amount of words will change that.<p>It is my experience -- after seeing the quality of thinking from those philosophically trained (I am not) -- that learning philosophy is learning how to think, and by extension figuring out for oneself what is capital g Good.<p>Morals and ethics are different and you conflate them. That is the crux of your confusion. Someone can understand morality inherently without ever thinking about it; but ethics requires actual intentional thought over years and years of reflecting on lived experience. What is good for you and your small circle can be grasped intuitively, but to grasp what is good "at scale" must be reasoned about. Without having seriously grappled with this, one is liable to have simplistic views, and in many cases hold views that have already been trodden through and whose "holes" have been exposed and new routes taken in unveiling ethics.<p>Without seriously having interfaced with it, it's like talking to someone about the exercise science when all they know is do steroids, lift weight, and eat. Sure, that works, but it lacks nuance and almost no thought has gone into it.<p>Anyway, this is tiring. Philosophical discussions are not something to do with strangers. It requires intimacy and is a deeply personal conversation one should have with those close to them and explore together.
Excellent point. Philosophy (really anything not math-related) is seen as a waste of time by most people I know in tech. You end up getting a bunch of smart but unethical or misguided people. Engineering types end up being used as pawns in wider political games. Look at all the terrorists who are engineers, for example:<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t....</a>
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Would you consider being a contract killer (i.e. a hitman) ethical? What about being a creator of CSAM? Because those are both examples making money by providing others with what they want. And if we followed free market principles to their logical extreme then both of those would be allowed.<p>I think most people would agree that this would not be even remotely ethical. Nor would it lead to higher living standards than a more restricted market economy.
Sometimes I really don’t know how to reply to comments like these. Because they either seem to completely misunderstand the basic premise of my comment, or they deliberately focus on some tangential thing in order to make some trollish point. But I’ll reply here, and just assume my comment was somehow unclear.<p>Do you genuinely think that putting money above any other value is an ethical way to operate in the world? I certainly don’t, virtually no ethical theory does, and the vast majority of people don’t either.<p>This is not saying that making money is inherently a bad thing, but that placing it above every other value without question is definitely a bad thing, or at least a careless and thoughtless one.<p>To use your example: all sorts of things are in demand but unquestionably make the world worse. Does the fact that people are willing to pay for propaganda or chemical weapons or X other negative thing somehow mean that facilitating their sale is ethical? I really don’t understand the position.<p>I suppose there are some people out there who seriously have studied ethics and think making money is the ultimate good. It doesn’t seem like a serious position to me.<p>But I don’t think that’s become the default position because of serious analysis, but rather the total lack of it. Which is what my comment was about: when you refuse to engage in serious philosophical thought about something, you’re just going to revert to base values like the acquisition of money and power, or some variant of that which your local system is optimizing for.
To be fair, it wasn't like lockheed and raytheon and all the rest of the modern human killing machine companies have ever been hurting for engineering talent. Likewise for oil and gas.
Same with Ender's Game. They are playing war games but they're actually real. He sacrifices his units and commits genocide (xenocide) at the same time. Something he probably wouldn't have done had he known.<p><pre><code> > Nobody has to take ethics during undergrad anymore I guess...
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My undergrad wasn't in CS but my grad was. I was incredibly surprised to find that ethics isn't a requirement in most CS programs. That's a sharp contrast to traditional engineering and the hard sciences. CS people seem to love philosophy, yet I'm surprised not so much about this subset. We'll spend all day talking about if we live in a simulation (without learning physics) and what intelligence is (without studying neuroscience or psychology) but when it comes to what's acceptable to do at work the answer is always "if I don't do it somebody else will, at least I'll have a job". A phrase that surely everyone hears in an ethics 101 class...<p>Edit:<p>Oops, missed pazimzadeh's comment. I'll leave mine because I say more
also relevant to Ender's Game, which came out 8 months before <i>Real Genius</i>
Ender's Game the novel, but I would say that it's not actually super relevant. First, the original short story was 1977, and then Card expanded it into a novel which was published mid-1980s. The point in the story is that kids are sensitive, and supergenius kids more so, and that they don't want to interrupt performance with concerns about guilt. But Real Genius wasn't about that! It was about an anti-war stance born of the Vietnam War and creative-class hatred for Ronald Reagan's presidency.
Gotcha, I haven't actually seen the movie I just meant the concept of tricking and silo'ing genius kids to make them think they are playing a game when they're actually doing war/genocide is similar to the Ender's Game book. I don't know if this was just an idea floating around in the air or if it was inspired by Ender's Game, just interesting
"Why do you wear that toy on your head?" "Because if I wear it anywhere else it chafes"<p>"A laser is a beam of coherent light." "Does that mean it talks?"<p>"Your stutter has improved." "I've been giving myself shock treatment." "Up the voltage."<p>"In the immortal words of Socrates, who said, 'I drank what?'"<p>"Is there anything I can do for you? Or...more to the point... <i>to</i> you?"<p>"Can you drive a six-inch spike through a board with your penis?" "...not right now." "A girl's got to have her standards."<p>"What are you looking at? You're laborers, you're supposed to be laboring! That's what you get for not having an education!"<p>-- I'm sure I could remember more if I thought about it for a bit. That movie made quite an impression on young me.
> Nobody has to take ethics during undergrad anymore I guess...<p>Especially not when certain people in positions of great power say things like "stupid rules of engagement" when referring to acts of war.
Most of the pranks in <i>Real Genius</i> were actual pranks done at Caltech in the 1970s. The McDonald's prank, for example.<p>I don't recall Caltech having any ethics classes. Caltech did have an honor system, however, which was surprisingly effective.
If you are tricked into doing that it is not your fault. But the moment you realise you need to to a choice.
The most unethical people I know have taken ethics classes and signal that they did it.
God bless you for referencing that film.
You still take ethics. The only difference is political views. It’s very easy to be consistent from an ethical perspective if you are convinced of a government’s particular powers.<p>The government has a monopoly on violence. Whether you want to enhance it or not all comes down to your political alignment, not ethics.
Reminds me of the story of someone's woman working for a research lab to improve the computer-controlled automatic emergency landings of planes with total power failure.<p>... or so she was told.<p>She was unknowingly designing glide-bomb avionics.
“someone’s woman”?
I feel like these stories are apocryphal. I mean, I can't say for certain that no US DoD research program used subterfuge to trick the performers into working on The Most Racist Bomb. But I can say that in 20 years I've never seen a dearth of people ready, willing, able, and actively participating with full knowledge that they are creating The Fastest Bomb and The Sneakiest Bom and The Biggest Bomb Without Actually Going Nuclear.<p>IDK, maybe it's different outside the National Capitol Region. But here, you could probably shout "For The Empire" as a toast in the right bars and people wouldn't think you were joking.
Yes, and even their two exceptions, only one is on moral grounds. They don't want to provide tools for autonomous killing machines because the technology isn't good enough, yet. Once that 'yet' is passed they will be fine supplying that capability. Anthropic is clearly the better company over OpenAI, but that doesn't mean they are good. 'lesser evil' is the correct term here for sure.
Hypothetically if we had a choice between sending in humans to war or sending in fully autonomous drones that make decisions on par with humans, the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members at risk.<p>Obviously anyone who has used LLMs know they are not on par with humans. There also needs to be an accountability framework for when software makes the wrong decision. Who gets fired if an LLM hallucinates and kills people? Perhaps Anthropic's stance is to avoid liability if that were to happen.
