8 ms·

Why I Left Google DeepMind

390 points by apsec112 2mo ago

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
bigyabai 2mo ago
> Even if Google had adopted your Framework, the Pentagon would have refused > I agree. xAI would still have given over their AI. But if Google had given signs of independence earlier, it could perhaps have built a coalition with OpenAI and Anthropic. This is like saying that Google and Apple might build a coalition to prevent App Store regulation. These are competitors, they all see moral flexibility as an advantage. They're not going to take a moralist stance if their federal protection is predicated on federal cooperation. All of these FAANG businesses have already bent the knee in anticipation of this, xAI is just riding the coattails of the federal quid-pro-quo. When you go to work at a megacorp, you're always leaving your ethics at the door. Yes, there's an attractive pie-in-the-sky fantasy that Apple does care about human rights, or that Google isn't evil, but they're always just lies. I disagree with a lot of GCP's customers, but I'm still shocked that a DeepMind employee would make it this far in the career pipeline before seeing the soylent green get made.
- awakeasleep 2mo ago
  Competitors often wish they didn't have to compete. For example, a cartel is "a group of independent market participants who collaborate with each other and avoid competition in order to improve profits and dominate the market" It's something that could happen in this world, through the collective action of employees, that corporate strategy can be changed.
  - bigyabai 2mo ago
    > through the collective action of employees, that corporate strategy can be changed. I just don't agree with this. I'd like to, but the corporate strategy is not being set by rank-and-file engineers. Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Elon Musk - these are the executives that are steering the ship. You can change the culture internally and cause a lot of strife, but typically you don't have control over the strategy. If the executive says you're giving API access to the NSA, then that's what is going to happen.
  - worldthruword 2mo ago
    I hope he becomes the seed crystal around which crystallization of peaceful use of AI happens.
- busterarm 2mo ago
  On the upside, I guess maybe DeepMind is hiring. ... I'm sure I'll get flamed into oblivion for this but it's weird to me how the zeitgeist is anti-colonialism but also against enforcing borders and national sovereignty. I guess maybe they are okay with it unless you're a western nation. Whatever, there's no room for nuanced opinions anymore in modern online discourse. I'll admit to being a weird outlier on this. I may not like what certain parts of the government are doing but I'd go work for the Voldemort companies in a heartbeat -- they just require in-office and aren't anywhere near me. I'd rather my nation develop the best technologies than let other nations do it. Just look at how far behind the eurozone is by not making the right investments.
  - boston_clone 2mo ago
    [flagged]
    - busterarm 2mo ago
      Same to you I guess? The world is not a black and white place. Rigorous self-defense is not evil. I chose to be vulnerable and honest knowing what kind of responses I would get and the guidelines of this board call for assuming good faith. It's discourse like yours that is inflaming and ruining our society. I didn't even endorse any specific actions here, I'm just not meeting your moral threshold based on your interpretation of some pretty thinly-detailed comments that I made. You also can't influence the game if you're not a player so opting out of working in the entire defense industry is probably against your interests.
      - boston_clone 2mo ago
        make no mistake, it’s mindsets like yours that put us on the path we currently tread. > I'd go work for the Voldemort companies in a heartbeat […] being honest and vulnerable about being a shitty person does not beget or earn you any kind of mutual respect. we are simply not the same.
        2mo ago
- khalic 2mo ago
  apple and google are regularly on the same side against eu regulations
- pcald 2mo ago
  Working anywhere requires ethical compromise… a 2 person company can disagree on ethical questions
  - bigyabai 2mo ago
    Ethical compromise is part of participating in society, even the unemployed have to follow the law. Moral compromise is typically avoidable though, and some principled people will hold those morals equal to the value of a job.
aew2120 2mo ago
tldr: scientist discovers reality
- wiz21c 2mo ago
  tldr: scientist tell us that defending one's values needs courage and strong will.
- smallmancontrov 2mo ago
  If half of us were half as principled as this guy, the world would be a much better place.
  - busterarm 2mo ago
    No, they would just walked all over by the 2% who have no principles whatsoever. Kind of like what's happening already. Principles are only good up until they enable you to be systematically victimized.
    - titularcomment 2mo ago
      Don't play fair in a game others cheat.
    - scoring1774 2mo ago
      I sometimes think this way but I do wonder whether this would be true in a world where individuals demand more control over the impacts of their work. It seems that the current problem is that the labor of the 98% (or whatever number you like) is well-aligned with the demands of the 2% without principles who seem to have a strong propensity to end up in leadership positions. It reminds me of the simulations people run where in a high-trust world scammers do well, while in a low-trust world they die off only to then lead to a new high-trust world. If enough people make decisions like OP and only perform work that they believe in (for one reason or another) perhaps that redirects the path to power for the 2% such that they need to act in the interests of the 98% rather than the other way around. I think OP was very late to the train here and I had made a similar career switch in the past for similar reasons but I'm happy to see other people making decisions that, if nothing else, will make them feel that they are in control of the impacts of their time and hard-work. Not sure how things will balance out in the end/distant future but we do our best and try to lead a life we feel good about living.
recitedropper 2mo ago
Nothing but respect to TurnTrout for taking an action like this. The world needs more smart people who are willing to stand for what they feel is right, despite the pressures otherwise. Without that occurring more, our species is going to lose many impactful prisoner's dilemmas coming these next two decades. This raises my respect for AI researchers a little bit too. I have often felt that the entire industry is pretty tainted to the core, and for better or worse that colors my opinion of the researchers. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I thought it was gross to download pirated art for a student project when I was at Berkeley years ago. So it has been really sad to witness many of the most brilliant minds of this generation answering the siren song of disrespecting the collective effort of others to extract and resell residual value. I'd guess TurnTrout doesn't agree on that framing, otherwise he probably would not have been at Deep Mind. But clearly he and I agree on other ethical positions; I am nothing but glad to see him stick to his principles here.
- yw3410 2mo ago
  Apologies, but it would be good to add links for your anecdotes. Not all of the readers of your comment have the appropriate context and know what you're talking about. I certainly don't.
  - recitedropper 2mo ago
    Hmm, links for what? My student project? The decisions that face humanity that are pretty clearly modellable as prisoner's dilemmas? Otherwise not sure what I could cite--I would assume most all on this forum know that AI is trained on the works of other people, without their permission to do so. I guess you could disagree with my framing, but I wouldn't think this requires a citation. I think maybe my writing wasn't clear, and it sounded like I was referrencing some well known thing that happened at UC Berkeley. I have edited it to read more cleanly!
    - yw3410 2mo ago
      Yes; the student project you were talking about. It wasn't clear to me it was _your_ project nor who pirated it. I was under the impression it was a well known scandal from your original, unedited comment. Apologies if my comment sounded hostile; I was just asking for a clarification/more information on it.
spwa4 2mo ago
[flagged]
- wiz21c 2mo ago
  IOW: "if I have to kill only 2-3 people to make the business I want to make, then, bah, so be it".
  - andriy_koval 2mo ago
    its more like: good luck finding clients who don't kill anyone somewhere deep inside their supply chain.
- boston_clone 2mo ago
  your straw man is misrepresenting the scale of violence ICE has inflicted on communities across the country. the article states it was after Alex Pirettis death that he was inspired to act. ICE has killed many people across the country during activities which they have no business conducting. A man in Houston was killed last week, then days later, another in Maine. They’ve shot citizens and fabricated evidence to cover up their actions in multiple instances. Wake the fuck up and stop trying to whatabout your way to a more comfortable mental state.
  - andriy_koval 2mo ago
    > They’ve shot citizens and fabricated evidence to cover up their actions in multiple instances. typical police activity protected by impunity in this country.
