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UK Google DeepMind employees vote to unionize over its AI defense deals
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This is mostly good; the bad is that the people unionizing would use the same pro-Military Industrial Complex language as OpenAI to explain their willingness to commit violent.
Employees pushing back on the deal are concerned that it could open the door for Google’s technology to be used for autonomous weapons and mass surveillance of American citizens.
The loopholes in this seemingly Wholesome Keanu Chungus statement are broad and pretty obvious if given a little thought. Employees allow for:
- semi autonomous mass murder weapons
- selective new AI surveillance
- all the mass surveillance currently happening
If you dig any deeper into it, most of the linked articles from the Business Insider post point to AI Apocalypse fearmongering from Google and Google subsidiaries. Sigh.
It’s labor organizing, not intellectual engagement. The point is to build power in the company, not argue about vocabulary. Words are instrumental, they are not the goal.
Here’s a hot take: If a union does bad things, those things are still bad. Like police unions. Hotter take: mass murder is bad.
Surely the brilliant minds at Google can think just a little bit about the loopholes? No?
Yes, but a union is a step in the right direction. You can’t fix everything all at once.
Like I said, the unionization in this instance is mostly good. There’s plenty of examples in the article that I left out because they’re unobjectionable. It’s just unfortunate seeing the union repeat talking points manufactured by their employer.
If you speak a language workers don’t understand, you increase the cognitive load and lower interest and participation. It’s a trade-off and it’s an ineliminabile part of the game. Being correct and being useful are two different things
I find it a bit offensive that you assume Google employees can only comprehend the simplest language, and it’s coincidentally the language handed to them from on high by Google themselves. (Ah. Dot ML.)
But let’s assume you’re correct, and engage in a little creativity to simplify employee complaints in order to make it have fewer loopholes.
Employees pushing back on the deal are concerned
that it could open the door forGoogle’s technology [could] be used forautonomousweapons andmasssurveillanceof American citizens.
12 fewer words, 4 fewer loopholes (preexisting surveillance, semi autonomous weapons, selective surveillance, foreign mass surveillance).
The alternative is:
Less money for workers
More AI murderbots.
If the union is successfull it means more money for workers, and less AI murderbots.
Please point out if I’m wrong somewhere.
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Here’s hoping this trend catches on
UK DeepMind downsizing in 5, 4,…
New AI company on the rise: UK ProfoundBrain
Are you in a union? Get unionizing fellows!