It's sort of like the opposite of this idea:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fisher_(academic)#Preventing_nuclear_war" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fisher_(academic)#Preven...</a><p>> Fisher [...] suggested implanting the nuclear launch codes in a volunteer. If the President of the United States wanted to activate nuclear weapons, he would be required to kill the volunteer to retrieve the codes.<p>>> [...] The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the President. If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. [...]<p>>> When I suggested this to friends in the Pentagon they said, "My God, that's terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the President's judgment. He might never push the button."<p>> — Roger Fisher, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1981[10]
There should be two knives so the volunteer can defend themselves if they don't think starting a war is worth it.
That's so idealistic. We should know by now the reality of power and what kind of people end up in power. Anyone who could climb all the way to the top would kill the volunteer without a second thought, and then go smile on TV.
You're confusing lazy cynicism with realism. Patrick Bateman is a <i>fictional character</i>. The vast, vast majority of people, including even most soldiers, and definitely pretty much all businesspeople, no matter how unscrupulous, do not have the capacity to violently murder a person they know and harbor no ill will towards with their own hands on short notice.
The danger is that we won't be sending these fully-autonomous drones to 'war', but anytime a person in power feels like assassinating a leader or taking out a dissident, without having to make a big deal out of it. The reality is that AI will be used, not merely as a weapon, but as an accountability sink.
Pretty soon we'll have depositions where the bots explain they thought they saw a weapon and were in fear for their lives.<p>Counsel: "How do you explain the nanny cam footage of you planting a weapon?"<p>Robot: "I have encountered an exception and must power off. <i>Shutting down.</i>"
> 'war'<p>> anytime a person in power feels like assassinating a leader or taking out a dissident<p>I don't really see much of a difference nowadays
This is exactly how all other weapons of mass destruction were rationalised.<p>"If we develop <terrible weapon> we can save so many lives of our soldiers". It always ends up being used to murder civilians.
Our drones will fight their drones, and then whichever side loses, will have their humans fighting the other side's drones, and if the humans somehow win, they will fight the other side's humans. War doesn't have an agreed ending condition.
> Hypothetically if we had a choice between sending in humans to war or sending in fully autonomous drones that make decisions on par with humans, the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members.<p>I guess let the record state that I am deeply morally opposed to automated killing of any kind.<p>I am sick to my stomach when I really try to put myself in the shoes of the indigenous peoples of Africa who were the first victims of highly automatic weapons, “machine guns” or “Gatling guns”. The asymmetry was barbaric. I do hope that there is a hell, simply that those who made the decision to execute en masse those peoples have a place to rot in internal hellfire.<p>To even think of modernizing that scene of inhumane depravity with AI is despicable. No, I am deeply opposed to automated killing of any kind.
The Gatling Gun was first deployed in the US civil war, not in Africa. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling_gun" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling_gun</a><p>The “machine gun” has a more complicated history, and the first practical example may have been Gatling’s, or an earlier example used in Europe <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_gun" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_gun</a>
Isn't this the moral hazard of war as it becomes more of a distance sport? That powerful governments can order the razing of cities and assassinate leaders with ease?<p>We need to do it because our enemies are doing it, in any case.
I do not think that anyone but the US and Israel have assassinated leaders in the last 30 years. I also question their autonomous drone advancement. Russia and China did not have the means to help Venezuela and they do not have the means to help Iran.
Russia and other states have demonstrably conducted targeted killings.
>"Russia and China did not have the means to help Venezuela"<p>Of course they have the means. Nothing technical prohibits them from blowing couple of carriers. But the price they would have to pay is way too high.
It came later than I anticipated, but it did come after all. There is a reason companies like 9mother are working like crazy on various way to mitigate those risks.
We need to [develop military technology] because our enemies do it. I don't mean we have to commit war crimes because others do it.
> <i>the moral choice might well be the drones - because it doesn't put our service members at risk.</i><p>Not so clear cut. Because <i>now</i> sending people to die in distant wars is likely to get a negative reaction at home, this creates some sort of impediment for waging war. Sometimes not enough, but it's not nothing. Sending your boys to die for fuck knows what.<p>If you're just sending AI powered drones, it reduces the threshold for war tremendously, which in my mind is not "the moral choice".<p>All of this assuming AI is as good as humans.
War is not moral. It may be necessary, but it is never moral. The only best choice is to fight at every turn making war easy. Our adversaries will, or likely already have, gone the autonomous route. We should be doing everything we can to put major blockers on this similar to efforts to block chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The logical end of autonomous targeting and weapons is near instant mass killing decisions. So at a minimum we should think of autonomous weapons in a similar class as those since autonomy is a weapon of mass destruction. But we currently don't think that way and that is the problem.<p>Eventually, unfortunately, we will build these systems but it is weak to argue that the technology isn't ready right now and that is why we won't build them. No matter when these systems come on line there will be collateral damage so there will be no right time from a technology standpoint. Anthropic is making that weak argument and that is primarily what I am dismissive of. The argument that needs to be made is that we aren't ready as a society for these weapons. The US government hasn't done the work to prove they can handle them. The US people haven't proven we are ready to understand their ramifications. So, in my view, Anthropic shouldn't be arguing the technology isn't ready, no weapon of war is ever clean and your hands will be dirty no matter how well you craft the knife. Instead Anthropic should be arguing that we aren't ready as a society and that is why they aren't going to support them.
<p><pre><code> > War is not moral. It may be necessary, but it is never moral.
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This is the right answer. When war becomes inevitable, we are forced to choose between morality and survival. I pass no judgement on those who choose survival.
The problem in modern wars is that those who start them claim that they do this for survival, but the claim is not based on any real action of the adversary or on any evidence that the adversary is dangerous, but on beliefs that the adversary might want to endanger the survival of the attacker some time in an indefinite future, and perhaps might even be able to do that.<p>Nobody who starts a war today acknowledges that they do this for other reasons than "survival", e.g. for stealing various kinds of resources from the attacked.<p>It has become difficult to distinguish those who truly fight for survival from those who only claim to do this.
Yes, agreed. Mainland China is not under any threat from Taiwan, for instance.<p>However, the Iranians chant Death To America regularly and openly. They have both an active nuclear program and a means to deliver a nuclear weapon. They are also heavy funders of anti-American militias and groups. It is incumbent upon the Americans to ensure that the Iranians do not achieve their nuclear ambitions.
> <i>When war becomes inevitable, we are forced to choose between morality and survival.</i><p>The kind of modern wars we're discussing now are often not about survival. Often, the initiator of the war wants <i>dominance</i> rather than survival.<p>This completely changes the equation. I do pass judgement on those who would wage war to ensure their dominance and access to resources.
Yes, agreed 100%. Some groups see it as their mission to dominate Eastern Europe, or the entire Middle East, or the entire southern Asian continent. The smaller states in the areas are under constant threat.<p>However in the case of Iran, who openly calls for the destruction of America and is blatantly developing technology that seriously threaten America and other Middle Eastern states, decisive military action to prevent the threat is important. Don't watch the bully themself and wait for him to confront you, when he is telling you the whole time his intention to destroy you.
> <i>Some groups see it as their mission to dominate Eastern Europe, or the entire Middle East, or the entire southern Asian continent.</i><p>Agreed that some countries seek to dominate other regions by force or threat, but you and I are not thinking of the same "groups".<p>> <i>However in the case of Iran, who openly calls for the destruction of America and is blatantly developing technology that seriously threaten America and other Middle Eastern states, decisive military action to prevent the threat is important. Don't watch the bully themself and wait for him to confront you, when he is telling you the whole time his intention to destroy you.</i><p>No, Iran poses no real threat to America, and according to Trump last year suffered a 10+ year setback in their nuclear ambitions. Do you think Trump was lying back then, now, or both?<p>The US is asserting dominance. Even Trump occasionally says so. Iran mostly poses a danger to their own citizens and, arguably, against Israel when conflict flares up in the region, but not to the US.<p>By the way, the current situation in Iran is heavily influenced by actions by the UK and the US in the region, back in the 50s. So maybe meddling is not the right course of action?
