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.
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).
I wonder if in a few years, there'll be heads of Google paraphrasing the old skit "You know, in hindsight, allowing autonomous AI drones to carry fusion bombs was a bad move, but for that one quarter we really earned a lot of shareholder value"
Not only that but his outrage is narrowly focused on contemporary US politics. Billions of people access food, shelter, medicine, education, etc, only by the rapidly diminishing leverage their labor provides (or doesn't provide) them. These people presumably never so much as picked up a book, or evenly briefly entertained a thought about a person outside their own immediate social circle.
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
Comparing it to fire isn’t really an apt comparison.
You developed the nuclear bomb. Would you give free access to every human on the planet to do with it as they see fit? Or would you demand responsible guardrails from the start?
AI companies want it both ways. This will both redefine humanity as we know it, but also nobody should try to enforce any guardrails. Why? Because it might hurt profits.
Either it’s snake oil and not as revolutionary as claimed, or people should be facing prison time for trying to claim “I just invented it and gave everyone access, I can’t be held responsible for what happens next”.
The bomb was literally developed under a top secret program, and they didn’t hand out functioning bombs to the general public at any point in time before “the destruction was seen”.
It was created at wartime. Not as a civilian project. Developed as a weapon. And other countries were developing nuclear weapons as science of it was never a secret
Destruction display did caused the governments to come together and build frameworks and structures to avoid the repeat of it
Which again, is completely different than giving access to every human being on the planet, then trying to figure out how to regulate it later.
Out of the gate access was restricted to government use, and a limited subset of governments at that. There was never a point in time it was handed out to any private citizen to do with as they pleased.
As for “we haven’t seen the destruction yet” - huh? Between the proliferation of hacks utilizing AI and drone warfare in ukraine we’ve ABSOLUTELY seen the destruction already.
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.
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.
The virtue signaling is too much on this article. It could have been a well-written piece, but they had to make it about moral grandstanding.
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).
Wait, only now you realised that the “do no evil” meant jack shit?
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.
Primary source: https://turntrout.com/why-i-left-google-deepmind
painfully entitled and arrogant
more comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48925271
I am outraged to find gambling in this casino!
What sort of ethics bubble was the author living in to believe that Google was anything but solely focused on achieving shareholder value?
Agreed: expecting Alphabet not to do the evil greedy thing is like expecting a lion to become a vegetarian, it just isn't going to happen.
The same that believes in HR marketing like Do No Evil.
Pretty sure they ditched that motto long time ago.
Still there:
And remember... don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!
https://abc.xyz/investor/board-and-governance/google-code-of...
They did, still doesn't change the kind of bubble we are talking about.
I wonder if in a few years, there'll be heads of Google paraphrasing the old skit "You know, in hindsight, allowing autonomous AI drones to carry fusion bombs was a bad move, but for that one quarter we really earned a lot of shareholder value"
Not only that but his outrage is narrowly focused on contemporary US politics. Billions of people access food, shelter, medicine, education, etc, only by the rapidly diminishing leverage their labor provides (or doesn't provide) them. These people presumably never so much as picked up a book, or evenly briefly entertained a thought about a person outside their own immediate social circle.
Someone send this to Tucker Carlson
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
Comparing it to fire isn’t really an apt comparison.
You developed the nuclear bomb. Would you give free access to every human on the planet to do with it as they see fit? Or would you demand responsible guardrails from the start?
AI companies want it both ways. This will both redefine humanity as we know it, but also nobody should try to enforce any guardrails. Why? Because it might hurt profits.
Either it’s snake oil and not as revolutionary as claimed, or people should be facing prison time for trying to claim “I just invented it and gave everyone access, I can’t be held responsible for what happens next”.
Nuclear wasn't governed until the destruction was seen. There's no reason to believe AI wouldn't follow a similar path
The bomb was literally developed under a top secret program, and they didn’t hand out functioning bombs to the general public at any point in time before “the destruction was seen”.
It was created at wartime. Not as a civilian project. Developed as a weapon. And other countries were developing nuclear weapons as science of it was never a secret
Destruction display did caused the governments to come together and build frameworks and structures to avoid the repeat of it
Which again, is completely different than giving access to every human being on the planet, then trying to figure out how to regulate it later.
Out of the gate access was restricted to government use, and a limited subset of governments at that. There was never a point in time it was handed out to any private citizen to do with as they pleased.
As for “we haven’t seen the destruction yet” - huh? Between the proliferation of hacks utilizing AI and drone warfare in ukraine we’ve ABSOLUTELY seen the destruction already.