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 30 minutes 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 26 minutes 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 21 minutes 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.
recitedropper 18 minutes ago [-]
No worries! Thanks for engaging. Fun to have the rare kindly-resolved internet discussion.
slowin 25 minutes 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.
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.
metalsiliconYT 4 minutes 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
stego-tech 45 seconds 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 employed 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.
seydor 33 minutes ago [-]
Principled people have become so rare
rvz 17 minutes ago [-]
Only when the bank account reaches 7 - 8 figures.
chung8123 7 minutes 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.
grim_io 14 minutes ago [-]
No need to downplay it. There are many for whom it's never enough.
devindotcom 9 minutes 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 37 seconds ago [-]
Fair.
metalsiliconYT 9 minutes 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?
Zsfe510asG 6 minutes 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:
It is an exclusive club and we are not part of it.
metalsiliconYT 3 minutes ago [-]
Saying AI military products wont work is the dumbest thing i've heard in awhile
srameshc 24 minutes 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.
khalic 23 minutes ago [-]
This is inspiring, thank you to the author, it must have a hard piece to write.
tomrod 33 minutes 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 51 minutes 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 36 minutes 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.
worldthruword 29 minutes ago [-]
I hope he becomes the seed crystal around which crystallization of peaceful use of AI happens.
bigyabai 32 minutes 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.
khalic 19 minutes ago [-]
apple and google are regularly on the same side against eu regulations
busterarm 35 minutes 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 20 minutes ago [-]
I mean this sincerely, may you never find employment again. I hope you wash out of the industry due to whatever festering mental issues finally take hold and render you unable to carry out evil for a better paycheck. Goddamn you and your ilk.
busterarm 15 minutes 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 11 minutes 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.
busterarm 8 minutes ago [-]
> some comment you edited out where you said I'm heartless and spineless.
And I know what it's like to live in a place without adequate law enforcement and/or military.
Personal insults and calling me mentally ill. Are you projecting?
Apparently willingness to work at Palantir or Anduril or other defense contractors makes me irredeemably evil. I'm sure you're real fun at parties.
boston_clone 2 minutes ago [-]
> Apparently willingness to work at Palantir or Anduril or other defense contractors makes me irredeemably evil.
hey, look! it’s learning!
einpoklum 14 minutes 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:
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.
draw_down 28 minutes 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?
nicechianti 30 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
aew2120 40 minutes ago [-]
tldr: scientist discovers reality
smallmancontrov 28 minutes ago [-]
If half of us were half as principled as this guy, the world would be a much better place.
busterarm 19 minutes 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.
wiz21c 30 minutes ago [-]
tldr: scientist tell us that defending one's values needs courage and strong will.
Chance-Device 33 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
questionableans 29 minutes ago [-]
It’s because the way it’s being done in the US is unnecessarily brutal and arbitrarily discriminates more against people from certain countries.
mantas 27 minutes ago [-]
Vast majority of people against it seem to be against the principle, not against the implementation.
tomrod 21 minutes ago [-]
People tend to agree that immigration enforcement can be necessary (except for that pocket of philosophical bohemians that accept that people should be able to flow as free or freer than capital if we are truly free at all). But interestingly, most people feel immigrants that did not enter through legal means should be able to stay in a lot of circumstances!
People almost universally agree that stripping citizenship from naturalized citizens is way too far (no cite here, just recalling a recent read).
There is something fishy about where someone happened to be born (or looks/sounds like they’re from), where they are, and the relationships between different government blowhards having a bigger impact on their life than just being a decent person trying to get by.
tomrod 2 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, but part of that is that national sovereignty is a just-so-happens meme of an idea that sticks around because we all agree that it should and alternative arrangements could be worse.
On the other hand, people dying is a real concept. Their deaths because some people think that other people shouldn't be around and appealing to national sovereignty to enforce that is a leap into the absurd.
At the end of the day, societal institutions exist because we choose by action and by decision to support them. If they aren't supported, the world and the trust network become dramatically reduced in size.
questionableans 45 seconds ago [-]
What a mess.
jpitz 30 minutes ago [-]
Immigration enforcement doesn't sound controversial, but murder should.
tomrod 32 minutes 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.
fastball 28 minutes ago [-]
Is the idea that with worse technology, DHS will kill fewer people?
tomrod 9 minutes ago [-]
Is it binary? I don't think the technology is the core issue, the concern is over the people enforcing and the policies governing their actions -- the technology becomes a flashpoint when the prior two are issues. Scaling bad actions and actors even though the tech itself is neutral.
TFA's point is really getting at that -- who is accountable for scaling bad actions and actors?
Chance-Device 27 minutes ago [-]
What would you do instead?
tomrod 11 minutes 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."
loeg 22 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
tomrod 19 minutes ago [-]
This is false.
> Good was in her car, stopped sideways in the street, which led Ross to circle her vehicle on foot. Other agents approached, and one ordered her to get out of the car while reaching through her open window. Good briefly reversed, then began moving forward and to the right, into the direction of traffic. At this point, Ross was standing several feet away at the front-left of the vehicle which was turning away, when he fired three shots, killing her.
