Why I Left Google DeepMind

(lesswrong.com)

72 points | by eatitraw 2 hours ago

12 comments

  • tdb7893 3 minutes ago
    I'll always support someone taking a personal stand about what they can or cannot do. Ethical issues always invite the most criticism but my experience is that it's rare for anyone to really give anything up for their ethics (this person likely has money saved up and will land on their feet but even this situation is more than most people would do).
  • hmokiguess 21 minutes ago
    However way people that are deep into the cog wake up I support it. Once the truth was seen you didn't bend and stood by your principles, it must have been very challenging to navigate that from the inside with your entire identity tied to and associated to the thing you ended up growing out from. Appreciate you, welcome to your new life. May you find peace and continue to do good work next.
  • vintagedave 56 minutes ago
    Very long to read, but highly principled. I feel his desperation. Powerful people can too easily do little, and ignore their consciousness. I appreciate he named those he spoke to; it came across as fair, and makes them accountable for what they did or did not do.
  • aleph_minus_one 48 minutes ago
  • fragmede 44 minutes ago
  • gyanchawdhary 41 minutes ago
    painfully entitled and arrogant
  • readthenotes1 54 minutes ago
    I am outraged to find gambling in this casino!

    What sort of ethics bubble was the author living in to believe that Google was anything but solely focused on achieving shareholder value?

    • tmtvl 7 minutes ago
      Agreed: expecting Alphabet not to do the evil greedy thing is like expecting a lion to become a vegetarian, it just isn't going to happen.
    • pjmlp 48 minutes ago
      The same that believes in HR marketing like Do No Evil.
    • Ygg2 46 minutes ago
      I wonder if in a few years, there'll be heads of Google paraphrasing the old skit "You know, in hindsight, allowing autonomous AI drones to carry fusion bombs was a bad move, but for that one quarter we really earned a lot of shareholder value"
    • skew-aberration 35 minutes ago
      Not only that but his outrage is narrowly focused on contemporary US politics. Billions of people access food, shelter, medicine, education, etc, only by the rapidly diminishing leverage their labor provides (or doesn't provide) them. These people presumably never so much as picked up a book, or evenly briefly entertained a thought about a person outside their own immediate social circle.
  • iluvcommunism 31 minutes ago
    [dead]
  • meta_gunslinger 1 hour ago
    [flagged]
  • nmatej1 2 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • fuadnafiz98 57 minutes ago
    Someone send this to Tucker Carlson
  • negamax 57 minutes ago
    You (the org) brought fire to the masses. How that fire is used (to build or burn the cities) is not for you do decide

    Stand by and share your ethics concern. But this isn't misalignment. A lot of AI use cases will be constraint/reigned in through governance evolution at every scale

    • tw04 38 minutes ago
      Comparing it to fire isn’t really an apt comparison.

      You developed the nuclear bomb. Would you give free access to every human on the planet to do with it as they see fit? Or would you demand responsible guardrails from the start?

      AI companies want it both ways. This will both redefine humanity as we know it, but also nobody should try to enforce any guardrails. Why? Because it might hurt profits.

      Either it’s snake oil and not as revolutionary as claimed, or people should be facing prison time for trying to claim “I just invented it and gave everyone access, I can’t be held responsible for what happens next”.

      • negamax 19 minutes ago
        Nuclear wasn't governed until the destruction was seen. There's no reason to believe AI wouldn't follow a similar path
        • tw04 10 minutes ago
          The bomb was literally developed under a top secret program, and they didn’t hand out functioning bombs to the general public at any point in time before “the destruction was seen”.
          • negamax 3 minutes ago
            It was created at wartime. Not as a civilian project. Developed as a weapon. And other countries were developing nuclear weapons as science of it was never a secret

            Destruction display did caused the governments to come together and build frameworks and structures to avoid the repeat of it