Use Gatsby.js and Headless GraphQL CMS to Make Your JAMstack Site Sweeter - <AUTHOR> https://www.takeshape.io/articles/use-gatsby-js-and-takeshape-to-make-your-jamstack-site-sweeter/ <comment><USER2> I have a vague idea of why this may be useful, but I wish people who upvote a new(ish) tech would take the time to put it in context as to why they upvoted it, why it is interesting, and why anyone should read about it.

I am kind of sold on "static" sites, but why is this particular stack and set of solutions so exciting? (As opposed to using, say, Rails on Heroku (which I use as a default baseline), or even the alternative setup (Vuejs version of Gatsby -- I am sure there is one by now, and whatever competes with graphQL).

<comment><USER3> > I am kind of sold on "static" sites, but why is this particular stack and > set of solutions so exciting? (As opposed to using, say, Rails on Heroku

It's exciting because it's a static site and not using something like Rails? The static site approach still isn't that well known. Right now, I try to use static sites wherever I can because of their reduced complexity.

<comment><USER4> > it's a static site and not using something like Rails

There's nothing "static" about this site. You're still querying a back-end database, you've just outsourced it to a third party. And looking at the example site, it doesn't exactly seem "simple" to me. Hell, instead of just using one (heroku) this one relies on TWO (netlify and the authors, takeshape).

This "stack" seems to be mainly being pushed by the people trying to sell the 3rd party backends.

<comment><USER5> This approach absolutely _does_ produce static web sites, just like any other static site generator. The querying of a back-end database doesn't take place when a page gets loaded, it takes place _when the static site is being built_.

This article is just talking about one approach to taking one's content and assembling it into a static website. The same basic workflow one should expect when dealing with any static site generator, the only difference being in the particulars of content aggregation and the build process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sharing a blog post that my team wrote on some of the benefits we saw from using Gatsby / a static frontend architecture when building [https://shopflamingo.com](https://shopflamingo.com): [https://medium.com/harrys-engineering/how-we-used-gatsby- js-...](https://medium.com/harrys-engineering/how-we-used-gatsby-js-to-build- a-blazing-fast-e-commerce-site-a9818145c67b)

In short, being able to scale to as many requests as your CDN can handle, with none of the operational overhead of a traditional web server, is really really nice.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for that post. That is impressive that you went with the best/fastest tech available today rather than just leverage what was done with Harrys. I am interested with what you actually used for the e-commerce part of it. Are you interacting with your systems that you made for Harrys with GraphQL or did you use a JAM stack orientated solution like gocommerce?

<comment><USER6> Thank you! We have plans to build many more frontends in the coming years, so it felt like an appropriate time to step back and see what other solutions were out there.

For the e-commerce part of it, it's a custom API written in Scala that handles our inventory, warehouse, and fulfillment needs. As well as interfacing with Stripe for actual order processing. Want to get that team to write their own blog post as several people have asked about it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For anyone wondering about the meaning of "JAMstack": [https://jamstack.org/](https://jamstack.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> JAMstack

Javascript APIs Markup

Coined by Matt Biilmann, Co-founder of Netlify

<comment><USER4> > Javascript APIs Markup

In other words, every single page application ever built?

<comment><USER9> The [https://jamstack.org/](https://jamstack.org/) page lists some examples of apps that are not JAMstack. Isomorphic sites and sites built with a CMS are examples.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been doing some research on headless CMS options.

Two other good options are:

[https://www.netlifycms.org](https://www.netlifycms.org)

And

[https://docs.ghost.org/api/gatsby/](https://docs.ghost.org/api/gatsby/)

<comment><USER11> [https://forestry.io](https://forestry.io) just launched beta support for Gatsby (like today). Forestry.io is a CMS for markdown + Git, where all edits get committed to your repo.

If you want access to the beta, message the folks at email@example.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > In this conclusion to our 4 part series, you'll learn how to used Gatsby.js > and TakeShape to make your JAMstack site sweeter.

There is a grammatical typo in the opening headline which should read 'how to use Gatsby.js ...'.

<comment><USER13> Fixed! Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Gatsby did a great job incorporating Mikhail Novikov's work on the Gatsby Source GraphQL plugin. Kudos!

If you want to see another example of Gatsby powered by a GraphQL native CMS, check out the following tutorial: [https://docs.graphcms.com/tutorials/developers/gatsby_and_gr...](https://docs.graphcms.com/tutorials/developers/gatsby_and_graphcms)

</comment><comment><USER15> Who comes up with these names: "JAMstack"??

