I understand the vision, but how does this work on a global scale. e.g. American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't.
Edit: I originally ended with "What would have happened if Germany had a nuclear bomb and America didn't?", but I think it distracted from the point I was trying to make so moving this to an edit. I'm not trying to ask "is the US the bad guy". I'm trying to ask how to balance personal anti war sentiments with the realities of the world (specifically in this case keeping up in an arms race).
>American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't.
How about you articulate the threat from an AI powered China to people outside of AI powered China and discuss potential methods to counter that, instead of insisting capabilities be developed just in case.
>is the US the bad guy
Yes
>I'm trying to ask how to balance personal anti war sentiments with the realities of the world
Insist on open information, never surrender consent willingly and demand justification for everything. As always.
This is not answering the question.. and HN ain't US only.
You can say the same for any other country... What if Japan employee refuse, but American want that anyway? What if China employee refuse, but Russia employee want that anyway?
The implication are still the same -- social, culture, jurisdiction, national interest, company interest don't share the same boundary and don't align on their priorities.
I'm going to give a shout out here to an episode of the excellent podcast Hardcore History, specifically Episode 59: The Destroyer of Worlds [1].
The development of the atomic bomb created a debate in American policy circles about how the US should react. Within a few years, the same debate occurred over developing thermonuclear weapons. The same question kept coming up: what if the enemy has these weapons and we don't?
Dan Carlin's position, which I happen to agree with, is that America chose wrong. It became both belligerent and paranoid to a degree that just wasn't the case before WW2. If you look up the history of regime changes at the hands of the US [2] then you can see it went into overdrive after 1945.
Part of the problem here I think is projection, the psychological phenomenon. It's also a cultural phenomenon. So, for example, when you have a historically oppressed people who are being potentially freed, the oppressors will fret that the formerly oppressed will rise up and kill them. This is projection.
We saw this exact thing play out with Emancipation. There was no mass revenge violence by the former slaves. If anything, there was more violence by the former oppressors against freed slaves and a system that excuded the violence (eg the Colfax massacre [3]).
I think nations can be guilty of this too. The US sees any other global power as a potential hegemonic, imperialist power that will dominate and exploit everyone around them because, well, that's what we do.
We also see this in how we view AI as a resource. We see it as something to be owned and gatekept such that some US company will become insanely wealthy further extracting every last dollar from every person on Earth.
So your comment belays a common fear that China will displace us as a global hegemonic, imperialist power despite there being zero evidence that China behaves in that fashion. American propaganda runs deep and the projection is strong so this will immediately cause some to say "but Tibet" or "but Taiwan" without really knowing anything any of those situations.
As just one example, the One China policy is the official policy of the US, the EU and almost every nation on Earth. "They might invade" I preemptively hear. They won't, partly because they can't but really because they don't need to. If the world already has the One China policy, why do anything? Oh and I said they can't because they can't. They don't have that military capability. If you think that, you don't know anything about war. Crossing 100 miles of ocean to invade an island with a army of over 500,000 is simply not possible.
Let me put it this way: the 17 or so miles of the English Channel stopped the German war machine despite having millions of soldiers.
Anyway, back to the point: this whole argument of "what if China does military AI?" is (IMHO) projection. If anything, China has shown that they won't allow a US tech company to control and gatekeep AI (eg by rreleasing DeepSeek). And if China gets AI, they're more than likely to use it to further raise people out of poverty and automate away more menial jobs without making those displaced workers homeless.
> The US sees any other global power as a potential hegemonic, imperialist power that will dominate and exploit everyone around them because, well, that's what we do.
In the Cold War, this was the correct approach, the USSR was that.
> American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't.
It's not American employees vs. China employees. No need to villainize China at every opportunity. Most Chinese employees are more similar to American employees than you think.
It's {top candidates who have their pick of employers} have the luxury to refuse to build this.
Mid-tier dude who can't land a job at any of the top AI companies and can code with Cursor and trying to pay their rent or medical bills will absolutely build AI for the military in return for having their rent paid.
This is regardless of whether it is in the US or China.
Is there any reason to think that autonomous weapons are a critical strategic capability? It's hard to see what an unpiloted drone can do that a remotely piloted drone can't, other than perhaps human rights violations.
There is only self regulation, ultimately, at the top. I think it's still progress to see these groups specifically call out their moral hesitations, even if it doesn't go anywhere - it gives people ground to realize that others share their concerns. All movements, all progress starts from people putting their stance out there and getting a conversation going around the topic; that builds mindshare and eventually a demand for change.