When is war <i>necessary</i>, at the limit?
I think it's the opposite. The human cost of war is part of what keeps the USA from getting into wars more than it already is - no politician wants a second Vietnam.<p>If war is safe to wage, then it just means we'll do it more and kill more people around the globe.
What do you mean, "hallucinates and kills people"? Killing people is <i>the thing</i> the military is using them for; it's not some accidental side effect. It's the "moral choice" the same way a cruise missile is — some person half a world away can lean back in their chair, take a sip of coffee, click a few buttons and end human lives, without ever fully appreciating or caring about what they've done.
I'm sure it was meant as "kills the wrong people."<p>People are always worried about getting rid of humans in decision-making. Not that humans are perfect, but because we worry that buggy software will be worse.
The people that actually target and launch these things do think about what they have done. It is the people ordering them to do it that don't. There is a difference, I hope.
Doesn’t this just lower the bar on going to war? Putting real lives on the line makes war a costly last resort.
The flip side is it's very unlikely that AI won't become that good any time soon, so it'll always remain a means to hold out. Especially since nobody has explicitly defined what "good enough" entails.
> Anthropic is clearly the better company over OpenAI<p>Why do people keep falling into traps of anthropomorphize companies like this? What's the point? Either you care about a company in the "for-profit" sense, and then money is all that matters (so clearly OpenAI currently wins there), or you care about pesky things like morality and ethics, and then you should look beyond corporations, because they're not humans, stop treating them as such. Both of them do their best to earn as much as possible, and that's their entire "morality", as they're both for-profit companies,.
Ever since I was young I was fairly divided on the subject. I've dealt with some highschool students affected by the downed aircraft MH17 and that lead to lots of grief among students. It usually lead to strong anti-war sentiments but some also felt a need to "do" something with it.<p>If no one works on defence systems then all the things we have could become jeopardized, perhaps not this week but in 5 years. Therefore I can reconcile the idea of working for defence related r&d. I also know that these sentiments are used by unscrupulous individuals to gain influence, but I don't feel like we should let that cause a divide between people with a strong moral compass and those without, since we'd be worse off if there was no one in a position of power to make moral decisions. That requires people to judge work based on it's content instead of the domain. It also requires workforce to have enough collective pressure to stall immoral defence (or rather attack) systems.<p>Automated decisionmaking tools throw a wrench into this because it brings us steps closer to mass deployment of questionable and potentially unhinged munitions. If laws mandated human-in-the-loop systems it would be a better outcome.
No one should apologize for feeling conflicted while giving an issue considerable thought. Constantly reassessing your position based on the changing nature of the world should be encouraged to be the default approach.("Constantly" within reason of course).<p>I can imagine some Americans making a decision based on the threat of other authortarian states and being left completely bewildered when they have to grapple with the notion that their government may be the bigger threat to their own security.
> If no one works on defence systems then all the things we have could become jeopardized, perhaps not this week but in 5 years. Therefore I can reconcile the idea of working for defence related r&d.<p>I am not saying this line of thinking is completely absurd. But I think every individual considering this should reflect a lot. (1) Is your country using its ""defense"" systems wisely? (2) Won't the technology be replicated by adversaries anyways? (3) etc..<p>Overall, the number of people and resources spent on Weapons R&D is probably significantly more than people working on things like diplomacy, ethics, or activism for international human rights (assuming human rights violations are the only legitimate reason for war).<p>It's significantly safer for individual nations and humanity as a whole if we're not all armed to the teeth constantly on the brink of large conflict, and instead are more or less ethically aligned, all respect basic human rights, and respect other nations.
> If no one works on defense systems then all the things we have could become jeopardized<p>The reality is that the US government has not historically been engaged in defense. They have been engaged in offense. If you live in the united states and work on "defense," you are working on offense. If even if you are designing something like missile interceptors, they have historically been used primarily to protect US assets in wars that the US started.
> If no one works on defence systems then all the things we have could become jeopardized, perhaps not this week but in 5 years<p>All the things we have are jeopardized because those systems are actually attack systems and were just used to start a war. We will be lucky if it wont grow into WWIII.<p>And I just read an article about how those defense systems are used to bomb hospitals with double tap tactic - meaning you bomb rescuers when they come. Literally the first day of that no-defense war, they were used to bomb a school. And before that, they were used to execute fishermen and maybe smugglers with no judicial review. Just to make someone feel manly.
Attitude towards war depends on context. In 2007 "war" meant "Iraq" which was extremely unpopular, pointless, and had an imperialist flavor. Today "war" means Gaza, Iran, and Venezuela, but it also means Ukraine and Chinese aggression, possibly ramping up to an invasion of Taiwan. I suspect Amodei and many Anthropic employees are thinking of the latter.
Iraq was much more popular in 2003 [1] than the current war in Iran is [2].<p>[1] "In the months leading up to the war, majorities of between 55% and 68% said they favored taking military action to end Hussein’s rule in Iraq. No more than about a third opposed military action."<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-...</a><p>[2] "Some 27% of respondents said they approved of the strikes, which were conducted alongside Israeli attacks on Iran, while 43% disapproved and 29% were not sure"<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/just-one-four-americans-support-us-strikes-iran-reutersipsos-poll-finds-2026-03-01/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/world/us/just-one-four-americans-sup...</a>
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It’s not that big of a coincidence that the countries that superpowers want to conquer, and need defending, are neighbors to the superpowers.
So much so that it's actually the expectation!<p>Country wants to expand its territory? Most likely place to extend to is those in its borders. It's literally the lowest hanging fruit.<p>Small country being invaded by large country? Who are they most likely to turn to? Does it seem that unlikely that they'd go to the biggest actor who doesn't like that country? The enemy of my enemy?<p>Coincidence? I think not! It's literally the most logical thing
"Need" defending? I couldn't care less who rules Ukraine, Taiwan, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iran, and these countless other places half-way around the world. It's not like China taking over Taiwan will have any impact on semiconductors. They're happy to play merchant to the world, independent of allegiance. E.g. - Ukraine complains about China supplying Russia with tech for their drones, while failing to recognize the countless "Made in China" stamps on their own hardware.<p>When despots act subservient to the US we're more than fine being BFF with them. See: Saudi Arabia. Heck we're even aiding them in their little 'special military operation' in Yemen. So funny how the rhetoric changes depending on who's involved: "On 26 March 2015, Saudi Arabia, leading a coalition of nine countries from West Asia and North Africa, staged a military intervention in Yemen at the request of Yemeni president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had been ousted from the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 by Houthi insurgents during the Yemeni civil war." [1]<p>So a president is overthrown by a popular insurrection, and then another country which was fond of the old government decides to take advantage of the situation to invade, primarily to further their own ends. This sounds oddly familiar, yet somehow the rhetoric around it is entirely different. Nah, I'm tired of this nonsense. If a country literally invades another country which we have a military alliance with then yeah - we have an obligation to intervene. But without that - I can think of far better ways to spend trillions of dollars than killing people half-way around the world.<p>[1] - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi-led_intervention_in_the_Yemeni_civil_war" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi-led_intervention_in_the_...</a>
> I couldn't care less who rules Ukraine, Taiwan, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iran<p>Oh you will. You most certainly will.
That's a really weird claim about Ukraine, which the US leadership would love to sweep under the rug, leave alone to be taken apart, except for the bad optics - so they just drag their feet forever.
