_85oz | 7 years ago | on: How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for Google
_85oz's comments
_85oz | 7 years ago | on: How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for Google
I never stated that all Googlers share my view, many don't. In fact there are far more than two views on the issue. The company is extremely divided.
edit: also to clarify, based on your quote, I made minor modifications to my original post to hopefully word things more clearly
_85oz | 7 years ago | on: How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for Google
I can't comment on every tangential thought related to this topic. But basically we live in a very morally ambiguous world , but this specific issue seems more clear cut to me. In discussing this issue with some people, I've been offered a lot of weird moral comparisons and analogies I don't think are worth seriously considering too much.
_85oz | 7 years ago | on: How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for Google
I am not sure about exact plans but I have ideas of the rough ones. Obviously this is not an official statement from Google!
Anyone will be able to opt-out of direct work on the project. Not sure about indirect work.
In the short-term, only a few people will work directly on the project. Long term maybe some more, since the goal is to get bigger projects. Many more people will indirectly contribute to it. For example, I recently TAed the ML101 class. Will one of my students work on the project, and whats the impact of that on my complicity?
Anyway, I basically think that if your company is a DoD contractor then you work for a DoD contractor, especially as an engineer. And I think the typical Googler is massively underestimating the implications of Google becoming a DoD contractor.
_85oz | 7 years ago | on: How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for Google
Hey - I am a soon to be Xoogler who just gave notice in ethical objection to Project Maven (btw, I hugely appreciate even simple words of support over the issue from this community).
I don't identify as a pacifist - quite the opposite, I think we should fight Project Maven like hell. The DoD wanted to fund a communications network? Cool. A private company recruiting 10k+ engineers on a cool, creative "don't be evil" brand, and then backdooring their work into use by a defense department is not cool (I'm not saying the company doesn't have the legal right to, I'm saying it's a jerk thing to do).
Sharing research, open-source code, etc is fine, and of course defense is free to poach away top engineers. But they can do that through recruiting, not their IT budget. Or if Amazon and Microsoft want to do the work, that's their choice, I never wanted to work at those companies. I think Google is missing a huge opportunity to define itself uniquely here by not canceling immediately.
I believe true neutrality is to do defense for nobody, I would like there to be a premier technology company that international colleagues can work at that serves no military. I wonder how many of my coworkers can't express their solidarity because of their visa status, because the insane cost of living of the bay area, etc. I don't know.
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I am ok selling out, but we all have our lines. I just think defense is probably not an uncommon one which makes it an unreasonable pivot for a huge company. Trying to act like "they're just another customer" is worth a good laugh at least.