You (the org) brought fire to the masses. How that fire is used (to build or burn the cities) is not for you do decide
Stand by and share your ethics concern. But this isn't misalignment. A lot of AI use cases will be constraint/reigned in through governance evolution at every scale
Very long to read, but highly principled. I feel his desperation. Powerful people can too easily do little, and ignore their consciences. I appreciate he named those he spoke to; it came across as fair, and makes them accountable for what they did or did not do.
I don't know the author, but I do know that it's very much possible to work for organizations whose values and ethics are extremely compromised, and to mindfully participate in their work because you can also do a lot of good for a lot of people while you're there.
It's a complicated cost/benefit tradeoff: are the opportunities for world-improvement available with the resources of an ethically compromised organization worth the world-damage done by your participation (either your presence alone lending legitimacy/size to the org, or by work you may be called upon to do that directly or indirectly does harm)?
If you think there is a simple answer to that, you're wrong.
Like, sure, a lot of people delude themselves into thinking they're not doing harm because they like money or hate change. That's bad, and separate from what I'm describing above: that you can work for a deeply flawed org and accept the cost of your participation in those flaws in return for benefits that you can others can achieve with the resources offered by that same flawed org.
However way people that are deep into the cog wake up I support it. Once the truth was seen you didn't bend and stood by your principles, it must have been very challenging to navigate that from the inside with your entire identity tied to and associated to the thing you ended up growing out from. Appreciate you, welcome to your new life. May you find peace and continue to do good work next.
I'll always support someone taking a personal stand about what they can or cannot do. Ethical issues always invite the most criticism but my experience is that it's rare for anyone to really give anything up for their ethics (this person likely has money saved up and will land on their feet but even this situation is more than most people would do).
Youre right. virtue signalling against double-taps with AGM's on fishing boats, or using ICE to kill americans is a bad stance to take. We should have considered the pro-warcrime pro-killing-american stances first...
Great show of principles and character, +1000 to the author.
What can we "regular people" do?
My approach, which is very inconvenient, is to try as much as possible to not feed my consumer spending money to tech giants. In some cases I fail at this (e.g., my wife and I will always buy a family membership for YouTube Plus with music; we still order some things online from Amazon) but I make an effort.
I have been an AI practitioner for over 40 years and I want to use the very best AI coding agents, etc., but I am forcing myself to just use access to cheaper open weight models from smaller US inferencing companies (my last $$ subscription runs out in a few days).
I am not sure how to square the posts that AI is a bubble with the ones that say AI is so terrible; lately I am somewhat inclined to especially believe the former.
This may be controversial (and I will understand if the mods want to remove this comment) but this made me really wonder if westerners like him are actually aware of the ongoing genocide in Gaza (and now in West Bank and Lebanon) that is also supported by Google tech (amongst others)? I ask because if the death of 2 people in America bothered him so much, shouldn't the death of around 75,000+ Palestinians have stirred his conscience much earlier?
The author misses one GLARING explaination as to everyone's motivations... money. Literally... just money. There's so much money right now. Enough to eliminate all principles.
What is particularly heartbreaking is that the nerds were supposed to be the gatekeepers of good. And we're just watching this fall apart in realtime. Principles matter little when starting at a $1,000,000,000 check deposited directly into your personal bank account.
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[ 34.4 ms ] story [ 83.7 ms ] threadStand by and share your ethics concern. But this isn't misalignment. A lot of AI use cases will be constraint/reigned in through governance evolution at every scale
What sort of ethics bubble was the author living in to believe that Google was anything but solely focused on achieving shareholder value?
It's a complicated cost/benefit tradeoff: are the opportunities for world-improvement available with the resources of an ethically compromised organization worth the world-damage done by your participation (either your presence alone lending legitimacy/size to the org, or by work you may be called upon to do that directly or indirectly does harm)?
If you think there is a simple answer to that, you're wrong.
Like, sure, a lot of people delude themselves into thinking they're not doing harm because they like money or hate change. That's bad, and separate from what I'm describing above: that you can work for a deeply flawed org and accept the cost of your participation in those flaws in return for benefits that you can others can achieve with the resources offered by that same flawed org.
How blind and ignorant really are you?
Let me attempt to save you from another horrifying realisation: it has hardly anything do with who’s in the office right now.
The horrors and evil will persist.
Its not easy to do at this moment in time, but be patient, consistent, and spread your attitude to others.
Previously on the author's source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48925271
What can we "regular people" do?
My approach, which is very inconvenient, is to try as much as possible to not feed my consumer spending money to tech giants. In some cases I fail at this (e.g., my wife and I will always buy a family membership for YouTube Plus with music; we still order some things online from Amazon) but I make an effort.
I have been an AI practitioner for over 40 years and I want to use the very best AI coding agents, etc., but I am forcing myself to just use access to cheaper open weight models from smaller US inferencing companies (my last $$ subscription runs out in a few days).
This may be controversial (and I will understand if the mods want to remove this comment) but this made me really wonder if westerners like him are actually aware of the ongoing genocide in Gaza (and now in West Bank and Lebanon) that is also supported by Google tech (amongst others)? I ask because if the death of 2 people in America bothered him so much, shouldn't the death of around 75,000+ Palestinians have stirred his conscience much earlier?
- How US Big Tech supports Israel’s AI-powered genocide and apartheid - https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/5/12/how-us-big-tech...
- Google's Role in Supporting Israel's Genocide in Gaza - https://matttutt.me/googles-role-in-supporting-israels-genoc...
Can a US company refuse the US government as a customer?
What is particularly heartbreaking is that the nerds were supposed to be the gatekeepers of good. And we're just watching this fall apart in realtime. Principles matter little when starting at a $1,000,000,000 check deposited directly into your personal bank account.
> Principles matter little when starting at a $1,000,000,000 check deposited directly into your personal bank account.
Maybe for some of us, sure.