People keep making this strange claim about Taiwan, the only liberal democracy in the East without a single American soldier on its soil.<p>Almost like Taiwan is a sovereign nation uninterested in participating in the PRC and USA's fight for global hegemony.
The US would already be at war with China if the US tried to insert a military base in Taiwan.
I think the funniest part is the fact that all the western countries are even afraid to recognize Taiwan's independence. It's a much better argument to say Korea or Japan are ruled by the US (and Korea and Japan absolutely hate one another!).<p>Does the US have influence in Taiwan? Certainly! But if that meant Taiwan was the US's puppet then Taiwan would simultaneously be China's puppet. Schrödinger's Vassal
<p><pre><code> > afraid to recognize Taiwan's independence.
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Does Taiwan claim independence?<p>I thought that both the government in Beijing and the government in Taipei both claim that all of China is united, and that they are the legitimate government of that united entity.
You're arguing semantics. The west refuses to recognize Taiwan as the legitimate government of China and refuses to recognize it as an independent country.<p>Whatever they claim, the west (and most of the world) due to Chinese leverage/power refuses to recognize.<p>Taiwan meets all the criteria for being a state. It controls land, population, it has a military, it has a government, currency, passports etc. etc. It's a de-facto country/state.
You literally described independence.<p>You're confusing land with governance.
Taiwan buys military equipment and operates it's own military very much like it is independent of China and views Chinese troops in it's territory as a threat.
> afraid to recognize Taiwan's independence<p>No one is afraid. Taiwan themselves still claim to be the Republic of China and not separate from the rest of China.
<p><pre><code> > No one is afraid.
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You seem to have trouble reading. Here's a map that shows countries that recognize Taiwan's independence[0]. That's a lot of gray...<p><pre><code> > Taiwan themselves still claim to be the Republic of China and not separate from the rest of China.
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You seem very confused... but I get it, it is confusing<p>Mainland China's current government is called the "People's Republic of China" (PRC)[1]<p>Taiwan calls itself the "Republic of China" (RoC)[2]<p>The difference of one word is <i>very</i> important. It's easy to miss, which is why Taiwan even changed its passport[3]... over a decade ago.<p>But also... they issue different passports. They have different governments. Really, this is not hard to understand that Taiwan considers themselves independent and the PRC considers the RoC a bunch of rebels. And... what do rebels typically do?<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_Taiwan" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_T...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_the_People%27s...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan</a><p>[3] <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1758230.stm" rel="nofollow">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1758230.stm</a>
> Chinese aggression, possibly ramping up to an invasion of Taiwan.<p>It's amusing amidst the US bombing Iran, incarceration the president of Venezuela and his wife after slaughtering everyone who was in the room with him, seizing oil tankers off Cuba, continuing the siege of Gaza and on and on to start getting sanctimonious about China.<p>Taiwan is Kinmen island in Xiamen harbor, so a mainland invasion of Taiwan would be mainland China "invading" an island in its harbor.<p>Also mainland China does not recognize Taiwan and mainland China to be separate countries. The US does not recognize Taiwan and mainland China to be separate countries. <i>Taiwan</i> does not consider Taiwan and mainland China to be separate countries. I'm not sure what the invasion would be, a country invading itself? It would be like if the US president sent armed agents to Minnesota who started killing people willy nilly - oh yaa, that just happened.<p>The most satisfying thing is if mainland China did choose to reassert it's rightful authority in Taiwan against the colonial powers, there's absolutely nothing those western powers can do about it. Just like Russia's assertion over the West tring to nove it's NATO armies to its western borders in the Ukraine. It's amusing to see the US flailing about, hitting a Venezuelan here, a Cuban there to try to look tough. I guess Nicaragua is next on the list. The changes coming in the 21st century are welcome. A bozo like Trump as president is a sign of a fading West.
Actually dinosaurs existed in China before there were people. And their descendents, the birds, are still around. We should all consider it our moral duty to continue what was begun in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and overthrow the CCP and replace them with the true historical rulers, the chicken.
>there's absolutely nothing those western powers can do about it<p>the USA can drop a JDAM down the chimney of any leader who decides to do so<p>that’s not nothing
> Taiwan does not consider Taiwan and mainland China to be separate countries.<p>This is false. Both the government of Taiwan, and the people here, obviously consider the two countries separate, and neither have made any overtures challenging the sovereignty of the CPC in nearly fifty years. Not to mention the fact that the last government to do so has been overthrown in the 90s (the overthrow of the KMT settler colonial dictatorship).<p>You will now vaguely refer to the ROC constitution, but I'll preempt that by saying the constitution makes no claims to PRC territory, full stop. And the constitutional reforms in the 90s <i>explicitly</i> recognize PRC sovereignty over its territory - because Taiwanese people aren't the KMT and want nothing to do with the KMT's now 8 decade old fight.<p>> I'm not sure what the invasion would be, a country invading itself?<p>I know exactly what it would be: tens of thousands of PLA dead at the order of Xi in service of his old man's ego, and economic disaster for both countries, followed up by the most riotously uncontrolled occupied territory in the PRC. Taiwanese people in living memory bled to overthrow a military dictatorship, you think they won't fight to do so again?<p>PRC invasion of Taiwan would be imperialism.
There's a distinction between countries and governments. Both sides officially consider themselves to be China, the country, but under different, competing governments. They're the product of a civil war inside China, after all.<p>The current ruling party of Taiwan would like to change that, but they haven't done so for the obvious reason that the PRC would not accept it (and most Taiwanese people prefer to just leave things as they are).
> Both sides officially consider themselves to be China<p>There is no "China, the country." "China" just means, essentially, "Empire." It's like a country claiming to be Europe, or maybe better, The Roman Empire. Many States may try to make claims for the title to support their legitimacy and heavenly mandate to rule, but that doesn't make it true.<p>> They're the product of a civil war inside China, after all.<p>Only one side of that conflict still exists. The other was overthrown by the people of Taiwan in the 90s. Descendants of those overthrown maintain government positions under that party name, but it's essentially a different government, given that it's a multi party democracy now, not a single party military dictatorship.<p>> The current ruling party of Taiwan would like to change that, but they haven't done so for the obvious reason that the PRC would not accept it (and most Taiwanese people prefer to just leave things as they are).<p>This is mostly true, with caveats: Most people in Taiwan prefer independence, but don't want to declare it to trigger a war, so therefore they only prefer status quo because it involves independence without war. If they could get it, most Taiwanese would prefer declared independence with no threat of war, but pragmatism rules out.<p>I'm also not sure I agree the DPP is necessarily pro-overt independence, just the current president tends to use more aggressive language than normal.
"China" is analogous to "France," not "Europe."<p>There was a civil war inside China, with the rulers of both competing sides claiming the entire country as their own for decades after the shooting ended. Inside Taiwanese politics, there has been a shift relatively recently (in the last 20 years), but it would be a major shift if that were actually implemented as official policy.<p>> Many States may try to make claims for the title to support their legitimacy and heavenly mandate to rule, but that doesn't make it true.<p>We live in a post-WWII world of national sovereignty and inviolable borders (or at least we did until very recently). That's what China rests on for its claims, legally speaking.
China looks like the good guy now, but if Xi decided to “reassert control” over Taiwan, it would quickly become an international pariah and everyone would forget about Trump immediately, the country would immediately be isolated from everyone other than their closest (geographically speaking) allies. Is China ready to do that? Not today, maybe in a decade or two (when they’ve replaced the USA as the top economic/military power, there won’t be severe consequences). Xi is smart enough to wait, taking Taiwan now wins them nothing and loses them everything.