    - boston_clone 2mo ago
      i don’t think statements like this help reinforce how serious the situation is; rather, it subtly normalizes it.
      - andriy_koval 2mo ago
rvz 2mo ago
If you do not like what Google is doing, just leave as I said before [0]. They don't care about you. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931336
- onlyrealcuzzo 2mo ago
  I mean - the idea that any company employing non-trivial amounts of people "cares" in any sane sense of the word "care" is absurd. Who is supposed to "care" about you? A single person, definitely not the CEO, is going to individually care about 20k+ workers, especially not 200k+ workers. Even if you assumed an altruistic HR department, it's still going to be a faceless blob when you're a 100k+ company.
tomrod 2mo ago
If the author were to read these comments, I'd commiserate with them on the disappointment of the utopia left behind in the service of acquiring wealth and power. An abundant solarpunk future enabled and augmented by AI, hyped so well by early Google and Kurzweil, captured as capital to earn a buck for shareholders. Mad props for pushing as far as they could push.
- bigyabai 2mo ago
  Would you consider that AI isn't a necessary precursor to an abundant solarpunk utopia? A lot of that hype was fictional, for better or for worse. We're still struggling to proliferate the techno-utopia of digital computers, the internet, and cryptocurrency too. Each time this hype gets drummed up, the utopian stakes are raised to the nines, and the delivered technology does not bring us substantially closer to a more fair or utopian society. Pessimistically, all of these technologies were used to surveil, addict and intellectually degrade society, leading to the miserable status quo we all share in. The technology is not the problem, it seems. I'll commiserate over the longing for utopia, but new technology has never been a panacea for structurally-embedded ills. > The mechanism of individual technologies, both actual and possible ones, does not interest me much. I would not have to look into it if man’s creative activity were free, in a godlike manner, from being polluted by unknowledge—if, now or in the future, we could fulfill our goal in the purest way possible by being able to match the methodological precision of Genesis; if, in saying “let there be light,” we could obtain as a final product light itself, without any unwanted additives. However, the previously mentioned splitting of goals, or even the replacement of one goal with another, often an undesirable one, is a classic phenomenon. - Summa Technologiae
  - tomrod 2mo ago
    Oh, absolutely. But it could be used right and well in a broader solarpunk framework :D
Chance-Device 2mo ago
[flagged]
- tomrod 2mo ago
  I think you might be accidentally or willingly misunderstanding the context if that is your takeaway -- no one, neither immigrant nor innocent bystander, should be killed because administrative warrants are being enforced. And ICE doesn't require hundreds of individuals deployed to one place. There simply was never a reason for such a surge. EDIT: to the dead comment below -- your comment doesn't have to meet my approval -- the comment is simply at odds with reality and is a thought terminating cliche. Feel free to take it in a more general framing: if you don't want people you don't support, while they are in power, killing people, take time to understand why others might be upset. Not only is it your civic duty, its also part of being in society.
  - Chance-Device 2mo ago
    [flagged]
    - wilg 2mo ago
      Well one way you can understand why the poster finds it controversial would be to read it before commenting.
  - Chance-Device 2mo ago
    What would you do instead?
    - tomrod 2mo ago
      Honestly? A few ideas 1. US aid abroad to help stem the conditions that drive many of the migrants to flee their homes. Build up institutions, enforcement, and anti-corruption frameworks so these nations can better build themselves. I'd even be open to hawkish approaches -- frankly it's been surprisingly to see the positive responses to Venezuelan interference by the US. 2. Immigration enforcement needs use-of-force accountability and less lethal approaches. The specific clashes between protesters and ICE come from actions that appear practically designed to encourage confrontation. Agents that kill innocent people should also be held accountable, meaning civil liability reform is necessary. 3. Ensuring we have a shared reality -- hold organizations accountable when they lie or disinform. Example - the majority of immigrants aren't actually criminals, nor are they "stealing jobs" in any coherent way -- studies show that many immigration policies have been net positive on communities. So when Fox News or similar organizations bring up random anti-immigrant commentary, dressed as news instead of entertainment, there really should be consequences for misinforming. 4. Targeted investigations instead of street sweeps. While Kavanaugh stops may be legal, like many enforcement policies over the years they are less effective unless the goal is "enforce stereotypes broadly."
seydor 2mo ago
Principled people have become so rare
- rvz 2mo ago
  Only when the bank account reaches 7 - 8 figures.
  - grim_io 2mo ago
    No need to downplay it. There are many for whom it's never enough.
    - devindotcom 2mo ago
      And there are others who left years ago and warned us. Back-patting isn't all or nothing, and I think it's reasonable to praise those who left when they saw the writing on the wall more than those who leave only once they see their company materially supporting state killings.
      - grim_io 2mo ago
        Fair.
  - chung8123 2mo ago
    Even at zero dollars and a billion dollars they feel rare. Honestly I am surprised how many tech people still work for Facebooks and Googles of the world when they actively have used their platforms against most of their values. These are skilled people that can still make a living elsewhere.
    - michelb 2mo ago
      I Think it’s because when you have enough money to never have to work again and you can move to some place nice, you can isolate yourself and your family from the rest of the world, like most rich people do. So that’s what, 4-5 years at a society destroying tech co in exchange for lifelong freedom away from the people you have actively made life worse or impossible for. It seems many people can live with that and in fact will jump at a chance to do it.
inamiyar 2mo ago
This is a long post about someone who has very obviously just gotten into politics. It is good for people to try and see how to impart change. Here are some constructive critical questions for the author: 1. Why no mention of No Tech For Apartheid or Google Workers United, who have been doing similar work for years? 2. What about all of the other police, DHS, and military contracts Google has been a part of? Did this problem really just start with the second (not even the first!) Trump presidency? 3. What does a focus on exclusively those at the top levels of a hierarchy, with minimal focus on incentive structures and wider systems, say about your theory of change? Was there a power analysis done, or was it assumed that "big title" = "powerful"? Side Note: Incredibly insulting of James Dean to say email 3 CEOs.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 2mo ago
  I don't hold it against people for only caring about one or two issues. In addition to many plausible explanations, people like OP who take a stand are already doing so much.
- cryzinger 2mo ago
  I for sure agree about encouraging people to dig deeper and wider, and that absolutely none of this is new or is occurring in a vacuum, but (and I don't say this to single you out, this is just a long-held feeling I've had) I do also think it's important to encourage and commend anyone who reaches these conclusions, however late or nascent they might be. Especially someone with the backbone to speak out at and then quit a cushy, prestigious job. Something something every journey, something something single step. For the author (and for all of us, really) I hope it's one of many. And I think they should be proud of this particular step :)
- sfink 2mo ago
  The main answer would probably be: because he worked for Google Deep Mind as opposed to Google in general, so the killerbot and mass profiling concerns were immediately relevant to him and his work. Your comment seems to be whataboutism. The article was not an essay trying to prove that he knows the secret to being maximally effective at politics, or whatever it seems you were expecting?
nicechianti 2mo ago
[dead]
draw_down 2mo ago
> Jeff Dean ... and other senior employees pledged to “neither participate in nor support the development, manufacture, trade, or use of lethal autonomous weapons.” Google signed the classified deal, yet they remain. > I think he could have stopped the deal, yet he did not. He remains, yet I think he should not. Is Jeff Dean still considered a saint at Google? If so, how come this doesn't change that? The amicus was enough?
slowin 2mo ago
Props to the author. I left Microsoft due to their work with Israel to spy on Palestinians and record all of their phone conversations (in addition to other IDF collaborations). They ended up walking some of it back, but Satya was complicit. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/25/microsoft-blocks-israels-use-of-its-technology-in-mass-surveillance-of-palestinians https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/25/microsoft-bloc...
- h0mie 2mo ago
  Respect!
- za3faran 2mo ago