It's like someone is trying to market/brand programming paradigms that otherwise would be common patterns.

<comment><AUTHOR> Matt Billman, the Co-founder of Netlify came up with the name to try to counteract the perceptions of non-technical users that Static Sites meant sites that didn't have any kind of dynamic functionality.

He came up with the name in his living room over beers.

Neat podcast episode about the etymology here - [https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/jamstack- radio/ep-...](https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/jamstack- radio/ep-2-the-jamstack-origin-story/)</comment></comment>


MIT Museum Extends Hack Display Due to Doubled Weekend Attendance - <AUTHOR> http://www-tech.mit.edu/V118/N67/hack.67n.html

<comment><USER2> ...9 years ago.</comment>


738GB of govt customer data leaked in NSW - <AUTHOR> https://www.itnews.com.au/news/service-nsw-reveals-hackers-stole-738gb-of-data-in-email-compromise-552932 <comment><USER2> For context Service NSW is the entry point to most state government services in NSW.

It is in general, fabulous in terms of your ability to quickly get issues sorted, get documentation/ licenses etc. And their online offering is substantial (I've only had one issue in the last 5 years I couldn't manage online and it took <20 min in the middle of the worst of covid here)

It's disappointing and not really surprising to hear this has happened, but I still think they are a model of how modern IT can be done in an administrative setting.

</comment><comment><USER3> Excellent work from the government that brought you backdoored encryption or secret 15 year jail terms for sysadmins who refuse to spy on their customers.

TRUST US, WE'RE THE GOVERNMENT!</comment>


Microsoft Launches New Casual Games Hub - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2010/nov10/11-15GameHub.mspx <comment><USER2> Microsoft sees Facebook's success, thinks "I'd hit that", and decides to make yet another island where products can languish under the hot hot sun. And coconut trees.

I've gotta say, I think Steam has them beat here, except it doesn't have a Microsoft logo on it, so of course they can't support it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone remember "The Zone"? I grew up playing chess and checkers online through Microsoft's platform. It was silly, but I was able to play with other kids in Canada, the UK, and all over the world. That was amazing, back then, that is.

<comment><USER4> I agree Microsoft had an opportunity to capitalize on casual game and they missed it. In fact once I think about it Microsoft was really close to it. They had MSN Spaces, essentially a dumbed down version of my space and they had The Zone. MSN Spaces already had MSN messenger intergration and MSN messenger provided games you could play with your friends, my favorite being Hexic. Looking back it seems like such a natural move to try to tie it all together. Of course Hindsight is always 20/20.</comment></comment>


How China Flexes Its Political Muscle to Expand Power Overseas - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-flexes-its-political-muscle-to-expand-power-overseas-11546890449 <comment><AUTHOR> Outline link: [https://outline.com/39qAbm](https://outline.com/39qAbm)</comment>


Ask HN: Are old people the cause of high pitch whining? - <AUTHOR> Ive noticed apps and videos that tend to have loud high pitch whining in the background. My guess is that much of this sound cannot be heard by people over the age of 30. Does this theory sound correct? <comment><USER2> Get a hearing test, you might have early onset tinnitus.</comment>


Tools for the Lean Web Developer - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2013/02/01/developer-tools-apps/

<comment><USER2> I do a lot of web development along with other programming.

This list seems bunk outside of git and github.

What about jsFiddle, Rubular, Sequel pro, Balsalmiq, iTerm, [add your array of unmentioned apps here]?

Also, as someone who is quite overweight, is a list for me forthcoming? (joke).

Seriously, "Lean" Web Development, never heard of it.

Was this written by a web development professional or someone with literally no understanding of the job and its associated toolchain?

</comment><comment><USER3> > "If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous > adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To > Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the > number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids.""

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html></comment>


What is a Browser? - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ&feature=player_embedded <comment><USER2> So, let me see if I understand this.

more and more, produces of programs are hiding the details, making it easier for people to just get on with things and solve their problems, without having to worry about the details of how it happens, and the machinery underneath.

Then others, no doubt technical people, go and interview the users in order to show just how ignorant they all are.

Did I get that right?

If you want to make computers and services easy to use, you don't want people to be able to answer these questions. You want people to find your service, use it, and remain completely unaware of the technology.