> <i>Also mainland China does not recognize Taiwan</i><p>By this logic, America not recognising by the sovereignty of Venezuela, Iran and Cuba—and Israel of Palestine, as well as vice versa—makes everyone an a-okay actor!<p>> <i>there's absolutely nothing those western powers can do about it. Just like Russia's assertion over the West tring to nove it's NATO armies to its western borders in the Ukraine</i><p>Russia is a spent power and geopolitical afterthought because of Ukraine. Its borders with NATO have increased massively, all while reducing its security, economy and demography.<p>Even Xi couldn’t fuck over China as thoroughly as Putin has Russia. But Xi going on a vanity crusade into Taiwan would essentially write off China’s ascendancy as a military and economic superpower this generation.<p>> <i>if mainland China did choose to reassert it's rightful authority in Taiwan against the colonial powers</i><p>An aging dictator invading a democracy. At least Deng chose a quarry he could crush [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests...</a>
Palestine is only a state due to international recognition. It meets no definition of a state, it controls no land, has no currency, government, military, etc. It meets no criteria for statehood yet is recognized by most of the world as a state. Taiwan (and e.g. Somaliland) meet all the criteria for statehood and yet are not recognized as states. Venezuela, Iran and Cuba meet the criteria for statehood and ofcourse are actually recognized universally as states. State (pun intended) of the world.<p>I would like to believe there's no chance Xi would invade Taiwan but I also didn't think Putin would invade Ukraine. Those leaders are full of themselves. If we learnt much over the last few years is that anything can happen. China has both declared the intention and built the capabilities to invade Taiwan. As the saying goes if a loaded rifle is introduced in the first act of a play, it must be fired by the final act.
> if mainland China did choose to reassert it's rightful authority in Taiwan<p>Wait...you mean China doesn't currently have authority in Taiwan?<p>How could that be??
> they have to couch it in language clarifying that they would love to support war,<p>This is what baffles me when I see people flocking to them for subscriptions based on these events.
If LLM's are indeed a game changer professionally, you kind of need to pick one.<p>Personally, I loathe seeing power shift towards mega corporations like that, away from being able to run your own computer with free software, but it feels like the economics are headed that way in terms of productivity.
You cannot rely on a closed source "AI" in someone else's cloud for your work. After all, it can be disabled for you at any time. "AI" can easily steal all your technological secrets. At the request of the owner, "AI" can easily mislead you and insert backdoors into your products. "AI" can even easily incorrectly answer some questions specifically for you if the owner of "AI" wants to remove your competition. And you may not even understand it.
Technological surplus was created and then it was usurped and used for nefarious purposes.
Military isn't quite as aggressively catering to the people who historically have bullied techies as they used to.<p>Aside from that - there's a <i>lot</i> more people in tech now. It grew too fast too quick to maintain all the values it had back in the 00's and earlier.
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I think you went off the rails to quickly potentially.<p>He's referring to places like Google or Microsoft having to back out of deals regularly with countries and US agencies after employee backlash.<p>It seems like now days the backlash is indeed smaller and the heads of said companies are willing to move forward anyway.<p>That is a significant change from the past.
Values relating to mistrust of the military (as per the context of the post I responded to) as well as values relating to ownership of the tech you bought and of personal privacy.<p>Get off your high horse and stop talking down to a person you don't know. Take your anger out on someone else.
Yeah, it wasn’t some kind of ethical utopia, but it sure as hell has gotten a lot less ethical in real terms. When you start
Making things operate in ways that people dislike or are deceived by, it’s a very slippery slope, because everything from there all the way through eating babies is just a matter of degree.<p>Trite as it may seem, don’t be evil is actually a very, very strong statement, as is do no harm. 70 percent of tech market cap these days is a a million tiny harms, a warm pool of diluted evil.
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Jobs the Marketer! You want to lump Jobs in with Ellison because he had the gall to purchase advertising for his products?
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In 2000 I worked for a company that was building a mobile telephony and data product. The partner company asked us to help them implement the lawful intercept function, as is required by law, which we did, however they were asking for 5+% LI traffic when the common practice was 2-ish%. Our hardware was exceptional, we could trivially have done 100% at line rate with zero impact. The engineers all stepped aside, and finally: "Fuck those guys. They get their 2%."<p>It's one of the better ethical moments I've had in my career of working for _mostly_ very ethical companies (so obviously not any social media or crypto).
> I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee.<p>> I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.
The project management book we used in the university noted that if a person refused to work on weapons/military systems and similar, there's no other choice than to respect that, and even asking for its reasons would be borderline unacceptable (depending on your closeness with said person).<p>Now the only reason models trained on any and every public data can't be attached to autonomous weapons is that we didn't fed enough data to these systems to carry this tasks reliably <i>yet</i>.<p>You said the overton window is moved, yet there's no window to discuss about in today's world. As a human being you either get exploited or get exploded. In either case human is the product. We just serve machines at this point.
Yes, the equivocal wording means nothing. It's clear that Anthropic has no moral qualms about participating in war crimes, since that's been America's MO since forever. America has provided free weapons to Israel to continue their slaughter in Gaza and has now joint forces with the same to assassinate leaders under the auspices of peace talks, and kill schoolchildren and other civilians as part of a terror campaign.
I don't know what you're talking about. This is exactly as I remember things back in the Iraq war. With us or against us and all that.
These are kind of unrelated issues. You’re right that it used to be companies just didn’t want to be involved in war at all, & generally speaking that isn’t going to cause issues.<p>The core of the issue here is having a private company which is trying to dictate terms of use to the military, which is not really something that has been done before afaik<p>Originally this contract was signed with these terms included, and it wasn’t until Anthropic started investigating how its tech was used by Palantir in the Maduro operation that this became an issue.<p>On a surface level it seems like Anthropic is doing the right thing here but this is really at the root of this & the outcome of the case (and whether or not Anthropic is a legitimate supply chain risk) depends entirely on the details of those conversations they had with Palantir.
And probably some of the same companies where you could get fired for publicly expressing some mildly controversial sociological theories like James Damore did are also companies that would not hesitate to work with the CIA or the Pentagon on mass surveillance or weapons systems.
It's easy to say "I will never let the Department of Defense use my search engine for evil!" Or "the more money they spend on me, the less they have for weapons!" ( <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Theo_de_Raadt" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Theo_de_Raadt</a> ) when you aren't really expecting money. But when somebody shows up with a check, it becomes much harder to stick to your principles. Especially after watching Palantir (and "don't be evil" Google) rake in plenty of dough.<p>Also: <a href="https://gist.github.com/kemitchell/fdc179d60dc88f0c9b76e5d38fe47076" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/kemitchell/fdc179d60dc88f0c9b76e5d38...</a> .
If you graduated in 2007, your classmates were born around 1985. Their parents were mostly born in the mid 50s to the mid 60s and came to political consciousness either during the Vietnam War or immediately thereafter. No war since has been even close to as unpopular or frankly as salient. It’s the passing out of cultural relevance of that war that you are noticing.
> No war since has been even close to as unpopular or frankly as salient.<p>Iraq.<p>Spoiler alert, a bunch of the current ones are going to be seen similarly too.<p>Also keep in mind when making comparisons that the Vietnam war was not unpopular with Americans at the beginning, and many people justified it all throughout, using language that will be similar to observers of later wars.
> Iraq<p>Not in same ballpark. There’s no Iraq generation the way there’s a Vietnam one.<p>> Spoiler alert, a bunch of the current ones are going to be seen similarly too.<p>No they won’t. The lack of a draft and mass domestic casualties dramatically changes the picture. Especially on the saliency axis.