  I salute you for your morality. If most people did this, those companies would change their position very quickly. After all, they only think about money.
  - slowin 2mo ago
    Thank you but I'm no saint. I joined Microsoft knowing that they were incompatible with my values. I just told myself that I wouldn't work on those types of projects and try to stick to my values. I told myself that I could just be "professional" and keep my head down. But, as I learned more I was filled with a deep sadness and shame. It was tearing me apart. Every day I got up to go to work and was getting sick to my stomach. Now I just feel lost. I spent my life building a career in this industry and it feels like I have nowhere else to turn. Microsoft is not the only company actively complicit with horrible crimes and human rights violations. I've loved technology since as far back as I can remember, but looking back with the knowledge I have now, I just feel dirty. I honestly don't even know what to do at this point, I do have a job now but when I look at who funded us, it's every bit as bad as working at Microsoft. I feel like I need to walk away from it all and start a food truck or something.
    - krapht 2mo ago
      It's more rare, and definitely less lucrative, but there are opportunities in software engineering for non-profits, open-source, and smaller non-tech companies. If you've made your blood money and don't need top n% pay, it's something worth checking out.
srameshc 2mo ago
I did not know about TurnTrout till now and thanks to HN community now I know. I am beyond impressed as to how he lives by his principles. I don't think I have this kind of courgae or confidence and thankfully I don't work for Google or have to quit it. On the other hand we have smart people who have choose to work for companies like Palantir and are proud of it.
- Theodores 2mo ago
  It is not about courage or confidence, it is more a calling, where few are called and that often turns out to be just one person, or so it seems, since everyone finds their excuse to not take a stand against the oppressor and for the oppressed. The author will have experienced every logical fallacy and TurnTrout has done well to document his efforts, rather than just the crimes of his adversaries. A calling of conscience is hard to articulate initially, it is conscientious objection, to the war machine and the system of finance that necessitates the empire that needs the war machine. The author starts off with a high degree of authority in that he actually worked for Google Deepmind, however, nobody will listen to him, so he has to seek higher authority to carry the truth forward. But he could have gone to the pope, anyone short of Jesus Christ (freshly teleported back) and it will be a no, everywhere. Logic and reason does not help when insanity and money have taken over, which tends to happen during wartime. The conscientious objector may not believe in god, however, they will consider themselves answerable, 'vain' enough to care about their legacy. There is that desire not to be found out, doing the 'devil's work', generally in workplaces where everyone is glad to get on with the 'devil's work'. Why do so few people make a stand? Why didn't hordes of five-eyes people walk out the day after Snowden did his good deeds? It varies by individual, however, the author is vegan, which means he has already 'dared to be Daniel, dared to stand alone', albeit only in a lunch queue in a meat eating world. This requires living according to principles, and serves as target practice for war-time conscientious objection. Also important is a certain level of independence, the guy with a mortgage and a couple of kids, underwater on the car, with maxed out credit cards cannot conscientiously object. Nor can the guy counting down the last few years to retirement, and then the very young lack the articulation. Only a few have the 'warchest' to embark on an open-ended single-person campaign to confront power with the truth. We owe a lot to these people, particularly the 'failed whistleblowers' that don't make it to 'whistleblower' status, because the media then makes the story about their situation, not what they conscientiously objected to. Props and respect to the author for documenting his journey and taking the first step. Note the 'first step' is classic 'hero's journey', where the call is initially rejected, but then a journey into the extraordinary world is made, where the challenge is to bring back what is good from the extraordinary world to the ordinary world, for the benefit of all.
khalic 2mo ago
This is inspiring, thank you to the author, it must have a hard piece to write.
einpoklum 2mo ago
> I wanted AI ethics commitments to hold under pressure. LLM chatbots, they way they are trained and have data collected for them today, are fundamentally unethical, regardless of whether Google sells services to the DHS. No less importantly, Google's is a fundamentally unethical entity. After all, it says so right in its motto: "Do Evil". Ok, that's not it's motto, it's just a pun on the old motto Google dropped when it became too starkly opposed to its practices, of mass surveillance and manipulation and censorship of search and content discovery results for commercial and political purposes, on its behalf and that of governments. This has been widely reported upon. I will just give a few links regarding Google's complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, as described by the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian Occupied Territories: https://novaramedia.com/2025/07/02/tech-giants-and-british-bank-named-in-francesca-albanese-report-on-gaza-genocide/ https://novaramedia.com/2025/07/02/tech-giants-and-british-b... (or get the report itself: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session59/advance-version/a-hrc-59-23-aev.pdf https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies...)
metalsiliconYT 2mo ago
Respect for sticking to your beliefs. Just out of curiosity though why do people not want smart AI weapons? I would much rather have an onboard AI that can discriminate between unarmed civilians and military assets, seems irresponsible to not... Is a dumb sea mine that blows up everything somehow better than a smart sea mine that knows to not blow up sometimes?
- unknownfuture 2mo ago
  > Just out of curiosity though why do people not want smart AI weapons? Because the minute you defer decision making to a machine you eliminate human accountability. Any time the robot is used to do something illegal or immoral, you can just say "it was a bug" or "that's not what I really meant". It enables plausible deniability. We see this every time AI is allowed to make decisions. That robot promoted violent extremism in your feed? It misidentified a black man? It disproportionately chose men in hiring decisions? shrug Its the algorithm. Who can argue with the algorithm? Likewise any attempt to codify liability is typically avoided at all costs because the purpose of those systems is what they do.
- pibaker 2mo ago
  A regime can only be as oppressive as the people following its orders. There are only so many protestors you can order your army to kill until your troops realize they are killing their own friends and family, at that point they either desert or turn their guns against you. This puts a check on what even the most evil tyrants can do. Not a perfect one, for sure, but still better than nothing. Technology changes this by reducing the human involvement needed in killing. The Nazi gas chambers were a historical example — it turned out mowing down innocent civilians with machine guns was too mentally taxing for even devoted Nazis, so they invented a bloodless industrialized process where they can kill with greater efficiency while also sheltering the killer from the immediate effects of his actions. A win win for the Nazis, not so much for its victims. Autonomous weapons are dangerous for this exact reason. They bypass individual moral decisions entirely. They are the perfect "just following orders" machine. They allow a small concentration of powerful people to impose force upon the populace without ever having to fear their own soldiers. It tips the balance of power massively in favor of those already powerful.
amazingamazing 2mo ago
It is honorable but ultimately hasn’t democracy spoken wrt the issues mentioned in the post? For better or worse millions of Americans voted for the guy doing the deportations. I also find it difficult to reconcile not using AI for weapons. If war is inevitable AI presumably would at least ensure you are on target.
- fulafel 2mo ago
  Same goes for Putin's policies of course.
- metalsiliconYT 2mo ago
  Agreed, I feel like the people who say no to AI weapons haven't actually presented a real argument (that I have heard) besides terminator bad
  - ryandrake 2mo ago
    Regardless of whether AI is involved, many people simply don't want to work on weapons systems, or on non-weapons technologies that are intended to become part of a weapons system.
    - metalsiliconYT 2mo ago
      Thats fine, but a serious luxury belief IMO
      - watwut 2mo ago
        Not really, it is fairly common belief. And American war system is not in the pro-democracy, defense only or whatever else business anyway. It is in pro-warcrime, pro-stupid-wars, pro-dictators business.
  - tediousgraffit1 2mo ago