Or am I wrong?

<comment><USER3> Agreed, Technology should be like a sewage treatment facility. In that, you know it treats your water supply. But you don't have to be aware of the interact refinement process and engineering splendour that has gone into it.

<comment><USER2> You've just reminded of the Tom Lehrer quotation:

      > Life is like a sewer ...
      > what you get out of it
      >    depends on what you put into it.

In software we try to break this. We try to allow people to get a lot out of the technology without necessarily investing much effort into understanding or learning about it. In this sense we are trying to make software _unlike_ a sewer.

Hmm. I'm sure someone with a good sense of humor and a gift for writing could make a really funny routine out of this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Advice: You are building stuff for those people. So make sure your product is foolproof.</comment>


Security Threat: WordPress Under Attack  - <AUTHOR> http://www.codedstyle.com/security-threat-wordpress-under-attack/ <comment><USER2> Cross referenced to the TechCrunch article posted here around an hour ago.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=806409>

Is CodedStyle to be preferred over TechCrunch?

</comment><comment> onreact-com This is just business as usual. Wordpress is under attack constantly. One of my blogs has been hacked 5 times this year already.

Of course updating is not enough.

That's why the Obama campaign used Movable Type instead of WP.</comment>


Show HN: Patchbay – The simplest way to connect anything on the net - <AUTHOR> https://patchbay.pub/ <comment><USER2> maybe add a TTL as a url param?

<comment><AUTHOR> Could probably do that. What's your use case?</comment></comment>


We're Building A Reader - <AUTHOR> http://blog.digg.com/post/45355701332/were-building-a-reader <comment><USER2> I think a 2013 Reader should be an open source web app you can run yourself or pay to use as a service, which runs on a server pulling in feed data, and then as a detachable HTML5+JS+localstorage client that downloads the data and can run offline.

Building another hosted RSS reader project just gets us back to step 1 in terms of one company's ability to yank away a tool that functions almost like a newspaper to many people today.

NewsBlur looks like it just got a ton of new github watchers since this announcement, and would maybe be good to treat as the defacto "open RSS reader platform" leader - <https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur>

<comment><USER3> As someone who works on an RSS crawler day to day, this is much more difficult than you think because of how poorly most people implement RSS.

If everyone stuck to the standards and did things the same way, it would be easy. If you can't account for these errors your reader wont work with 80% of feeds, and nobody will use it.

Rss feeds are usually programmed more poorly than a website itself, because it's one of those features that comes from a discussion that usually goes: "well everyone has an rss feed, so we should have one, so make one". Yet they know people will rarely use it.

You could make it work for the popular CMS's but even between those there are standards problems. The majority of the problems are in storing the stuff that's crawled.

<comment><USER4> > "how poorly most people implement RSS."

^upvoted! I agree, it's horrible! Not only are the many different versions of RSS & ATOM a problem, but the freedom of putting any kind of data in any of the fields. I've seen "descriptions" in the "title" property, "images" in "links", "links" in "images", "links" as "urls", "UUID" as "ids", and so on and on and on. If it wasn't for Java ROME, I would be spending dozens of hours just making our aggregator compatible to any newsfeed our users come up with.

Stick to the standards, folks!

<comment><USER5> We should really be ditching RSS in favor of more flexible platforms like those on schema.org. The web is constantly evolving and changing; to try to keep some extremely legacy tech in tow is just asking for trouble. It's not even useful for its structure, as people are misusing it, so I don't see why we should. At least following schema.org conventions aides in your SEO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm actually fairly optimistic about this idea. Digg hasn't found its place yet really after their pivot, and I think a reader will really give them a lens to look forward with.

What I'd really like to see Digg do is move towards dealing with social sharing of news not completely unlike Kippt. They could have it so that your personal feed could be a(n easily seperable) mix of both your rss feed and your friends/folowees. Then they could make their frontpage an aggregation of commonly shared stories, sortable by tags. I think that would really allow them to be a social news hub that's different than a lot of the social news hubs out there now, with the name recognition of Digg.

<comment><USER7> "Digg hasn't found its place yet really after their pivot, and I think a reader will really give them a lens to look forward with."

