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Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

(www.washingtonpost.com)
617 points jbegley | 4 comments | 04 Feb 25 20:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source
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a_shovel ◴[04 Feb 25 20:43 UTC] No.42938313[source]▶
I initially thought that this was an announcement for a new pledge and thought, "they're going to forget about this the moment it's convenient." Then I read the article and realized, "Oh, it's already convenient."

Google is a megacorp, and while megacorps aren't fundamentally "evil" (for some definitions of evil), they are fundamentally unconcerned with goodness or morality, and any appearance that they are is purely a marketing exercise.

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dylan604 ◴[04 Feb 25 21:17 UTC] No.42938863[source]▶
What is Googs going to do, leave money on the table?

And if Googs doesn't do it, someone else will, so it might as well be them that makes money for their shareholders. Technically, couldn't activist shareholders come together and claim by not going after this market the leadership should be replaced for those that would? After all, share prices is the only metric that matters

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1. stevage ◴[04 Feb 25 21:29 UTC] No.42939042[source]▶
I don't buy that argument. There are things Google does better than competitors, so them doing an evil thing means they are doing it better. Also, they could be spending those resources on something less evil.
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2. dylan604 ◴[04 Feb 25 21:36 UTC] No.42939152[source]▶
Remember when the other AI companies wanted ClosedAI to stop "for humanity's sake" when all it meant was for them the catch up? None of these companies are "good". They all know that as soon as one company does it, they all must follow, so why not lead?
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3. olyjohn ◴[05 Feb 25 00:31 UTC] No.42941575[source]▶
Ah yeah. Everybody else is doing it, so it must be okay to do. Fuck everything about this.
4. dzhiurgis ◴[05 Feb 25 00:43 UTC] No.42941708[source]▶
> Google does better than competitors

You need to try another search engine. Years ago...