    I think there's some nuance here that a lot of these convos dont make plain - are we talking about just using 'ai' in the military broadly, or are we specifically talking about fully autonomous weapons systems? In the former case, I would agree with you completely, I havent heard any arguments beyond 'I dont like working on military stuff'. But if we're talking fully autonomous weapons, that's a different story. And further muddying the waters is the fact that the former is obviously a step along the path to the latter.
Zsfe510asG 2mo ago
We know now that Google is a sycophantic company whose DEI initiatives were all fake and dropped once Trump got elected. This somewhat naive initiative was bound to fail. The good news is that the AI military products won't work, except perhaps for blowing up a girls' school. Here are CEOs falling over themselves to support Hassabis' regulatory capture proposal: https://xcancel.com/sundarpichai/status/2077086951833063580#m https://xcancel.com/sundarpichai/status/2077086951833063580#... https://xcancel.com/satyanadella/status/2077063479232795024#m https://xcancel.com/satyanadella/status/2077063479232795024#... https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2077415601610297535#m https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2077415601610297535#m It is an exclusive club and we are not part of it.
- metalsiliconYT 2mo ago
  Saying AI military products wont work is the dumbest thing i've heard in awhile
  - Zsfe510asG 2mo ago
    Search for Anduril drone failures in Ukraine and several Lattice software failures. And perhaps capitalize "I". How is Maven working in Iran?
    - metalsiliconYT 2mo ago
      Thats like saying cars wont work because they get flat tires
      - windexh8er 2mo ago
        It's almost like Anduril has little to no background in building military soft/hardware [0][1]. The modern day charlatans are alive and living very well. [0] https://www.techtimes.com/articles/320165/20260711/army-ar-goggles-gao-confirms-18b-spent-headsets-too-sick-field.htm https://www.techtimes.com/articles/320165/20260711/army-ar-g... [1] https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/anduril-s-autonomous-weapons-fail-in-tests-ukraine-combat https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/anduril-s-autonomous-weapon...
stego-tech 2mo ago
> Plus, a pledge is only worth the credibility behind it. When someone signs “I will not support the development of lethal autonomous weapons,” then stays while their company sells unrestricted AI to a military that wants exactly that, they teach every counterparty a lesson: these safety people will not act, even at their own brightest line. The next commitment they make is worth less. Eventually it’s worth nothing. This is why I haven’t taken the internally employed (and visibly public) AI safety people seriously for years: they always back down, because they value that fat paycheck and fiscal rewards and associated status over their proclaimed ethical values, red lines, and boundaries. Their actions betray their every word. That’s also why I push that we remember these names, the ones who fought back as well as those who lied through their teeth. We should remember everyone willing to harm others to protect themselves, and hold them accountable for their misdeeds. In an ideal world, people like Jeff and Sundar and Stuart would be blackballed so hard they’d never be able to get so much as a help desk job ever again, nevermind any position of leadership. It’s why I proclaim them to be monsters, giddily sacrificing the anonymous other for personal vainglory and the avoidance of standing on any sort of principle. The OP did everything right and demonstrably proved the entire apparatus is rotten to its very core, to the point of infesting and poisoning the very entities professing to stop its worst excesses (IASEAI). Why we give these ghouls the slightest bit of credibility anymore is beyond me.
PcChip 2mo ago
am I the only one that finds it very hard to read this font?
jdw64 2mo ago
I think a man who makes that kind of choice is seriously admirable. I could never have made that choice myself.
0xWTF 2mo ago
I haven't finished reading, but I should note for the group that the author doesn't represent the Anthropic situation accurately. Emil Michael, the undersecretary of war/defense for research and engineering went on the All-In podcast (1) and explained, for quite some time, exactly what happened. You should go listen to it (2). In essence, in the negotiations, Dario kept coming back saying "well, if you need it, call us, we can redline things as needed". This happened over and over and over. Emil's point was that a major conflict, if it were to occur, might happen on the 30 minute clock of an ICBM, and all due respect to Dario, the national security apparatus just doesn't have an allowance in that 30 minutes to call him for a redline. Emil felt Dario had demonstrated he wanted ultimate control via line item veto, and was willing to trade up to and including the survival of the nation for that veto. And a government cannot be expected to pay for that sort of behavior from an entity domiciled in their jurisdiction. Now, Dario is going to win a decent slice of the economic pie. But as an military acquisitions matter, I gotta say, I have to agree with the undersecretary's position here, and yeah, it makes sense to document a company's undesirable behavior, and in certain circumstances push that information to others. Not the first time the government has found a company under contract acting in a way that appears to be counterproductive to the government's obligations; there's a whole database full of this stuff (3). 1) Without a doubt, All In is a friendly crowd for Emil, but I think that actually made it easier for him to get more nuanced facts out in this case because he wasn't spending a lot of time defending malignant attacks. 2) This link should jump to the relevant segment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzwRflcLPAA&t=2479 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzwRflcLPAA&t=2479 3) http://www.ppirs.gov/ http://www.ppirs.gov/
- stasomatic 2mo ago
  The US government eff'd up. Ethics asides (i.e. autonomous killer robots), how could they make a decision to rely on a third-party entity with feelings? In-house all, they have more money than "God". Eminent domain, whatever. All this drama due to their own incompetence. Same with SpaceX for launches. Pathetic and embarrassing.
- PunchTornado 2mo ago
  Wait. Do you trust what he said?
dr_um 2mo ago
Well done, great effort! Unfortunately, most people are weak in their comfort.
kombine 2mo ago
This is no longer on the front page of HN despite 200+ points and having been posted 1 hour ago.
- SirHackalot 2mo ago
  I saw it on the front page.
  - kombine 2mo ago
    This is where I first saw it too, but 10 minutes later it was no longer there.
  - therobots927 2mo ago
    They move uncomfortable subjects off the front page pretty quickly these days. Can’t have the sheep getting too rowdy.
- Chance-Device 2mo ago
  There’s a flame war detector, this has certainly triggered it and pushed the thread down the rankings.
  - kombine 2mo ago
    I don't see any evidence of a flame war in this discussion, in fact there is an overwhelming consensus in the comments on the side of the author.
  - therobots927 2mo ago
    You really believe that?
BrenBarn 2mo ago
It's nice to see someone willing to act on their principles. Unfortunately, as this person found out, most people are not that good. More than that, I tend to think that so many Rubicons have already been crossed by Google and their ilk that it's pointless to think aiming at any narrow ethical target like this will make much a difference. So my appreciation for the author's ethics is tempered by a belief that, even if Google had done everything the author wanted on this one issue, the company would still be evil. I still think there is almost no chance that companies so large, built on such a wide array of unethical activities, are redeemable. I don't see any real solution but wholesale dismantling of virtually all large companies in existence today, and putting in place far stricter regulations that prevent any companies ever becoming that large and powerful again.
hashstring 2mo ago
Powerful
verdverm 2mo ago
Google and Palantir are quite proud of their new found friendship https://cloud.google.com/solutions/palantir https://cloud.google.com/solutions/palantir https://www.palantir.com/partnerships/google-cloud/ https://www.palantir.com/partnerships/google-cloud/ I've migrating away for this and many other reasons. I recall a slide from this year's i/o or next, where they put Palantir's name first on a slide of new partners. I was quite taken back by how loud and proud they are about it. Suppose I shouldn't be considering the CEO paid up the $1M to attend the inauguration.
dare944 2mo ago
> It is also the story of something larger: how powerful people and institutions failed, one after another, to keep their AI ethics promises in the face of pressure. I've worked at Google. These weren't promises, they were deceptions. Google, like many companies, maintains the focus and motivation of their workforce via a stream of carefully orchestrated disinformation and half-truths. One of those half-truths is "We listen to our employees". They listen when it has no business consequence and they can tout themselves as being "good" or on the side of the workers. They don't whenever the politics or economics of the situation presents even the slightest resistance. Kudos to the author for fighting for change. But the dark patterns in Google run too deep for them to be uprooted by a polite exchange of white papers and emails.
soundworlds 2mo ago
Ethics commitments brushed away under pressure are just Marketing.