That's not clear. FTA it was much later in the roadmap, so its not clear whether stepping up that process now makes sense (or if they are reacting to current demand that is quickly dissipating as people commit to other products)

<comment><USER6> I think stepping up any process that can get them a user base that even passively interacts with them on a regular basis is better than anything else for them right now. They're in that odd position that they have a well known name but no well known product behind it. They kind of have to play it reactionary if they're going to keep that name in the position it's in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Digg has always been late with everything since they lost their throne at the top. I doubt the world will wait for them to deliver something new.

Sites like Digg, Reddit, Tumblr etc should provide their own version of RSS readers. Wordpress.com has recently introduced their own reader and it supposedly has a feature to browse external sites. Why can't Reddit and Tumblr do the same thing?

<comment><USER9> > _Sites like Digg, Reddit, Tumblr etc should provide their own version of RSS > readers._

Why?

<comment><USER10> I've wanted Tumblr to allow you to subscribe to external rss feeds for a while (I think it did at one point) -- some of he blogs I read are text heavy, some are graphics heavy, etc., and it would be nice to have separate readers optimized for the different types of content. It would be nice to be able to subscribe to "tumblrs" on the tumblr dashboard whether or not they're actually hosted on tumblr.

Reddit's kind of the same thing: it would be nice to have a reader integrated with the discussion.

<comment><USER11> The dashboard isn't good at telling you whether you've seen a post already and moves much too fast for traditional blogs that post once a day or less to even show up within the first few pages. I don't think Tumblr has the right UI for an RSS reader.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but there are plenty of light, "pretty" blogs that I'll browse when I have time to kill, and tumblr wouldn't be bad for that. I'm not arguing in favor of Tumblr necessarily, but specialization. I'd love Twitter to have a separate but connected rss reader, for "twitter-like" content, for example. Any of these social network or quasi social network services could offer a customized rss reader - it's like having the best JavaScript "share this page on..." button possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hi, I am the author of open source rss reader Rssminer, live demo: <http://rssminer.net/demo>

How about your guy build on top it, I can contribute the whole source code (anyway, it's open source)

The reasons I do so:

1\. Rss Reader needs a lot of hardware resources for storing/fetch feeds. A big company have much better resource than I can offer. 2\. I can provide some paid support for rssminer's code.

The reasons why it may be helpful for you guys:

1\. Rssminer is fully working, you can save a lot of time, faster product 2\. The code is very clean. <https://github.com/shenfeng/rssminer> 3\. The code is very fast. In order for it to be fast, I even write an event driven http clent and server: <https://github.com/http-kit/http-kit>

If interested, drop me an email: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER13> It actually sounds awesome that Digg is behind it.

I can already picture the frontpage of Digg made of posts that were most liked by individual users on their RSS feed. of Comments on Digg about the RSS item.

Anyone sees this as a huge potential? You don't need to post anything, you just need to like your own rss feed and posts gets promoted. You can check comments in case other users are following the same rss feed as you etc...

<comment><USER14> I tried and failed to do this about 4 years back (<http://feedeachother.com>). Alas. Still think the idea has huge potential if someone does it right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't this seem a bit too-little-too-late? Right now is the big shuffle, and unless there's a really big revolution I don't see another such opportunity coming for a long time.

<comment><USER15> I see two big shuffles: there's one right now, when all the proactive people are finding replacements for google reader. There will be another when google reader actually shuts down, when all the procrastinators are looking for a replacement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> For me the dream team was GReader combined with the PostRank (Chrome Extension) to filter based on social metrics. Unfortunately PostRank was the second most important product that Google is its wisdom (and evilness) decided to shut down. For an idea of the power see: [https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=tWri7T3f4...](https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=tWri7T3f4Ex6-uVU8i9-FFQ&type=view&gid=0&f=true&sortcolid=10&sortasc=false&rowsperpage=250&pli=1&pli=1). Each row of the GReader would be lighter or darker based on the PostRank or you could simply filter based on minimum PR rating.

The one and only enhancement beyond this would be to integrate an Instapaper- type functionality so I have all my content in one place, whether fed by RSS, or random pages that I tag to read later as I come across them.

Digg is one of the few companies that I could see pull off the social dimension successfully.

</comment><comment><USER17> Can anyone tell me why every one of these articles has this quote or a similar on in there?

"We've heard people say that RSS is a thing of the past, and perhaps in its current incarnation it is..." I've seen about a dozen posts on HN about Google Reader being retired so RSS readers clearly still appeal to at least this demographic. My girlfriend will also dearly miss Google Reader so it can clearly appeal to non-technical folks as well...