There's always this comment, saying that its useless to possibly govern or resist advancement or development or use of weapons capable of indiscriminate killing.
If the world actually worked like they believe it does, if restraint were just not possible, the world would have been destroyed at least 3 documented times over.
Although in the context of the parent comment, majority of Googlers probably aren't working on things directly related to controversial topics, instead they are probably working on mundane and non-external facing projects like "how do I migrate my libraries from this deprecated dependency to this other shiny new thing".
Why is there any controversy about defending one's nation being "good" or "bad"?
I can not believe what I am reading here, and how the single comment supporting defending one's country is so heavily downvoted. Qatar has poisoned Western online communities such that all defence of the United States is considered taboo? I don't even live in the US and I am frightened by what I see here.
The controversy isn't about defending one's country, it's about you and the parent comment author assuming what this is all about without reading the article.
The core of the issue about autonomous use of AI in mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous use of AI in automated weapons that make kill decisions. Anthropic is perfectly fine with working with the War Department and "defending one's nation".
But they are not okay with their AI being used to make a mockery of the 4th amendment and making automated kill/no-kill decisions about actual human lives.
Oh I believe it’s important to defend the country, but not because it’s a popular opinion. I dislike any statement that believes truth is based on consensus.
The resistance goes out the window the first time an American is gunned down by an autonomous system. They should do whatever possible to prevent that outcome.
Am I the only one who remembers the prime directive of google, much easier to understand than 'organizing the worlds information' etc. etc. It was simpler.
This gets a giant eye roll from me. Are you really so naive that you thought working on AI for a giant tech company, creating software that is capable of finding deep patterns in massive amounts of data... and it wasn't going to used by the Defense / Intelligence industry? If you are so against the US government, and you are working for ANY big tech company you are aiding the Intelligence and Defense industry. Government uses AWS and Azure. Intelligence agencies use the data and tools of Meta / Google / Apple / etc.
We already forgotten about this already? [0] Where was the open letter then?
Both companies (Google, OpenAI [0]) have defense contracts. At this point, the best course of action is to leave Google and OpenAI if you disagree with that (they won't).
Piggybacking on deeply integrated information and connectivity within society that was marketed and adopted under the guise of trust and an ethos of not being evil is pathetic.
Build, train, develop and maintain an AI for military if needed. When a government is scared of individuals they've clearly lost their edge.
Google employees must think this is pre 2024. The employer has the power and doesn’t mind laying off people who don’t tow the company line and all of the CEOs bend over and bribe the President - ie “settling” frivolous lawsuits brought by Trump himself over “censorship” when he was out of office
I think a lot of software companies are going to learn just how much employee power remains tomorrow, in the very likely event that the Pentagon issues an order purporting to ban all defense contractors from using Claude.
It is when "defense" means invasion and subjugation of other countries. All countries pose their military operations as "defense." Inquiring minds should ask if a country surrounded on sides by two oceans with two pacified neighbors has any real threats or merely opportunities for cheap labor, market access, and mineral rights abroad.
This has been going on for a very long time (read what Smedley Butler said in "War is a Racket"), but after the Iraq War, the credibility of the US should be somewhere in hell.
I remember they successfully got Google out of a military contract in the first admin (and briefly vilified by the right for that). that's not going to work now. Workers have a lot less power and the CEO is buddies with Trump
As the article says, the workers didn't petition the CEO, they petitioned the head of Google AI who's already expressed solidarity with Anthropic. If they can convince Jeff Dean, I don't think Sundar necessarily gets a say; it's a lot easier to stick your head in the sand and ignore things than to fire one of your most widely respected engineers because he won't help the Pentagon build Terminator robots.
> it's a lot easier to stick your head in the sand and ignore things than to fire one of your most widely respected engineers because he won't help the Pentagon build Terminator robots.
Wouldn't it be more like he would leave on his own and the company would keep moving along? Why would they fire him?
I mean, right. Why would they fire him? The Pentagon isn't demanding some concrete technical action that Jeff Dean has to personally perform or could personally obstruct, so it wouldn't make any sense. That's why I don't think Google executives can realistically stop him from announcing a similar policy if he wants to.
My one concern in this whole thing is that if these slightly less benevolent, but still have some morality, companies don't engage, we'll be left with companies like OAI and xAI engaging and you just know that's not going to make things better for anyone.