390 points by apsec112 2mo ago

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

> Even if Google had adopted your Framework, the Pentagon would have refused > I agree. xAI would still have given over their AI. But if Google had given signs of independence earlier, it could perhaps have built a coalition with OpenAI and Anthropic. This is like saying that Google and Apple might build a coalition to prevent App Store regulation. These are competitors, they all see moral flexibility as an advantage. They're not going to take a moralist stance if their federal protection is predicated on federal cooperation. All of these FAANG businesses have already bent the knee in anticipation of this, xAI is just riding the coattails of the federal quid-pro-quo. When you go to work at a megacorp, you're always leaving your ethics at the door. Yes, there's an attractive pie-in-the-sky fantasy that Apple does care about human rights, or that Google isn't evil, but they're always just lies. I disagree with a lot of GCP's customers, but I'm still shocked that a DeepMind employee would make it this far in the career pipeline before seeing the soylent green get made.

awakeasleep 2mo ago
Competitors often wish they didn't have to compete. For example, a cartel is "a group of independent market participants who collaborate with each other and avoid competition in order to improve profits and dominate the market" It's something that could happen in this world, through the collective action of employees, that corporate strategy can be changed.
- bigyabai 2mo ago
  > through the collective action of employees, that corporate strategy can be changed. I just don't agree with this. I'd like to, but the corporate strategy is not being set by rank-and-file engineers. Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Elon Musk - these are the executives that are steering the ship. You can change the culture internally and cause a lot of strife, but typically you don't have control over the strategy. If the executive says you're giving API access to the NSA, then that's what is going to happen.
- worldthruword 2mo ago
  I hope he becomes the seed crystal around which crystallization of peaceful use of AI happens.
busterarm 2mo ago
On the upside, I guess maybe DeepMind is hiring. ... I'm sure I'll get flamed into oblivion for this but it's weird to me how the zeitgeist is anti-colonialism but also against enforcing borders and national sovereignty. I guess maybe they are okay with it unless you're a western nation. Whatever, there's no room for nuanced opinions anymore in modern online discourse. I'll admit to being a weird outlier on this. I may not like what certain parts of the government are doing but I'd go work for the Voldemort companies in a heartbeat -- they just require in-office and aren't anywhere near me. I'd rather my nation develop the best technologies than let other nations do it. Just look at how far behind the eurozone is by not making the right investments.
- boston_clone 2mo ago
  [flagged]
  - busterarm 2mo ago
    Same to you I guess? The world is not a black and white place. Rigorous self-defense is not evil. I chose to be vulnerable and honest knowing what kind of responses I would get and the guidelines of this board call for assuming good faith. It's discourse like yours that is inflaming and ruining our society. I didn't even endorse any specific actions here, I'm just not meeting your moral threshold based on your interpretation of some pretty thinly-detailed comments that I made. You also can't influence the game if you're not a player so opting out of working in the entire defense industry is probably against your interests.
    - boston_clone 2mo ago
      make no mistake, it’s mindsets like yours that put us on the path we currently tread. > I'd go work for the Voldemort companies in a heartbeat […] being honest and vulnerable about being a shitty person does not beget or earn you any kind of mutual respect. we are simply not the same.
      - 2mo ago
khalic 2mo ago
apple and google are regularly on the same side against eu regulations
pcald 2mo ago
Working anywhere requires ethical compromise… a 2 person company can disagree on ethical questions
- bigyabai 2mo ago
  Ethical compromise is part of participating in society, even the unemployed have to follow the law. Moral compromise is typically avoidable though, and some principled people will hold those morals equal to the value of a job.

aew2120 2mo ago

tldr: scientist discovers reality

wiz21c 2mo ago
tldr: scientist tell us that defending one's values needs courage and strong will.
smallmancontrov 2mo ago
If half of us were half as principled as this guy, the world would be a much better place.
- busterarm 2mo ago
  No, they would just walked all over by the 2% who have no principles whatsoever. Kind of like what's happening already. Principles are only good up until they enable you to be systematically victimized.
  - titularcomment 2mo ago
    Don't play fair in a game others cheat.
  - scoring1774 2mo ago
    I sometimes think this way but I do wonder whether this would be true in a world where individuals demand more control over the impacts of their work. It seems that the current problem is that the labor of the 98% (or whatever number you like) is well-aligned with the demands of the 2% without principles who seem to have a strong propensity to end up in leadership positions. It reminds me of the simulations people run where in a high-trust world scammers do well, while in a low-trust world they die off only to then lead to a new high-trust world. If enough people make decisions like OP and only perform work that they believe in (for one reason or another) perhaps that redirects the path to power for the 2% such that they need to act in the interests of the 98% rather than the other way around. I think OP was very late to the train here and I had made a similar career switch in the past for similar reasons but I'm happy to see other people making decisions that, if nothing else, will make them feel that they are in control of the impacts of their time and hard-work. Not sure how things will balance out in the end/distant future but we do our best and try to lead a life we feel good about living.

recitedropper 2mo ago

Nothing but respect to TurnTrout for taking an action like this. The world needs more smart people who are willing to stand for what they feel is right, despite the pressures otherwise. Without that occurring more, our species is going to lose many impactful prisoner's dilemmas coming these next two decades. This raises my respect for AI researchers a little bit too. I have often felt that the entire industry is pretty tainted to the core, and for better or worse that colors my opinion of the researchers. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I thought it was gross to download pirated art for a student project when I was at Berkeley years ago. So it has been really sad to witness many of the most brilliant minds of this generation answering the siren song of disrespecting the collective effort of others to extract and resell residual value. I'd guess TurnTrout doesn't agree on that framing, otherwise he probably would not have been at Deep Mind. But clearly he and I agree on other ethical positions; I am nothing but glad to see him stick to his principles here.

yw3410 2mo ago
Apologies, but it would be good to add links for your anecdotes. Not all of the readers of your comment have the appropriate context and know what you're talking about. I certainly don't.
- recitedropper 2mo ago
  Hmm, links for what? My student project? The decisions that face humanity that are pretty clearly modellable as prisoner's dilemmas? Otherwise not sure what I could cite--I would assume most all on this forum know that AI is trained on the works of other people, without their permission to do so. I guess you could disagree with my framing, but I wouldn't think this requires a citation. I think maybe my writing wasn't clear, and it sounded like I was referrencing some well known thing that happened at UC Berkeley. I have edited it to read more cleanly!
  - yw3410 2mo ago
    Yes; the student project you were talking about. It wasn't clear to me it was _your_ project nor who pirated it. I was under the impression it was a well known scandal from your original, unedited comment. Apologies if my comment sounded hostile; I was just asking for a clarification/more information on it.

spwa4 2mo ago

[flagged]

wiz21c 2mo ago
IOW: "if I have to kill only 2-3 people to make the business I want to make, then, bah, so be it".
- andriy_koval 2mo ago
  its more like: good luck finding clients who don't kill anyone somewhere deep inside their supply chain.
boston_clone 2mo ago
your straw man is misrepresenting the scale of violence ICE has inflicted on communities across the country. the article states it was after Alex Pirettis death that he was inspired to act. ICE has killed many people across the country during activities which they have no business conducting. A man in Houston was killed last week, then days later, another in Maine. They’ve shot citizens and fabricated evidence to cover up their actions in multiple instances. Wake the fuck up and stop trying to whatabout your way to a more comfortable mental state.
- andriy_koval 2mo ago
  > They’ve shot citizens and fabricated evidence to cover up their actions in multiple instances. typical police activity protected by impunity in this country.
  - boston_clone 2mo ago
    i don’t think statements like this help reinforce how serious the situation is; rather, it subtly normalizes it.
    - andriy_koval 2mo ago

rvz 2mo ago

If you do not like what Google is doing, just leave as I said before [0]. They don't care about you. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931336

onlyrealcuzzo 2mo ago
I mean - the idea that any company employing non-trivial amounts of people "cares" in any sane sense of the word "care" is absurd. Who is supposed to "care" about you? A single person, definitely not the CEO, is going to individually care about 20k+ workers, especially not 200k+ workers. Even if you assumed an altruistic HR department, it's still going to be a faceless blob when you're a 100k+ company.