What has replaced RSS readers, Twitter? Facebook? Reddit? As someone who doesn't use social media I would say no. Google Reader is, for me, still the quickest way to get interesting news / information. I don't understand why all the articles state RSS is dead as a fact.

</comment><comment><USER18> > We've heard people say that RSS is a thing of the past, and perhaps in its > current incarnation it is,

Does the author mean RSS as a format or aggregated feeds being "a thing of the past"?

I don't think feeds have achieved their potential yet.

</comment><comment><USER19> I really miss the social aspect of Google reader before they axed it back in 2011. It's not really social in the traditional sense, it's social in the sense that I could outsource the job of scouring feeds on various topics to other people. Everything they found interesting would be mainlined right into my reader interface so I didn't have to personally check 20 feeds on Android.

I do hope that Digg can create a simple and fast interface that captures this concept without too much clutter from the more traditional social features.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Like many of you, we were dismayed to learn that Google will be shutting down its much-loved, if under-appreciated, Google Reader on July 1st."

Somehow I doubt they are dismayed. Excited, maybe?

<comment><USER21> Step 1: Build totally awesome Google reader replacement. Step 2: ???? Step 3: Get acquired by Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like that the subheadline on their front page for the story is "The Rumors Are True", implying people were talking about Digg.

</comment><comment><USER23> If this is as successful as their Digg reboot then I'm sure it will have hundreds of users...

</comment><comment><USER24> A bit off-topic, but does anyone know where I can find a very simple wordpress theme like diggs blog? It looks so beautiful and simple!

</comment><comment><USER25> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5377291>

</comment><comment><USER26> Why does anyone give a shit about digg these days? FUCK EDITORS!

</comment><comment><USER27> Good for you. Don't eat the paste.

</comment><comment><USER28> It will be nice if this surfaces as an RSS feed rather than an email.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's exciting to see everyone interested in reading news again! It seems many people were taking it for granted.

</comment><comment><USER30> Smart move.

</comment><comment><USER31> What's digg?

<comment><USER32> It's like Facebook, but for doggs.</comment></comment>


Twitter suspends Chinese virologist who says Covid-19 was made in Wuhan lab - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2020/09/16/twitter-suspends-virologist-who-claims-covid-19-was-made-in-lab <comment><USER2> The genome of this virus has been public since January, thousands of biologist and virologist inspected the same evidence yet she is the only one who decided that it was man made.

And all of the scientific community is 'censoring' her for not peer reviewing her paper.

<comment><USER3> You don't have to go back far (author -> paper -> author affiliations -> sponsoring foundation ...) before you literally find Steve Bannon's face staring out of the page at you.

I have no idea whether the arguments in the paper are credible or not (I'm not technically qualified to assess them) but the source seems to have a very clear political agenda. That doesn't invalidate their claims but I can't take them seriously without hearing from a more independent source.</comment></comment>


Nine Nations of North America 30 years Later - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/07/03/where-do-borders-need-to-be-redrawn/nine-nations-of-north-america-30-years-later <comment><USER3> Similar to the 7 States of Facebook which surfaced a few years ago.

[http://gigaom.com/2010/02/08/the-7-somewhat-united-states- of...](http://gigaom.com/2010/02/08/the-7-somewhat-united-states-of-facebook/)

Culturally some of these boundaries seem more accurate.

<comment><USER4> It really irritates me, almost unreasonably so, that I cannot view a larger version of that map. And I've been searching for it since the first time it was posted. Take this post [1] for example, where it says "Click on the map to learn more". Clicking on the map refreshes the page. It also has a link that says "To make sense of the patterns I'm seeing, I've marked and labeled the clusters, and added some notes about the properties they have in common." When you click the link... still the same page.

What good is this Facebook Graph visualization without being able to see anything more than a low-res thumbnail?

[http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-split-up-the- us-2010-2...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-split-up-the- us-2010-2/stayathomia-1)

<comment><USER5> Did you see Peter Warden's post? He's the creator of that map.

[http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/02/how- to-s...](http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/02/how-to-split-up- the-us.html)

<comment><USER4> Yup. And clicking the image there goes to fanpageanalytics.com, which seems to be a parked domain? There's only one page and it's completely irrelevant to anything.

His blog says he was almost sued by Facebook, but for making a site to crawl Facebook's graph. Obviously he's not being sued by Facebook for creating the image because the image is everywhere, but only as a ridiculously tiny version.