Which companies are these? Google and Facebook already bribed Trump under the cover of “settling” a frivolous case he personally brought forward. Tim Cook personally donated to his inauguration fund and gave him an expensive trinket. The Netflix CEO is now kissing up to him trying to get the WB acquisition approved. Even companies that are hurt by the tariffs won’t say anything bad about him. The only CEO that has spoken out against any of his policies is Chase’s CEO.
I understand the vision, but how does this work on a global scale. e.g. American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't.
Edit: I originally ended with "What would have happened if Germany had a nuclear bomb and America didn't?", but I think it distracted from the point I was trying to make so moving this to an edit. I'm not trying to ask "is the US the bad guy". I'm trying to ask how to balance personal anti war sentiments with the realities of the world (specifically in this case keeping up in an arms race).
>American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't.
How about you articulate the threat from an AI powered China to people outside of AI powered China and discuss potential methods to counter that, instead of insisting capabilities be developed just in case.
>is the US the bad guy
Yes
>I'm trying to ask how to balance personal anti war sentiments with the realities of the world
Insist on open information, never surrender consent willingly and demand justification for everything. As always.
The threat seems straightforward to me; information warfare.
Then the follow up question, how do you combat that? Not likely through developing similar technology.
With current leadership, I think we're closer to Germany in this analogy.
This is not answering the question.. and HN ain't US only.
You can say the same for any other country... What if Japan employee refuse, but American want that anyway? What if China employee refuse, but Russia employee want that anyway?
The implication are still the same -- social, culture, jurisdiction, national interest, company interest don't share the same boundary and don't align on their priorities.
I don’t think they’re refusing all military involvement. Autonomous-decision making is the problematic part.
my brother in Christ, what do you think the 40's America was like?
This kind of inflammatory nonsense serves no purpose other than to be insulting and provocative.
Not to worry, xAI would do it even if Google didn't.
Also, Anthropic didn't actually refuse to work on all military stuff. They have some conditions, which isn't the same thing.
I'm going to give a shout out here to an episode of the excellent podcast Hardcore History, specifically Episode 59: The Destroyer of Worlds [1].
The development of the atomic bomb created a debate in American policy circles about how the US should react. Within a few years, the same debate occurred over developing thermonuclear weapons. The same question kept coming up: what if the enemy has these weapons and we don't?
Dan Carlin's position, which I happen to agree with, is that America chose wrong. It became both belligerent and paranoid to a degree that just wasn't the case before WW2. If you look up the history of regime changes at the hands of the US [2] then you can see it went into overdrive after 1945.
Part of the problem here I think is projection, the psychological phenomenon. It's also a cultural phenomenon. So, for example, when you have a historically oppressed people who are being potentially freed, the oppressors will fret that the formerly oppressed will rise up and kill them. This is projection.
We saw this exact thing play out with Emancipation. There was no mass revenge violence by the former slaves. If anything, there was more violence by the former oppressors against freed slaves and a system that excuded the violence (eg the Colfax massacre [3]).
I think nations can be guilty of this too. The US sees any other global power as a potential hegemonic, imperialist power that will dominate and exploit everyone around them because, well, that's what we do.
We also see this in how we view AI as a resource. We see it as something to be owned and gatekept such that some US company will become insanely wealthy further extracting every last dollar from every person on Earth.
So your comment belays a common fear that China will displace us as a global hegemonic, imperialist power despite there being zero evidence that China behaves in that fashion. American propaganda runs deep and the projection is strong so this will immediately cause some to say "but Tibet" or "but Taiwan" without really knowing anything any of those situations.
As just one example, the One China policy is the official policy of the US, the EU and almost every nation on Earth. "They might invade" I preemptively hear. They won't, partly because they can't but really because they don't need to. If the world already has the One China policy, why do anything? Oh and I said they can't because they can't. They don't have that military capability. If you think that, you don't know anything about war. Crossing 100 miles of ocean to invade an island with a army of over 500,000 is simply not possible.
Let me put it this way: the 17 or so miles of the English Channel stopped the German war machine despite having millions of soldiers.
Anyway, back to the point: this whole argument of "what if China does military AI?" is (IMHO) projection. If anything, China has shown that they won't allow a US tech company to control and gatekeep AI (eg by rreleasing DeepSeek). And if China gets AI, they're more than likely to use it to further raise people out of poverty and automate away more menial jobs without making those displaced workers homeless.
[1]: https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-59-the-de...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colfax_massacre
> The US sees any other global power as a potential hegemonic, imperialist power that will dominate and exploit everyone around them because, well, that's what we do.