tomrod 2mo ago

If the author were to read these comments, I'd commiserate with them on the disappointment of the utopia left behind in the service of acquiring wealth and power. An abundant solarpunk future enabled and augmented by AI, hyped so well by early Google and Kurzweil, captured as capital to earn a buck for shareholders. Mad props for pushing as far as they could push.

bigyabai 2mo ago
Would you consider that AI isn't a necessary precursor to an abundant solarpunk utopia? A lot of that hype was fictional, for better or for worse. We're still struggling to proliferate the techno-utopia of digital computers, the internet, and cryptocurrency too. Each time this hype gets drummed up, the utopian stakes are raised to the nines, and the delivered technology does not bring us substantially closer to a more fair or utopian society. Pessimistically, all of these technologies were used to surveil, addict and intellectually degrade society, leading to the miserable status quo we all share in. The technology is not the problem, it seems. I'll commiserate over the longing for utopia, but new technology has never been a panacea for structurally-embedded ills. > The mechanism of individual technologies, both actual and possible ones, does not interest me much. I would not have to look into it if man’s creative activity were free, in a godlike manner, from being polluted by unknowledge—if, now or in the future, we could fulfill our goal in the purest way possible by being able to match the methodological precision of Genesis; if, in saying “let there be light,” we could obtain as a final product light itself, without any unwanted additives. However, the previously mentioned splitting of goals, or even the replacement of one goal with another, often an undesirable one, is a classic phenomenon. - Summa Technologiae
- tomrod 2mo ago
  Oh, absolutely. But it could be used right and well in a broader solarpunk framework :D

Chance-Device 2mo ago

[flagged]

tomrod 2mo ago
I think you might be accidentally or willingly misunderstanding the context if that is your takeaway -- no one, neither immigrant nor innocent bystander, should be killed because administrative warrants are being enforced. And ICE doesn't require hundreds of individuals deployed to one place. There simply was never a reason for such a surge. EDIT: to the dead comment below -- your comment doesn't have to meet my approval -- the comment is simply at odds with reality and is a thought terminating cliche. Feel free to take it in a more general framing: if you don't want people you don't support, while they are in power, killing people, take time to understand why others might be upset. Not only is it your civic duty, its also part of being in society.
- Chance-Device 2mo ago
  [flagged]
  - wilg 2mo ago
    Well one way you can understand why the poster finds it controversial would be to read it before commenting.
- Chance-Device 2mo ago
  What would you do instead?
  - tomrod 2mo ago
    Honestly? A few ideas 1. US aid abroad to help stem the conditions that drive many of the migrants to flee their homes. Build up institutions, enforcement, and anti-corruption frameworks so these nations can better build themselves. I'd even be open to hawkish approaches -- frankly it's been surprisingly to see the positive responses to Venezuelan interference by the US. 2. Immigration enforcement needs use-of-force accountability and less lethal approaches. The specific clashes between protesters and ICE come from actions that appear practically designed to encourage confrontation. Agents that kill innocent people should also be held accountable, meaning civil liability reform is necessary. 3. Ensuring we have a shared reality -- hold organizations accountable when they lie or disinform. Example - the majority of immigrants aren't actually criminals, nor are they "stealing jobs" in any coherent way -- studies show that many immigration policies have been net positive on communities. So when Fox News or similar organizations bring up random anti-immigrant commentary, dressed as news instead of entertainment, there really should be consequences for misinforming. 4. Targeted investigations instead of street sweeps. While Kavanaugh stops may be legal, like many enforcement policies over the years they are less effective unless the goal is "enforce stereotypes broadly."

seydor 2mo ago

Principled people have become so rare

rvz 2mo ago
Only when the bank account reaches 7 - 8 figures.
- grim_io 2mo ago
  No need to downplay it. There are many for whom it's never enough.
  - devindotcom 2mo ago
    And there are others who left years ago and warned us. Back-patting isn't all or nothing, and I think it's reasonable to praise those who left when they saw the writing on the wall more than those who leave only once they see their company materially supporting state killings.
    - grim_io 2mo ago
      Fair.
- chung8123 2mo ago
  Even at zero dollars and a billion dollars they feel rare. Honestly I am surprised how many tech people still work for Facebooks and Googles of the world when they actively have used their platforms against most of their values. These are skilled people that can still make a living elsewhere.
  - michelb 2mo ago
    I Think it’s because when you have enough money to never have to work again and you can move to some place nice, you can isolate yourself and your family from the rest of the world, like most rich people do. So that’s what, 4-5 years at a society destroying tech co in exchange for lifelong freedom away from the people you have actively made life worse or impossible for. It seems many people can live with that and in fact will jump at a chance to do it.

inamiyar 2mo ago

This is a long post about someone who has very obviously just gotten into politics. It is good for people to try and see how to impart change. Here are some constructive critical questions for the author: 1. Why no mention of No Tech For Apartheid or Google Workers United, who have been doing similar work for years? 2. What about all of the other police, DHS, and military contracts Google has been a part of? Did this problem really just start with the second (not even the first!) Trump presidency? 3. What does a focus on exclusively those at the top levels of a hierarchy, with minimal focus on incentive structures and wider systems, say about your theory of change? Was there a power analysis done, or was it assumed that "big title" = "powerful"? Side Note: Incredibly insulting of James Dean to say email 3 CEOs.

OsrsNeedsf2P 2mo ago
I don't hold it against people for only caring about one or two issues. In addition to many plausible explanations, people like OP who take a stand are already doing so much.
cryzinger 2mo ago
I for sure agree about encouraging people to dig deeper and wider, and that absolutely none of this is new or is occurring in a vacuum, but (and I don't say this to single you out, this is just a long-held feeling I've had) I do also think it's important to encourage and commend anyone who reaches these conclusions, however late or nascent they might be. Especially someone with the backbone to speak out at and then quit a cushy, prestigious job. Something something every journey, something something single step. For the author (and for all of us, really) I hope it's one of many. And I think they should be proud of this particular step :)
sfink 2mo ago
The main answer would probably be: because he worked for Google Deep Mind as opposed to Google in general, so the killerbot and mass profiling concerns were immediately relevant to him and his work. Your comment seems to be whataboutism. The article was not an essay trying to prove that he knows the secret to being maximally effective at politics, or whatever it seems you were expecting?

nicechianti 2mo ago

[dead]

draw_down 2mo ago

> Jeff Dean ... and other senior employees pledged to “neither participate in nor support the development, manufacture, trade, or use of lethal autonomous weapons.” Google signed the classified deal, yet they remain. > I think he could have stopped the deal, yet he did not. He remains, yet I think he should not. Is Jeff Dean still considered a saint at Google? If so, how come this doesn't change that? The amicus was enough?

slowin 2mo ago

Props to the author. I left Microsoft due to their work with Israel to spy on Palestinians and record all of their phone conversations (in addition to other IDF collaborations). They ended up walking some of it back, but Satya was complicit. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/25/microsoft-blocks-israels-use-of-its-technology-in-mass-surveillance-of-palestinians https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/25/microsoft-bloc...