<comment><USER6> large enough? [http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/infographic- the-...](http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/infographic-the-united- states-of-facebook/)

Unfortunately it appears as if the original image was just stretched to a larger size, but if that's the case the resolution you're looking for just may not be available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very cool idea. Although the recent oil and natural gas booms are fast transforming "The Empty Quarter" into "Extractopia" where oil, gas, logging, and mineral extraction, which are already the main industries, are going to become an increasingly important driver of overall North American economic growth.

<comment><USER8> Already the case with Alberta, which is a major driving force in the Canadian economy, on track to surpass Quebec as the second largest provincial economy.

Feels like a bit of a slight to lump it into an "Empty Quarter."

<comment><USER9> The effect is spanning too. As Alberta has sucked up the trades for the associated housing booms, pay has jumped in Saskatchewan, and now is jumping in Manitoba.

Ontario hasn't really seen it yet, but they've started advertising for skilled and unskilled trades here too.

As someone trying to start a business it's actually a great time. 5 years ago work was getting poached by fly-by-nighters who did shoddy work for cheap prices, but now it seems they've cleared out and headed west.

<comment><USER10> Interesting that the other provinces are only now seeing the effects. I would have thought 2006 was the peak skills drain. My first year economics professor at been working in the provincial economic advisor office at the time. He said about $60 Billion was being put into Oil Sands at the time.

This may not seem like much but it works out to 30k per man, woman, and child in Alberta. Most of whom are not welders...

It meant every job was paying above minimum wage. McDonalds was paying $1 above min wage. I've heard stories of 14 year olds running gas stations all by themselves, despite the illegality of it.

2006-2007 was pretty insane in Calgary. Fort Mac would have been Hell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am not from Americas, and had never heard of the concept of Nine Nations. If you're equally lost with some of the terms ("Dixie"? "The Foundry"?) or the overall theory, this sheds some light on it: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations) (but unfortunately does not provide links for some of the regions). Anyone know of a better online exposition?

<comment><USER12> "Dixie" generally refers to states south of the Mason-Dixon survey line where slavery was legal. This map's concept of Dixie includes some areas above that line and excludes some areas inside it, like most of Texas and Missouri. "The Foundry" seems like a euphemism for the more commonly used term "Rust Belt." It's an area that traditionally has had lots of heavy industry, but has largely been in economic decline in the last 20-30 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I loved this one. I feel is really helping me understand the USA. [http://books.google.com/books/about/American_Nations.html?id...](http://books.google.com/books/about/American_Nations.html?id=Sb40EosBr90C)

</comment><comment><USER14> A nicer name for the "empty quarter" would be Marlboro Country.

</comment><comment><USER15> I find this just dumb.

Of course you can make arbitrary divisions but that doesn't mean they are relevant. Not that the US can't be divided, but these lines aren't it.

The central-southern part of Florida has little in common with Kentucky nowadays. Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver and Salt Lake are large metropolitan areas with cultures very different from rural Alaska.

<comment><USER16> Lived in the Denver metro area and it definitely couldn't be considered to have that much in common with most of the rest of "The Empty Quarter", besides a cultural preference for rugged individualism and limited government interference in personal affairs.

Denver has an impressive light rail system, and Denver / Boulder are responsible for Colorado being one of two states first in legalizing Marijuana and the first in allowing public sales (though Washington state shouldn't be far behind once regulations are finalized). Polyamory doesn't have much public acceptance but is fairly common in the area. Programs and policies concerning homelessness are very progressive compared to most anywhere else in the US.

Denver/Boulder metro area, and to a lesser extent other communities along the Colorado Front Range, have much more in common culturally with SLC than Grand Junction, CO (the state's western capital) or any of the rest of the supposed "Empty Quarter". Peter Warden's Mormonia (if including Denver), being completely surrounded by the Nomadic West, is a more accurate division, though the name is a little inaccurate and not especially representative (at least half of SLC isn't mormon, and neither is most of the Colorado Front Range, though Colorado Springs is very evangelical).

If Joel Garreau still thinks Denver/Boulder and SLC are "Empty Quarter", and at least not aberrations, he doesn't understand the culture very well. It's almost as bad as placing most of NYC within "The Foundry".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Has anyone read this book? What were your thoughts on it?

