Why I Left Google DeepMind

negamax

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

vintagedave

Very long to read, but highly principled. I feel his desperation. Powerful people can too easily do little, and ignore their consciences. 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.

readthenotes1

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?

aleph_minus_one

Primary source: https://turntrout.com/why-i-left-google-deepmind

fragmede

more comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48925271

gyanchawdhary

painfully entitled and arrogant

hmokiguess

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.

tdb7893

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).

cloudie78

Wait, only now you realised that the “do no evil” meant jack shit? How blind and ignorant really are you? Let me attempt to save you from another horrifying realisation: it has hardly anything do with who’s in the office right now. The horrors and evil will persist.

1-6

The virtue signaling is too much on this article. It could have been a well-written piece, but they had to make it about moral grandstanding.

adverbly

If you want to do good in the world: You are not alone! Its not easy to do at this moment in time, but be patient, consistent, and spread your attitude to others.

ChrisArchitect

ICYMI Previously on the author's source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48925271

mark_l_watson

Great show of principles and character, +1000 to the author. What can we "regular people" do? My approach, which is very inconvenient, is to try as much as possible to not feed my consumer spending money to tech giants. In some cases I fail at this (e.g., my wife and I will always buy a family membership for YouTube Plus with music; we still order some things online from Amazon) but I make an effort. I have been an AI practitioner for over 40 years and I want to use the very best AI coding agents, etc., but I am forcing myself to just use access to cheaper open weight models from smaller US inferencing companies (my last $$ subscription runs out in a few days).

leoh

I am not sure how to square the posts that AI is a bubble with the ones that say AI is so terrible; lately I am somewhat inclined to especially believe the former.

thisislife2

Direct source - https://turntrout.com/why-i-left-google-deepmind This may be controversial (and I will understand if the mods want to remove this comment) but this made me really wonder if westerners like him are actually aware of the ongoing genocide in Gaza (and now in West Bank and Lebanon) that is also supported by Google tech (amongst others)? I ask because if the death of 2 people in America bothered him so much, shouldn't the death of around 75,000+ Palestinians have stirred his conscience much earlier? - How US Big Tech supports Israel’s AI-powered genocide and apartheid - https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/5/12/how-us-big-tech... - Google's Role in Supporting Israel's Genocide in Gaza - https://matttutt.me/googles-role-in-supporting-israels-genoc...

throwaway26727

> learned that Google sells its Cloud services to the relevant agencies within DHS Can a US company refuse the US government as a customer?

rhmn_mdov

Thanks for trying

superxpro12

The author misses one GLARING explaination as to everyone's motivations... money. Literally... just money. There's so much money right now. Enough to eliminate all principles. What is particularly heartbreaking is that the nerds were supposed to be the gatekeepers of good. And we're just watching this fall apart in realtime. Principles matter little when starting at a $1,000,000,000 check deposited directly into your personal bank account.