Correct that there was no Iraq generation because there was no draft and numbers were way smaller. Vietnam had over half a million troops at the height of that war. Iraq had under 170k.<p>But the war was still deeply unpopular. There is a reason America did the extraordinary - to that point - and elect its first black president.<p>The economic toll will be greater with these wars than Vietnam.
> No they won’t. The lack of a draft and mass domestic casualties dramatically changes the picture<p>American centrism strikes again.<p>Plenty of us of the same generation living in countries that <i>didn't</i> fight in Vietnam (with no such draft or casualties) share such ethical views.<p>Don't make this an American argument.
> There’s no Iraq generation the way there’s a Vietnam one.<p>And if autonomous weapons become the norm, _there will never be_.<p>Imagine a future where people just don't question wars on their ethical basis, since it happens far away and "no one is hurt".
The biggest protest in world history was in response to the invasion of Iraq. It’s reasonable to call it unpopular.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_Iraq_War_protests" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_Iraq_War_prot...</a>
Sure, but it's not reasonable to call it as unpopular domestically as the Vietnam War, which had more than 12 times the casualties, spread over a group that on the whole was unwilling to fight and had to be drafted into the conflict, thereby spreading the pain of lost loved ones throughout society rather than concentrating it heavily into the poorer and less politically powerful social and economic classes. As unpopular as the Iraq war was, the American people's distaste didn't really do much to end it.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualt...</a>
There is an Iraq group but we’re just a much smaller group
What tech companies were these? I was younger in 2007 but i feel like i would remember if companies were openly refusing to participate in war.
I quit a job 8 years ago because I learned my code had been deployed inside missiles. Many of my colleagues had similar red lines. I doubt many would now.
Aren't shifts in the Overton Window are qualitatively different from attempts to avoid the wrath of an organized crime syndicate in power?
2007 was 19 years ago. If you step back another 19 years, you'll find that the major tech companies of the era had huge defense contracts: IBM, HP, Oracle, SGI, Texas Instruments, etc. Not only that, the development of many technologies we take for granted today -- like integrated circuits, the Internet, even Postgres -- were directly funded by the DoD. Much of the growth of Silicon Valley in the early days was a direct consequence of working with the military.
It's not just that.<p>There was the 3 laws of robotics, where a robot/software was not to do any harm.<p>There was concerns over privacy and refusal of sharing your name and info on the internet. After all it's full of strategers and there was danger<p>Don't get into cars with strangers
USA is collapsing.
> my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war<p>Holy mother of bubbles. No, for several decades it was a common thing for the L3 Harris, Lockheed Martin, etc to scoop up half the geeks from most graduating classes.
I'm a decade older so maybe I missed the memo but I think you'll have a hard time naming tech companies that actually refused to work with the military, which were large enough and important enough to be in danger of selling something to the military (i.e. not Be Inc. or Beenz.com)<p>Clearly, all of the traditional big leagues were lined up to take the Army's money. IBM, Control Data, Cray, SGI, and HP all viewed weapons research as a major line of business. DEC was the default minicomputer of the DoD and Sun created features to court the intelligence community including the DoD "Trusted Workstation". Sperry Rand <i>defined</i> "military industrial complex".
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Maven" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Maven</a>
Well, they made a big deal about saying that while they sold their software to the Defense Department, it wasn't actually being used to kill people. Except for well-known military contractors (e.g., Raytheon), who have sold plenty of software specifically to kill people.<p>I guess there's a reason we saw plenty of articles about software used somewhat defensively -- such as distinguishing whether a particular "bang" was a gunshot, and where it likely came from -- instead of offensively -- such as improvements to targeting software.
Yes, and IBM had a particularly tainted history from WWII.<p>For every company that stands on values, there is another that will do some shady shit for a dollar.
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This wasn't really that long ago.<p><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@37.6735255,-122.389804,3a,31.2y,56.31h,89.27t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sfPm_30ruC-qfXcQ63wcU5A!2e0!5s20090101T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D0.7332320095466258%26panoid%3DfPm_30ruC-qfXcQ63wcU5A%26yaw%3D56.309412980758644!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMwMi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/maps/@37.6735255,-122.389804,3a,31.2y...</a>
When I graduated, companies had mottos like Don't do evil.
It's certainly entertaining to read about ancient industry history, with people on DARPA grants objecting to military interest in the stuff the military was paying them to do.
It's because they need enormous amounts of money for their datacenters<p>And enormous amount of political support because of the negative perception of AI in society
This is really, really , really bad revisionist history boarding on fanfiction - The U.S. military directly built the entire foundation of the modern tech industry. There's a reason that the Internet started out as ARPANET (ARPA [now DARPA] being a DoD agency).
VCs have mined all the low hanging fruit of the internet. Exactly how many attention grabbing advertising companies, crypto scammers and gambling sites can the world stand. Enshittification is forcing them to seek new horizons.
>refuse to let their systems be used for war..<p>I don't want wars.<p>But tell me, what would you like your country to do when conflicts arise due to want of natural resources? Would you want your country to just give up that resource your people depend on, like may be 50/50?<p>Do you believe it will <i>always</i> be possible to settle on a solution in a peaceful way that works for everyone?
Most of America's recent wars have been unjustified.<p>I think it's very reasonable to not want your products or work going towards making it easier for the US military wage unjustified wars.<p>I also think it would be reasonable to change your stance on that if America entered a war that you felt was justified.<p>(For example, I don't want to work for the military, but if we were being invaded I would consider it.)<p>Saying the military can't use your tool _today_ doesn't prevent you from changing your mind _tomorrow._
<p><pre><code> > I don't want to work for the military, but if we were being invaded I would consider it.
</code></pre>
Enlisting <i>after</i> your country had already been invaded is too late. An ancient proverb reminds us that if you want peace, prepare for war.
Your logic here is sound, sure. But don't tell me you can be so naive as to believe that the U.S. military is a defensive mechanism
>But don't tell me you can be so naive as to believe that the U.S. military is a defensive<p>I am not. Every country is corrupt, and war makes a lot of money for powerful people, but does it justify sabotaging your own existence?
Literally yes. If you justify harming others out of nowhere by ‘sabotaging your own existence’ then yes.<p>‘Sabotaging your own existence’ is a magic sentence that can justify everything. Israel can kill children more than any other nation in the world, and justify it by ‘not sabotaging their own existence’<p>Anyone can do anything with this perspective. This is the exact point gere. Pull yourself back, if you are about to ‘not sabotage your own existence’ by simply killing innocent civilians because you believe a computer algorithm told you in about 15 years they or their children might do something harmful.
Sure, any one can say anything. But I am not referring to that. I am talking about a case where it is objectively true.<p>But I think that is a question that anyone would rather not consider.<p>The issue is that if you don't consider that question, and jump into discussion or actions, in general just have an "outrage", then it would be very hard to take you seriously.
> <i>Anyone can do anything with this perspective</i><p>Not really. Not unless one is thinking in absolutes, at which point one is by definition an extremist.<p>The rational dialogue that emerges is the proper size of a military for defensive—but not continuous offensive—purposes. I’d guess, for America, that is half its current size at most. (The wrong answers are zero and $1.4tn.)
I am sympathetic to the argument that I’d rather elected officials that have a path to be removed have the control of use more so than unelected executives.
Isn't the point of technology and engineering to find alternatives with the resources that one has?
Yes, but it takes time.<p>Like we have solar now. People talk about how it saves environment. But I think another similar win would be reduction in dependency on oil, and countries won't have to go to war over oil. But it takes time...<p>But it seems what technology gives, technology takes away. Because new technologies comes with its own resource requirements. And the cycle looks like it will go on...