> Good briefly reversed, then began moving forward
No one disputes this. She and the others were deliberately antagonizing agents first. They were not random innocent third parties. She deliberately ignored the lawful orders of armed officers and drove towards them. In almost any other situation involving police, no one would be surprised if this happened.
Chance-Device 31 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
wilg 29 minutes ago [-]
Well one way you can understand why the poster finds it controversial would be to read it before commenting.
Chance-Device 23 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
tomrod 18 minutes ago [-]
Perhaps it would be helpful to understand that people feel it necessary to flag the comment -- I tried to explain it in my parent comment here.
Chance-Device 12 minutes ago [-]
It’s not necessary at all, it’s grassroots ideological censorship.
mantas 28 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
spwa4 35 minutes ago [-]
I mean, on the one hand, I support this. But this is going pretty far. When it comes to non-US police and military, if your threshold is killing 2 innocents (and the officers getting away with it), then you can't do business almost anywhere ...
With essentially any country, and even vaguely similar circumstances
And this is just a random example country (with excellent beer), you will find worse than this in most/all European countries, especially in the last 10 years or so.
jmcgough 24 minutes ago [-]
This is pretty different - in both of those, the officer faced consequences. Unidentified masked ICE officers have killed about a person a month with no consequences, many times over a civil concern (immigration status) or just getting annoyed with protesters who broke no laws. ICE is effectively a lethal extrajudicial force with no means of seeking accountability when they kill.
On top of that, they are acting aggressively and violently in broad daylight solely to terrorize immigrant communities. The chilling effect is very visible in hospital systems right now - I have seen far less Hispanics in the hospital for medical emergencies, and that includes people who are in this country legally.
wiz21c 32 minutes 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 26 minutes ago [-]
its more like: good luck finding clients who don't kill anyone somewhere deep inside their supply chain.
khalic 16 minutes ago [-]
What are dishonest mischaracterization of the issue at hand, shame on you
boston_clone 28 minutes 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 25 minutes 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 18 minutes ago [-]
i don’t think statements like this help reinforce how serious the situation is; rather, it subtly normalizes it.
andriy_koval 13 minutes ago [-]
Normal/not normal is a matter of opinion.
It sounds like it is normal for majority of political elite as well as voters, since this is not top of political agenda in this country.
It is not normal from my point of view, but I am not sure what can I do about this.
inamiyar 31 minutes 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 22 minutes 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 14 minutes 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 :)
Rendered at 19:43:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
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.
Not all of the readers of your comment have the appropriate context and know what you're talking about. I certainly don't.
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!
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.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/25/microsoft-bloc...
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.
This is why I haven’t taken the employed 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.
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#...
https://xcancel.com/satyanadella/status/2077063479232795024#...
https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2077415601610297535#m
It is an exclusive club and we are not part of it.
Mad props for pushing as far as they could push.
> 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.
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.
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.
... 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.
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.
> 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.
And I know what it's like to live in a place without adequate law enforcement and/or military.
Personal insults and calling me mentally ill. Are you projecting?
Apparently willingness to work at Palantir or Anduril or other defense contractors makes me irredeemably evil. I'm sure you're real fun at parties.
hey, look! it’s learning!
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-b...
(or get the report itself: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies...)
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931336
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.
> 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?
Principles are only good up until they enable you to be systematically victimized.
People almost universally agree that stripping citizenship from naturalized citizens is way too far (no cite here, just recalling a recent read).
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/22/most-amer...
On the other hand, people dying is a real concept. Their deaths because some people think that other people shouldn't be around and appealing to national sovereignty to enforce that is a leap into the absurd.
At the end of the day, societal institutions exist because we choose by action and by decision to support them. If they aren't supported, the world and the trust network become dramatically reduced in size.
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.
TFA's point is really getting at that -- who is accountable for scaling bad actions and actors?
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."
> Good was in her car, stopped sideways in the street, which led Ross to circle her vehicle on foot. Other agents approached, and one ordered her to get out of the car while reaching through her open window. Good briefly reversed, then began moving forward and to the right, into the direction of traffic. At this point, Ross was standing several feet away at the front-left of the vehicle which was turning away, when he fired three shots, killing her.
[0] https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/08/questions-follow-af...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Ren%C3%A9e_Good
No one disputes this. She and the others were deliberately antagonizing agents first. They were not random innocent third parties. She deliberately ignored the lawful orders of armed officers and drove towards them. In almost any other situation involving police, no one would be surprised if this happened.
With essentially any country, and even vaguely similar circumstances
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/05/belgian-police...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/20/belgian-police...
And this is just a random example country (with excellent beer), you will find worse than this in most/all European countries, especially in the last 10 years or so.
On top of that, they are acting aggressively and violently in broad daylight solely to terrorize immigrant communities. The chilling effect is very visible in hospital systems right now - I have seen far less Hispanics in the hospital for medical emergencies, and that includes people who are in this country legally.
Wake the fuck up and stop trying to whatabout your way to a more comfortable mental state.
typical police activity protected by impunity in this country.
It sounds like it is normal for majority of political elite as well as voters, since this is not top of political agenda in this country.
It is not normal from my point of view, but I am not sure what can I do about this.
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.
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 :)