h0mie 2mo ago
Respect!
za3faran 2mo ago
I salute you for your morality. If most people did this, those companies would change their position very quickly. After all, they only think about money.
- slowin 2mo ago
  Thank you but I'm no saint. I joined Microsoft knowing that they were incompatible with my values. I just told myself that I wouldn't work on those types of projects and try to stick to my values. I told myself that I could just be "professional" and keep my head down. But, as I learned more I was filled with a deep sadness and shame. It was tearing me apart. Every day I got up to go to work and was getting sick to my stomach. Now I just feel lost. I spent my life building a career in this industry and it feels like I have nowhere else to turn. Microsoft is not the only company actively complicit with horrible crimes and human rights violations. I've loved technology since as far back as I can remember, but looking back with the knowledge I have now, I just feel dirty. I honestly don't even know what to do at this point, I do have a job now but when I look at who funded us, it's every bit as bad as working at Microsoft. I feel like I need to walk away from it all and start a food truck or something.
  - krapht 2mo ago
    It's more rare, and definitely less lucrative, but there are opportunities in software engineering for non-profits, open-source, and smaller non-tech companies. If you've made your blood money and don't need top n% pay, it's something worth checking out.

srameshc 2mo ago

I did not know about TurnTrout till now and thanks to HN community now I know. I am beyond impressed as to how he lives by his principles. I don't think I have this kind of courgae or confidence and thankfully I don't work for Google or have to quit it. On the other hand we have smart people who have choose to work for companies like Palantir and are proud of it.

Theodores 2mo ago
It is not about courage or confidence, it is more a calling, where few are called and that often turns out to be just one person, or so it seems, since everyone finds their excuse to not take a stand against the oppressor and for the oppressed. The author will have experienced every logical fallacy and TurnTrout has done well to document his efforts, rather than just the crimes of his adversaries. A calling of conscience is hard to articulate initially, it is conscientious objection, to the war machine and the system of finance that necessitates the empire that needs the war machine. The author starts off with a high degree of authority in that he actually worked for Google Deepmind, however, nobody will listen to him, so he has to seek higher authority to carry the truth forward. But he could have gone to the pope, anyone short of Jesus Christ (freshly teleported back) and it will be a no, everywhere. Logic and reason does not help when insanity and money have taken over, which tends to happen during wartime. The conscientious objector may not believe in god, however, they will consider themselves answerable, 'vain' enough to care about their legacy. There is that desire not to be found out, doing the 'devil's work', generally in workplaces where everyone is glad to get on with the 'devil's work'. Why do so few people make a stand? Why didn't hordes of five-eyes people walk out the day after Snowden did his good deeds? It varies by individual, however, the author is vegan, which means he has already 'dared to be Daniel, dared to stand alone', albeit only in a lunch queue in a meat eating world. This requires living according to principles, and serves as target practice for war-time conscientious objection. Also important is a certain level of independence, the guy with a mortgage and a couple of kids, underwater on the car, with maxed out credit cards cannot conscientiously object. Nor can the guy counting down the last few years to retirement, and then the very young lack the articulation. Only a few have the 'warchest' to embark on an open-ended single-person campaign to confront power with the truth. We owe a lot to these people, particularly the 'failed whistleblowers' that don't make it to 'whistleblower' status, because the media then makes the story about their situation, not what they conscientiously objected to. Props and respect to the author for documenting his journey and taking the first step. Note the 'first step' is classic 'hero's journey', where the call is initially rejected, but then a journey into the extraordinary world is made, where the challenge is to bring back what is good from the extraordinary world to the ordinary world, for the benefit of all.

khalic 2mo ago

This is inspiring, thank you to the author, it must have a hard piece to write.

einpoklum 2mo ago

> I wanted AI ethics commitments to hold under pressure. LLM chatbots, they way they are trained and have data collected for them today, are fundamentally unethical, regardless of whether Google sells services to the DHS. No less importantly, Google's is a fundamentally unethical entity. After all, it says so right in its motto: "Do Evil". Ok, that's not it's motto, it's just a pun on the old motto Google dropped when it became too starkly opposed to its practices, of mass surveillance and manipulation and censorship of search and content discovery results for commercial and political purposes, on its behalf and that of governments. This has been widely reported upon. I will just give a few links regarding Google's complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, as described by the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian Occupied Territories: https://novaramedia.com/2025/07/02/tech-giants-and-british-bank-named-in-francesca-albanese-report-on-gaza-genocide/ https://novaramedia.com/2025/07/02/tech-giants-and-british-b... (or get the report itself: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session59/advance-version/a-hrc-59-23-aev.pdf https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies...)

metalsiliconYT 2mo ago

Respect for sticking to your beliefs. Just out of curiosity though why do people not want smart AI weapons? I would much rather have an onboard AI that can discriminate between unarmed civilians and military assets, seems irresponsible to not... Is a dumb sea mine that blows up everything somehow better than a smart sea mine that knows to not blow up sometimes?

unknownfuture 2mo ago
> Just out of curiosity though why do people not want smart AI weapons? Because the minute you defer decision making to a machine you eliminate human accountability. Any time the robot is used to do something illegal or immoral, you can just say "it was a bug" or "that's not what I really meant". It enables plausible deniability. We see this every time AI is allowed to make decisions. That robot promoted violent extremism in your feed? It misidentified a black man? It disproportionately chose men in hiring decisions? shrug Its the algorithm. Who can argue with the algorithm? Likewise any attempt to codify liability is typically avoided at all costs because the purpose of those systems is what they do.
pibaker 2mo ago
A regime can only be as oppressive as the people following its orders. There are only so many protestors you can order your army to kill until your troops realize they are killing their own friends and family, at that point they either desert or turn their guns against you. This puts a check on what even the most evil tyrants can do. Not a perfect one, for sure, but still better than nothing. Technology changes this by reducing the human involvement needed in killing. The Nazi gas chambers were a historical example — it turned out mowing down innocent civilians with machine guns was too mentally taxing for even devoted Nazis, so they invented a bloodless industrialized process where they can kill with greater efficiency while also sheltering the killer from the immediate effects of his actions. A win win for the Nazis, not so much for its victims. Autonomous weapons are dangerous for this exact reason. They bypass individual moral decisions entirely. They are the perfect "just following orders" machine. They allow a small concentration of powerful people to impose force upon the populace without ever having to fear their own soldiers. It tips the balance of power massively in favor of those already powerful.

amazingamazing 2mo ago

It is honorable but ultimately hasn’t democracy spoken wrt the issues mentioned in the post? For better or worse millions of Americans voted for the guy doing the deportations. I also find it difficult to reconcile not using AI for weapons. If war is inevitable AI presumably would at least ensure you are on target.

fulafel 2mo ago
Same goes for Putin's policies of course.
metalsiliconYT 2mo ago
Agreed, I feel like the people who say no to AI weapons haven't actually presented a real argument (that I have heard) besides terminator bad
- ryandrake 2mo ago
  Regardless of whether AI is involved, many people simply don't want to work on weapons systems, or on non-weapons technologies that are intended to become part of a weapons system.
  - metalsiliconYT 2mo ago
    Thats fine, but a serious luxury belief IMO
    - watwut 2mo ago
      Not really, it is fairly common belief. And American war system is not in the pro-democracy, defense only or whatever else business anyway. It is in pro-warcrime, pro-stupid-wars, pro-dictators business.
- tediousgraffit1 2mo ago
  I think there's some nuance here that a lot of these convos dont make plain - are we talking about just using 'ai' in the military broadly, or are we specifically talking about fully autonomous weapons systems? In the former case, I would agree with you completely, I havent heard any arguments beyond 'I dont like working on military stuff'. But if we're talking fully autonomous weapons, that's a different story. And further muddying the waters is the fact that the former is obviously a step along the path to the latter.

