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Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance

(www.washingtonpost.com)
617 points jbegley | 1 comments | 04 Feb 25 20:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.281s | 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. bjackman ◴[05 Feb 25 08:10 UTC] No.42945491[source]▶
This is what the parent comment _means_ IMO.

What are you are saying is: optimising for commercial success is incompatible with morality. The conclusion is that publicly traded megacorps must inevitably trend towards amorality.

So yes, they aren't "evil" but I think amorality is the closest thing to "evil" that actually exists in the real world.