<comment><USER18> My dad loved it in the '80s, and I read it some time in the late 80s when I was in my tweens. I probably didn't understand a lot, and I've forgotten a lot, but that map is good, and I do use it a short hand a lot in my thinking to this day.

Though I do think that some peopleº treat it as more than a short hand - <USER2> like all stereotypes it can cause more harm than good when actually believed.

º I recently heard a barista talking passionately about "Freeing Cascadiaºº"

ººNot literally one of the 9 nations, but a related idea

<comment><USER19> Cascadia the idea appears to be growing in the Seattle region.

Can't say I entirely disagree: the PNW does have a definite bent to its culture (I've lived in PNW^H^H^HCascadia for about a year now - loving it so far).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's true about Florida. Drive up the east coast, once you drive though Palm Beach county (heading north) and into Martin county, you'd swear you were in Georgia. It's a sudden change. Even environmental. Since zone 10 (topical) ends somewhere near on the border of Palm Beach and in Martin counties.

Edit: Correction. Zone 10/9 are expanding. Which makes sense considering global warming. See [http://www.garden.bsewall.com/topics/hardiness/maps.htm](http://www.garden.bsewall.com/topics/hardiness/maps.htm)

<comment><USER16> Personally i would hardly consider Tampa and Orlando as Dixie. Slightly conservative? certainly. Though not Southern and more an odd mish-mash of liberal and conservative, mostly pro-development, but with an odd pro- environmental strain in the Tampa area. Gainesville, FL is an odd duck miniature city-state: half-Southern, half-hippie values, similar to Athens, GA.

<comment><USER20> Yeah the west coast of Florida has always been a little hard to predict. Another good example is Sarasota - which is 1/3 southern, 1/3 hippe and a 1/3 retired.

But in the east, generally, once you are in Martin and up - it's southern. That's doesn't mean there aren't nice towns up the coast - Stuart, Verio, Coco Beach. Daytona, etc etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'd carve off an additional nation stretching from Boston to D.C. Putting NYC in a declining industrial nation with Detroit as its capital seems puzzling even for 30 years ago...

<comment><USER22> I think Brooklyn was considered Foundry but Manhattan is its own city-state. Same with DC.

"Mex-America" is a weird one (and why is the capital in the U.S.?) too. If Minnesota and Michigan are different nations, then Mexico (which is much more tribally, ethnically, and socioeconomically heterogeneous) cannot reasonably be cast as one bloc. Oaxaca, Mexico DF, the Yucatan, and Juarez are all very different places (just to get started).

<comment><USER21> > Manhattan is its own city-state. Same with DC.

Yes, I see now that's described on this page: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations)

That makes sense then I guess. I initially questioned lumping Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island in with New England, but from what I know of those areas, it's probably not a bad choice -- they fit with southern NE as well as most of Maine does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As Mexican I can give you an update about the Five Nations of Mexico:

[http://www.csuchico.edu/~sbrady/357fivenationsofmexico.pdf](http://www.csuchico.edu/~sbrady/357fivenationsofmexico.pdf) (1987)

> "More than three decades after publication, two things amaze me: how little > the boundaries have changed and how much chatter this idea is getting > recently. "

This is also true for the Mexican Nations, although the Mexican nations started a new experiment called "Democracy" in the 2000, they chose a tri- party system. Also boundaries have changed , Mexamerica have expanded north of the border defined 30 years ago, but also lose territory to it's southern neighbor, New Spain. In a way the Mexamerican nation is moving to the North. Thanks to NAFTA, Mexamerica economy became richer and interlaced. Mexamerica became politically powerful in the mid-2000's just to see lose its leverage because of the great recession and the drug war, being politically neutralized in 2012 elections. Although things are returning to normality Mexamerica saw many of the bloodiest battles in the Drug war. Once the richest of the Nations, its economic supremacy it's being contested by Metromex and New Spain.

New Spain saw great progress, it diversified its crops thanks to NAFTA. It created a new industrial corridor comprising the cities of León, Aguascalientes, Irapuato, Celaya, Salamanca which many were part of Mexamerica but now are tied economically and culturally to New Spain and now are home to Nissan, Texas Instruments, General Motors, and many other's factories. IT companies like Intel, IBM, Freescale, HP, Oracle, Hitachi, etc. built its regional headquarters at Guadalajara. By not relying in the demand of Metromex, it gained the political power it always wanted in the Federation congress.