In the Cold War, this was the correct approach, the USSR was that.
> American employees refuse to build this, but China's don't.
It's not American employees vs. China employees. No need to villainize China at every opportunity. Most Chinese employees are more similar to American employees than you think.
It's {top candidates who have their pick of employers} have the luxury to refuse to build this.
Mid-tier dude who can't land a job at any of the top AI companies and can code with Cursor and trying to pay their rent or medical bills will absolutely build AI for the military in return for having their rent paid.
This is regardless of whether it is in the US or China.
Is there any reason to think that autonomous weapons are a critical strategic capability? It's hard to see what an unpiloted drone can do that a remotely piloted drone can't, other than perhaps human rights violations.
You don't need modern ai for that, it's been done decades ago.
Modern tools lend themselves more to information warfare and deobfuscation.
Faster decisions, less fatigue, etc.
If we're going to have to rely on self-regulation for this, we're already doomed.
There is only self regulation, ultimately, at the top. I think it's still progress to see these groups specifically call out their moral hesitations, even if it doesn't go anywhere - it gives people ground to realize that others share their concerns. All movements, all progress starts from people putting their stance out there and getting a conversation going around the topic; that builds mindshare and eventually a demand for change.
Sure, but we’re currently so fucked that even self-regulation is clearly superior to kneeling to the Mad King and his drunkard Secretary of War.
The line should be "no" not "limited domestic use".
As much as I applaud the intention, the genie has been out of the bottle on this one for many years already.
There's always this comment, saying that its useless to possibly govern or resist advancement or development or use of weapons capable of indiscriminate killing.
If the world actually worked like they believe it does, if restraint were just not possible, the world would have been destroyed at least 3 documented times over.
Don't listen to them.
I think theyre referencing the previous Google employee protests of the company working with the Us Military
I think theyre referencing the Google AI already being used to make killing people more efficient
Arguably it has always been there, considering the US military sponsored so many computing projects.
100 google employees wow
And they'll be terminated by Jan 2027. Anything too scandalous will be done in secrecy thanks to code&project silos.
every change starts with a few people, and then it grows
Google is grandfathered into a few preexisting defense contracts. Any red lines you draw may have already been crossed.
Literally yesterday google changed how secrets work. Its very possible to introduce change.
Do you have any references for this? I'd like to know more.
> every change starts with a few people, and then it grows
your opinion is defense contracts are bad
my opinion is defense contracts are good
who is correct? probably me since 99.9% of Googlers won’t leave over this
something something if all your friends we're jumping off of a bridge would you do it too?
There's lots of money for everyone on the way down
> if all your friends were jumping off of a bridge would you do it too?
Probably.
https://xkcd.com/1170/
Although in the context of the parent comment, majority of Googlers probably aren't working on things directly related to controversial topics, instead they are probably working on mundane and non-external facing projects like "how do I migrate my libraries from this deprecated dependency to this other shiny new thing".
Why is there any controversy about defending one's nation being "good" or "bad"?
I can not believe what I am reading here, and how the single comment supporting defending one's country is so heavily downvoted. Qatar has poisoned Western online communities such that all defence of the United States is considered taboo? I don't even live in the US and I am frightened by what I see here.
The controversy isn't about defending one's country, it's about you and the parent comment author assuming what this is all about without reading the article.
The core of the issue about autonomous use of AI in mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous use of AI in automated weapons that make kill decisions. Anthropic is perfectly fine with working with the War Department and "defending one's nation".
But they are not okay with their AI being used to make a mockery of the 4th amendment and making automated kill/no-kill decisions about actual human lives.
Oh I believe it’s important to defend the country, but not because it’s a popular opinion. I dislike any statement that believes truth is based on consensus.
"Defending one's nation" and "capitulating to the people in charge like Hegseth" are very much not the same thing.
Given Jeff Dean’s political activity on X, I’m guessing he’s aligned to the resistance too. Not sure the rest of management is interested in caving.
The resistance goes out the window the first time an American is gunned down by an autonomous system. They should do whatever possible to prevent that outcome.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/magazine/ukraine-ai-drone...
They need to unionize quickly to protect their employment and include this as part of their bargaining
Google has been evil for at least a decade, if not longer than that.
This is just pigslop masquerading as a moral stand.
What happened to the OG Google that cared about users, prioritized honest search, fast performance, and didn't murder pages with ads?