Zsfe510asG 2mo ago

We know now that Google is a sycophantic company whose DEI initiatives were all fake and dropped once Trump got elected. This somewhat naive initiative was bound to fail. The good news is that the AI military products won't work, except perhaps for blowing up a girls' school. Here are CEOs falling over themselves to support Hassabis' regulatory capture proposal: https://xcancel.com/sundarpichai/status/2077086951833063580#m https://xcancel.com/sundarpichai/status/2077086951833063580#... https://xcancel.com/satyanadella/status/2077063479232795024#m https://xcancel.com/satyanadella/status/2077063479232795024#... https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2077415601610297535#m https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2077415601610297535#m It is an exclusive club and we are not part of it.

metalsiliconYT 2mo ago
Saying AI military products wont work is the dumbest thing i've heard in awhile
- Zsfe510asG 2mo ago
  Search for Anduril drone failures in Ukraine and several Lattice software failures. And perhaps capitalize "I". How is Maven working in Iran?
  - metalsiliconYT 2mo ago
    Thats like saying cars wont work because they get flat tires
    - windexh8er 2mo ago
      It's almost like Anduril has little to no background in building military soft/hardware [0][1]. The modern day charlatans are alive and living very well. [0] https://www.techtimes.com/articles/320165/20260711/army-ar-goggles-gao-confirms-18b-spent-headsets-too-sick-field.htm https://www.techtimes.com/articles/320165/20260711/army-ar-g... [1] https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/anduril-s-autonomous-weapons-fail-in-tests-ukraine-combat https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/anduril-s-autonomous-weapon...

stego-tech 2mo ago

> Plus, a pledge is only worth the credibility behind it. When someone signs “I will not support the development of lethal autonomous weapons,” then stays while their company sells unrestricted AI to a military that wants exactly that, they teach every counterparty a lesson: these safety people will not act, even at their own brightest line. The next commitment they make is worth less. Eventually it’s worth nothing. This is why I haven’t taken the internally employed (and visibly public) AI safety people seriously for years: they always back down, because they value that fat paycheck and fiscal rewards and associated status over their proclaimed ethical values, red lines, and boundaries. Their actions betray their every word. That’s also why I push that we remember these names, the ones who fought back as well as those who lied through their teeth. We should remember everyone willing to harm others to protect themselves, and hold them accountable for their misdeeds. In an ideal world, people like Jeff and Sundar and Stuart would be blackballed so hard they’d never be able to get so much as a help desk job ever again, nevermind any position of leadership. It’s why I proclaim them to be monsters, giddily sacrificing the anonymous other for personal vainglory and the avoidance of standing on any sort of principle. The OP did everything right and demonstrably proved the entire apparatus is rotten to its very core, to the point of infesting and poisoning the very entities professing to stop its worst excesses (IASEAI). Why we give these ghouls the slightest bit of credibility anymore is beyond me.

PcChip 2mo ago

am I the only one that finds it very hard to read this font?

jdw64 2mo ago

I think a man who makes that kind of choice is seriously admirable. I could never have made that choice myself.

0xWTF 2mo ago

I haven't finished reading, but I should note for the group that the author doesn't represent the Anthropic situation accurately. Emil Michael, the undersecretary of war/defense for research and engineering went on the All-In podcast (1) and explained, for quite some time, exactly what happened. You should go listen to it (2). In essence, in the negotiations, Dario kept coming back saying "well, if you need it, call us, we can redline things as needed". This happened over and over and over. Emil's point was that a major conflict, if it were to occur, might happen on the 30 minute clock of an ICBM, and all due respect to Dario, the national security apparatus just doesn't have an allowance in that 30 minutes to call him for a redline. Emil felt Dario had demonstrated he wanted ultimate control via line item veto, and was willing to trade up to and including the survival of the nation for that veto. And a government cannot be expected to pay for that sort of behavior from an entity domiciled in their jurisdiction. Now, Dario is going to win a decent slice of the economic pie. But as an military acquisitions matter, I gotta say, I have to agree with the undersecretary's position here, and yeah, it makes sense to document a company's undesirable behavior, and in certain circumstances push that information to others. Not the first time the government has found a company under contract acting in a way that appears to be counterproductive to the government's obligations; there's a whole database full of this stuff (3). 1) Without a doubt, All In is a friendly crowd for Emil, but I think that actually made it easier for him to get more nuanced facts out in this case because he wasn't spending a lot of time defending malignant attacks. 2) This link should jump to the relevant segment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzwRflcLPAA&t=2479 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzwRflcLPAA&t=2479 3) http://www.ppirs.gov/ http://www.ppirs.gov/

stasomatic 2mo ago
The US government eff'd up. Ethics asides (i.e. autonomous killer robots), how could they make a decision to rely on a third-party entity with feelings? In-house all, they have more money than "God". Eminent domain, whatever. All this drama due to their own incompetence. Same with SpaceX for launches. Pathetic and embarrassing.
PunchTornado 2mo ago
Wait. Do you trust what he said?

dr_um 2mo ago

Well done, great effort! Unfortunately, most people are weak in their comfort.

kombine 2mo ago

This is no longer on the front page of HN despite 200+ points and having been posted 1 hour ago.

SirHackalot 2mo ago
I saw it on the front page.
- kombine 2mo ago
  This is where I first saw it too, but 10 minutes later it was no longer there.
- therobots927 2mo ago
  They move uncomfortable subjects off the front page pretty quickly these days. Can’t have the sheep getting too rowdy.
Chance-Device 2mo ago
There’s a flame war detector, this has certainly triggered it and pushed the thread down the rankings.
- kombine 2mo ago
  I don't see any evidence of a flame war in this discussion, in fact there is an overwhelming consensus in the comments on the side of the author.
- therobots927 2mo ago
  You really believe that?

BrenBarn 2mo ago

It's nice to see someone willing to act on their principles. Unfortunately, as this person found out, most people are not that good. More than that, I tend to think that so many Rubicons have already been crossed by Google and their ilk that it's pointless to think aiming at any narrow ethical target like this will make much a difference. So my appreciation for the author's ethics is tempered by a belief that, even if Google had done everything the author wanted on this one issue, the company would still be evil. I still think there is almost no chance that companies so large, built on such a wide array of unethical activities, are redeemable. I don't see any real solution but wholesale dismantling of virtually all large companies in existence today, and putting in place far stricter regulations that prevent any companies ever becoming that large and powerful again.

hashstring 2mo ago

Powerful

verdverm 2mo ago

Google and Palantir are quite proud of their new found friendship https://cloud.google.com/solutions/palantir https://cloud.google.com/solutions/palantir https://www.palantir.com/partnerships/google-cloud/ https://www.palantir.com/partnerships/google-cloud/ I've migrating away for this and many other reasons. I recall a slide from this year's i/o or next, where they put Palantir's name first on a slide of new partners. I was quite taken back by how loud and proud they are about it. Suppose I shouldn't be considering the CEO paid up the $1M to attend the inauguration.

dare944 2mo ago

> It is also the story of something larger: how powerful people and institutions failed, one after another, to keep their AI ethics promises in the face of pressure. I've worked at Google. These weren't promises, they were deceptions. Google, like many companies, maintains the focus and motivation of their workforce via a stream of carefully orchestrated disinformation and half-truths. One of those half-truths is "We listen to our employees". They listen when it has no business consequence and they can tout themselves as being "good" or on the side of the workers. They don't whenever the politics or economics of the situation presents even the slightest resistance. Kudos to the author for fighting for change. But the dark patterns in Google run too deep for them to be uprooted by a polite exchange of white papers and emails.

soundworlds 2mo ago

Ethics commitments brushed away under pressure are just Marketing.