Personally, I'd rather that my country (USA) be taken over by China than bomb innocents in the Middle East.
Yes, there are many plus sides if USA were taken over by China.<p>1. You will see no protest on the street.<p>2. You will see no homeless on the street.<p>3. You will hear no more school shootings or any shooting.<p>4. No more tech companies conflicting with the government.<p>5. No one will sue the government because it's perfect.<p>6. All bad people will disappear.<p>7. Everyone sings praise of the government.<p>This is better than Utopia, you should pursue it.
Hear, hear
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If the country wage wars for bad reasons, that is another problem that probably should be fixed elsewhere, or you should leave that country and be somewhere who government you can fully get behind.<p>> defending your country<p>I am afraid that this does not always have to be an incoming attack. What if some country has a resource that your country badly needs, without which your people will suffer badly and imagine the same is true with the other country. How much of an hit on economic and QoL are you willing to sustain before you ask your government to go out there and get the required resource by force.<p>I totally get that war is profitable, and most of the wars cannot be justified. But ideas like this sounds like sabotaging your own country and thus your own existence.
> classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war<p>I don't want to be stuck with horses when the enemy is invading with tanks.
I’d argue it’s come full circle and it hasn’t changed a bit.<p>There wouldn’t be a Silicon Valley without World War 2 and US gov. funding of Stanford to develop radar basically.<p>The initial investment from then gave critical capital mass for Stanford, the VCs, and the tech companies of today.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/ZTC_RxWN_xo?si=gGza5eIv485xEKLS" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/ZTC_RxWN_xo?si=gGza5eIv485xEKLS</a>
> they have to couch it in language clarifying that they would love to support war, actually,<p>Yes they do because they are trying to sell to the <i>Department of War</i>.<p>No one made Anthropic try to be a military contractor. It’s pretty much the definition of being a military contractor that your product helps to kill people.
As much as I agree with a lot of these principles, in principle, the crux of the fight is Anthropic feeling and behaving like they're entitled to be involved in things far beyond anything they're legally allowed to be, and the military leadership telling them, rightly, to take a hike and not let the door hit them on the way out.<p>Effective Altruism is a deeply silly, flawed, unserious, superficial way of engaging with the world if this, FTX, and shrimp welfare are the outcome of people putting it in action.<p>What Anthropic wants is to be able to go back and pontificate and sue a government if they determine that their terms of service have been violated. In order to enforce that, they wanted oversight, access, and to intervene if they felt it was being put to a purpose they disagreed with, namely surveillance or autonomous weapons/killing, etc.<p>As an AI platform, they can decide if they want the military to be able to use the software. I'm 1000% on board with this. They don't get to sit an Anthropic employee down and say "ok, now you watch these soldiers and make sure they follow the rules, and if they do anything wrong, you hit the big red button that shuts them down."
They don't get to program a Claude oversight agent to do that, either. That messes with realtime operations.
They don't get to go back and sue "ackshually, we looked at these logs and determined that you violated rule 102.3a in the contract, because one of the terrorists was participating from an IP address determined to reside in the continental US" or whatever.<p>Anthropic doesn't get to hold the US military accountable. It doesn't get to do oversight. It doesn't get to constrain its scope of operation, through legal threat or active intervention or contracts or otherwise.<p>Chain of command and rule of law constrain the US military. Congressional oversight and rule of law hold it accountable. A private contractor, no matter how noble or principled, doesn't get extra privileges.<p>Anthropic playing political games, advocating for unelected and unaccountable power to be granted a private corporation, is what got them designated a supply chain risk, and I can see the argument for it. Depending on how much effort they put in to hassling the government and pushing for their side, it remains to be seen whether the designation sticks.<p>And in principle, I also see the utility of being extremely heavy handed when slapping down a private company trying to make a power grab like that. Either through ignorance or incredible arrogance and entitlement, a private company and industry needs to learn their place in the grand scheme of things. Anthropic isn't special, their place is right alongside all the rest of we the people; they don't get extra privileges because they feel strongly that they're particularly right or righteous.<p>OpenAI effectively said "yeah, rule of law, thumbs up, sounds good." and took the $200B on the table.
Anthropic was pushing for extra private oversight and accountability, and it doesn't matter if it was surveillance, autonomous weapons, or not eating babies - the particular rule doesn't matter, the precedent being set of private corporations getting a say, at all, beyond legal limits, is the point. No company gets to tell the US military what to do or what not do, or hold them accountable post-hoc, or constrain available options, because if they absolutely need to break a technicality for a good reason, when national security and defense is under consideration, a private company's rules and terms of service is the very last thing in the world that should be important to that discussion.<p>I'm a Snowden fan and absolutely want the global surveillance apparatus to vanish, and don't want an AI singleton dystopia, and I'm probably waaayyy more liberal and liberty minded than is reasonable, but even I can understand where this line in the sand is, and why it's there. I'd be shocked if Dario lasts the year as CEO, it's clear he's ill equipped for real world, adult decisions.
My guess is that Hegseth saw this tiktok showing a vision of robots deployed by the Chinese army:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/z5I8HDkrKbI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/shorts/z5I8HDkrKbI</a>
When I was a kid just the rumor of "selling out" could kill the popularity of something, now it's often the goal.
Students are idealistic. The real world has a habit of blunting that.
Maybe not war, per se, but still relevant to this topic, around this time, there was a famous AT&T whistle blower (Mark Klein) who described the company's role in domestic surveillance by the NSA.<p>Maybe companies are more open about it today, but it is hard to make such a wide assertion.
But ma, look at our stonk price!
> My, the world has changed.<p>Has it though? I'd say it's morphed, not changed. This is still, underneath it all, Hanseatic League and East India Company domination style colonialism, but adapted to and shaped by the digital age.<p>The US has pretty much all throughout its history had its military-industrial complex and warfare as an economic motor too, and in view of this, it's inevitable that software gets integrated.<p>Israel, the most recent settler-colonial state (of course some people try to claim it's not using various mental gymnastics, but I'm not fooled), was the experiment and has become a model for how to intermingle the industrial-military complex with society to the degree they two become indistinguishable, and with backing of the West it's been a very profitable and, I hate to say it, successful model.<p>Here's[1] a review of a book about the subject, talking about the state incubating start-ups and spawning a tech sector for the sole purpose of warmongering.<p>[1]: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-harvard-of-anti-terrorism-how-israels-military-industrial-complex-feeds-the-global-arms-trade-204758" rel="nofollow">https://theconversation.com/the-harvard-of-anti-terrorism-ho...</a>
What are some examples of a tool the military wanted but the company refused to allow them to use it and getting away with it?
The reckoning will come.<p>Watch as the same people pushing for war today will pretend they were always against it 10 years from now.<p>I guess we're just doomed to repeat the same cycles.
It’s like cheating on a spouse, it’s not much of a claim to say “id never cheat” when there are zero opportunities to do so.<p>Same with the claims from companies like Google - “dont be evil”. Easy to say when there is nothing on the line.<p>But when the choice is between your claimed morals and the future success of your company, those morals disappear in a hurry. But they were never strongly held in the first place.
You have to recognize that boomers, with all their faults, took military action seriously. And Silicon Valley looked up to the likes of John Perry Barlow and 60s counterculture.<p>Their kids don't give a shit.
> My, the world has changed.<p>Revisionist history.<p>When you graduated in 2007, the leading tech companies were Microsoft, Google, IBM, Cisco, Apple, Intel, HP, Oracle, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments.<p>How many refused DoD application of their products?<p>I only recall one -- Google. (And it actually first agreed to Project Maven before later backing out.)