Am I the only one who remembers the prime directive of google, much easier to understand than 'organizing the worlds information' etc. etc. It was simpler.
Don't be evil.
Good! Organize Google Workers <3 You are in a unique position to do a huge amount of good in the world.
This gets a giant eye roll from me. Are you really so naive that you thought working on AI for a giant tech company, creating software that is capable of finding deep patterns in massive amounts of data... and it wasn't going to used by the Defense / Intelligence industry? If you are so against the US government, and you are working for ANY big tech company you are aiding the Intelligence and Defense industry. Government uses AWS and Azure. Intelligence agencies use the data and tools of Meta / Google / Apple / etc.
We already forgotten about this already? [0] Where was the open letter then?
Both companies (Google, OpenAI [0]) have defense contracts. At this point, the best course of action is to leave Google and OpenAI if you disagree with that (they won't).
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/17/openai-mi...
I say stay, and do a subtlety bad job there.
Sabotage? You are openly advocating the internal sabotage of US defense capability?
Piggybacking on deeply integrated information and connectivity within society that was marketed and adopted under the guise of trust and an ethos of not being evil is pathetic.
Build, train, develop and maintain an AI for military if needed. When a government is scared of individuals they've clearly lost their edge.
Your manager and colleagues are not idiots.
Google employees must think this is pre 2024. The employer has the power and doesn’t mind laying off people who don’t tow the company line and all of the CEOs bend over and bribe the President - ie “settling” frivolous lawsuits brought by Trump himself over “censorship” when he was out of office
I think a lot of software companies are going to learn just how much employee power remains tomorrow, in the very likely event that the Pentagon issues an order purporting to ban all defense contractors from using Claude.
The kind of government contracts that Claude might lose pale in comparison with contracts that Google/GCP go after
The letter: https://notdivided.org/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47174964)
"Don't do evil"
Oh, wait...
Defending one's own country is not evil, no matter how much money Qatar pours into Western social media influencers.
I can't remember the US ever being in a position of defense, no matter how much AIPAC handlers blackmail Western politicians with Epsteins.
It is when "defense" means invasion and subjugation of other countries. All countries pose their military operations as "defense." Inquiring minds should ask if a country surrounded on sides by two oceans with two pacified neighbors has any real threats or merely opportunities for cheap labor, market access, and mineral rights abroad.
This has been going on for a very long time (read what Smedley Butler said in "War is a Racket"), but after the Iraq War, the credibility of the US should be somewhere in hell.
It's not black and white. There is an entire spectrum of completely justifiable and extremely questionable uses of military power by the US.
Aiding the your nation is not evil, in fact its the opposite, its Good.
Aiding Hegseth / The Heritage Foundation is not aiding the US. If anything, it's the exact opposite.
I remember they successfully got Google out of a military contract in the first admin (and briefly vilified by the right for that). that's not going to work now. Workers have a lot less power and the CEO is buddies with Trump
As the article says, the workers didn't petition the CEO, they petitioned the head of Google AI who's already expressed solidarity with Anthropic. If they can convince Jeff Dean, I don't think Sundar necessarily gets a say; it's a lot easier to stick your head in the sand and ignore things than to fire one of your most widely respected engineers because he won't help the Pentagon build Terminator robots.
> it's a lot easier to stick your head in the sand and ignore things than to fire one of your most widely respected engineers because he won't help the Pentagon build Terminator robots.
Wouldn't it be more like he would leave on his own and the company would keep moving along? Why would they fire him?
I mean, right. Why would they fire him? The Pentagon isn't demanding some concrete technical action that Jeff Dean has to personally perform or could personally obstruct, so it wouldn't make any sense. That's why I don't think Google executives can realistically stop him from announcing a similar policy if he wants to.
My one concern in this whole thing is that if these slightly less benevolent, but still have some morality, companies don't engage, we'll be left with companies like OAI and xAI engaging and you just know that's not going to make things better for anyone.
Which companies are these? Google and Facebook already bribed Trump under the cover of “settling” a frivolous case he personally brought forward. Tim Cook personally donated to his inauguration fund and gave him an expensive trinket. The Netflix CEO is now kissing up to him trying to get the WB acquisition approved. Even companies that are hurt by the tariffs won’t say anything bad about him. The only CEO that has spoken out against any of his policies is Chase’s CEO.
It’s not a great situation, no doubt, but after Kristi Noel’s luxury jet I’m willing to hope that their capacity for grift outweighs their competence.