> the world has changed.<p>It's the effect of a cult of personality. People don't feel like they want or need this. But they're on board with the cult.
> When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds.<p>I don't think it was very common really.<p>I think for the most part it was tech companies whose systems were not being used for war who like to boast that they refused to let their systems be used for war. Or that they creatively interpreted "for war" that since they were not actually manufacturing explosives, they could claim it was not for war.
Didn't the silicon valley basically bootstrapped with defense contracts?
I don't think the world has changed. There's just a madman in the white house. Look at the "Presidents" tweet for god sake... how is this normal?!<p>"THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS! "<p>"The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution. Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY.<p>Therefore, I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!"
Let's not imply the world changed on its own. Trump changed it.
When people (myself included FWIW) warn about the dangers of American imperialism, it's because:<p>1. As President Eisenhower said in his farewell address in 1961 [1], every dollar spent on the military-industrial complex is a dollar not spent on schools or houses or hospitals or bridges;<p>2. Every American company with sufficient size eventually becomes a defense contractor. That's really what's happened with the tech companies. They're moving in lockstep with the administration on both domestic and foreign policy;<p>3. The so-called "imperial boomerang" [2]. Every tactic, weapon and strategy used against colonial subjects are eventually used against the imperial core eg [3]. Do you think it's an accident that US police forces have become increasingly militarized?<p>The example I like to give is China's high speed rail. China started building HSR only 20 years ago and now has over 32,000 miles of HSR tracks taking ~4M passengers <i>per day</i>. The estimated cost for the entire network is ~$900B. That's less than the US spends on the military <i>every year</i>.<p>I really what Steve Jobs would've done were he still alive. Tim Apple has bent the knee and kissed the ring. Would Steve Jobs have done the same? I'm not so sure. He may well have been ousted (again) because of it.<p>Then again, I think Steve Jobs was the only Silicon Valley billlionaire not in a transhumanist polycule with a more than even chance of being in the files.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address" rel="nofollow">https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwigh...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang</a><p>[3]: <a href="https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/with-whom-are-many-u-s-police-departments-training-with-a-chronic-human-rights-violator-israel/" rel="nofollow">https://www.amnestyusa.org/blog/with-whom-are-many-u-s-polic...</a>
Thank you for mentioning the term 'imperial boomerang'. You really saw it in the militarization of the police after the Iraq War. Gone are the donut munchers.
> I really what Steve Jobs would've done were he still alive. Tim Apple has bent the knee and kissed the ring. Would Steve Jobs have done the same? I'm not so sure. He may well have been ousted (again) because of it.<p>Given that Steve Jobs was best friends with Larry Ellison, I’d say he wouldn’t have bent the knee because he would’ve been standing hand in hand with Trump, just like Larry.
>1. As President Eisenhower said in his farewell address in 1961 [1], every dollar spent on the military-industrial complex is a dollar not spent on schools or houses or hospitals or bridges;<p>This humanist view unfortunately doesn’t hold anymore in the modern world. Boomers will be happy as long as not a single dollar is spent on housing, so that their own homes can appreciate in value. Republicans would rather burn money than spend it on houses, hospitals, or bridges that might benefit immigrants or “other people” more than themselves.<p>I used an American political party only as a reference, but the same phenomenon can be seen in many countries around the world. Society has become incredibly cynical and has regressed a lot in terms of humanity.
As the Heritage Foundation has said, we are in a cold civil war for our country and right now, the authoritarians are winning.
What we now call Silicon Valley was created by the Navy in the late 19th century because they needed advanced radio technology to coordinate Pacific patrols. From then to about five years before the time you’re talking about, schools and tech companies worked closely with the military.<p>On the timescale of the industry as a whole, working with the military has been the norm and we are seeing a reversion to mean after about two decades of aberrant divergence.
The world changed in many ways. America now resembles China or Russia in terms of authoritarianism and oligarchy.<p>See <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47270470">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47270470</a><p>> Dean Ball: What Secretary Pete Hegseth announced is a desire to kill Anthropic. It is true that the government has abridged private-property rights before. But it is radical and different to say, brazenly: If you don’t do business on our terms, we will kill you; we will kill your company. I can’t imagine sending a worse signal to the business community. It cuts right at heart at everything that makes us different from China, which roots in this idea that the government can’t just kill you if you say you don’t want to do business with it, literally or figuratively. Though in this case, I’m speaking figuratively.
The Overton window has <i>not</i> shifted, at least not among rank-and-file tech workers. There was very loud and vocal internal opposition to building and selling weapons[0]. They all lost the argument in the boardrooms because the US government writes very big checks. But I am told they are very much still around.<p>CEOs are bound to sociopathically amoral behavior - not by the law, but by the Pareto-optimal behavior of the job market for executives. The law obligates you to act in the interests of the shareholders, but it does not mandate[1] that Line Go Up. <i>That</i> is a function of a specific brand of shareholder that fires their CEOs every 18 months until the line goes up.<p>In 2007, Big Tech had plenty of the consumer market to conquer, so they could afford to pretend to be opposed to selling to the military. But the game they were playing was <i>always</i> going to end with them selling to the military. Once they were entrenched they could ignore the no-longer-useful-to-us-right-now dissenters, change their politics on a dime, and go after the "real money".<p>[0] Several of the sibling comments are mentioning hypothetical scenarios involving dual-use technologies or obfuscated purposes. Those are also relevant, but not the whole story.<p>[1] There are plenty of arguments a CEO could use to defend against a shareholder lawsuit that they did not take a particularly short-sighted action. Notably, that most line-go-up actions tend to be bad long-term decisions. You're <i>allowed</i> to sell low-risk investments.
> My, the world has changed.<p>No. Your tech experience was an aberration.<p>For almost all of history, including recent history, tech and military went together. Whether compound bows, or spears or metallurgy.<p>Euler used his math to develop artillery tables for the Prussian army.<p>von Neumann helped develop the atom bomb.<p>The military played a huge role in creating Silicon Valley.<p>However, to people who grew up in the mid to late 90s, it is easy to miss that that period was a major aberration. You had serious people talking about the end of history. You had John Perry Barlow's utterly naive Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace which looks more and more naive every year.
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CBC news (canadian outlet) released an investigation on this yesterday, and found:<p>> While the facility was functioning as a school, CBC News has confirmed a previous New York Times report stating the building was once part of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base.<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-school-bombing-investigation-9.7114994" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-school-bombing-investigat...</a><p>Assuming AI was used for finding targets, perhaps the training data was out of date?
my understanding that it was an Israeli missile that hit that school. i doubt we'll get to know <i>anything</i> about that.
<i>waves to the censors</i>
> It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue.<p>> When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war,<p>In 2007 the US was the sole world hegemon. It could afford to let the smartest people work on ad delivery systems.<p>In 2026, in certain fields, China has a stronger economy and military. Russia is taking over Europe. India and Brazil are going their own way. China is economically colonizing Africa.<p>The US can't afford to let it's enemies develop strong AI weapons first because of the naive thinking that Russia/China/others will also have naive thinkers that will demand the same.<p>---<p>People were just as naive with respect to Ukraine. They were saying that mines and depleted uranium shells are evil. But when Russia attacked, many changed their minds because they realized you can't kill Russians with grandstanding on noble principle. You kill them with mines and depleted uranium shells.<p>Hopefully people here will change their minds before a hot war. As the saying goes, America always picks the right solution after trying all the wrong ones.
> moral grounds<p>more like fashionable virtue signaling that survives only the least amount of inconvenience
The only difference between now and 2007 is the curtain has been pulled back revealing how things have always worked.