Metromex saw it's political power now reduced to a distant memory. The middle class not ceased to grow and now is one of the biggest markets for many industries worldwide. It transformed its economy from an industry oriented to a service oriented. It bulldozed its factories to make space for skyscrapers and transformed it's colony to the west, Toluca, to it's new industrial hub. It reached the 8th place on the 2008 PwC Richest Cities ranking. In a few years it will become a true cosmopolitan megalopolis stretching to Queretaro to the north, Puebla to the east, Cuernavaca to the south and Toluca to the west.

Club Mex received new territorial additions, Punta Mita from New Spain, Los Cabos from Mexamerica, the whole south pacific and Caribbean coast from South Mexico. Although it hasn't gained the political power it deserves, Club Mex grew to became 30% of the Federation GDP. Club Mex future is the most uncertain, climate change and the pressure from the organized crime pose a great threat to many of its inhabitants which many are immigrants from the First world and South America.

South Mexico is still stuck in the past, the massive immigration in the 80's and 90's to the United States had left many towns deserted, while many others only inhabited with old people and children. Its economy was destroyed by the NAFTA, unable to compete to North-American farmers it has tried to become the new Club Mex with mixed results, one of the most notable success is Chiapas.

<comment><USER24> Totally agree, I would like to extend your comment with my personal point of view about New Spain. This nation, in the past decade, has known how to get adventage of the IT industry, with a growing population of Engineers mostly "immigrants" from Mexamerica and Metromex (I´m one of those immigrants, I came to New Spain from Mexamerica for better oportunities as a Software developer).

Cities as Aguascalientes, Guadalajara and Queretaro are creating a big IT industry, with superior salaries and better work enviroments which are attracting developers from all around Mexico. International companies from the US, India and Mexico are investing a lot of resources there. Mexamerica is kind of falling apart, with some exceptions as Monterrey and Ensenada, let´s see if Mexamerica finally wakes up and starts doing something about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The map splits Illinois pretty well. I was born and raised in northern Illinois until I was 10, moved to southern Illinois and then lived and worked in Chicago after grad school. It is a very different state depending on where you live. I just went back to my 25th high school reunion and after living away for 20 years I was surprised at the southern "accents" some of my friends had.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why "Empty Quarter"? What's the reason behind that name?

<comment><USER27> The population and population density in those areas are incredibly low.

At least on the Canada side, the only two major cities in that area are Edmonton and Calgary, with a combined population of less than 2 million.

<comment><USER28> That's not true. Edmonton and Calgary have each been over a million for a while now. Alberta has also been the fastest growing province for probably a decade now.

<comment><USER16> Also Denver/Boulder and SLC on the US side are not exactly low population density.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "American Nations: a History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures" is a more historically rigorous look at this idea. I highly recommend the book.

</comment><comment><USER22> Ecotopia (or Cascadia) has split irrevocably. Silicon Valley is not part of it. Far Northern California (which is Oregon-like in climate and culture) might be, but that's sparsely inhabited.

Silicon Valley (an emerging city state with severe, criminal levels of _private_ sector corruption in addition to public incompetence, both forces producing a housing crisis) is paper-belt in denial. It will never admit so, but the negative aspects of California (mostly due not to locals, but to an area systematically attracting the worst of the East-- greedy businessmen who aren't capable enough to play with the big boys in NYC, so they move west) have moved north. The trash that the elite used to dump on Los Angeles is now being dumped on San Francisco, as failed McKinseys become VCs and founders.

It's definitely _not_ Mex-America, either.

<comment><USER30> I think this phenomenon happens all over. Cities -- and regions within cities -- can have their own peculiar culture, while the culture of rural areas varies on much longer distance scales.

Because of this, I suggest that the idea that North American is best thought of in terms of _regions_ might be an unhelpful one.

OTOH, the evidence from Facebook apparently suggests otherwise:

[http://petewarden.com/2010/02/06/how-to-split-up-the- us/](http://petewarden.com/2010/02/06/how-to-split-up-the-us/)</comment></comment>


Average Denuvo cracking time is now 75 days - <AUTHOR> https://iscracked.info/statistics_denuvo <comment><USER2> The thing is, this DRM stuff causes a lot of problems, like performance loss and even crashes. Therefore even honest buyers use the cracks, to get rid of it.

Some people even wait until the game appears DRM-free on GOG, because of this.

<comment><USER3> I suspect that at least 99.9% of PC game buyers don't even know whether a game has something like Denuvo or not.

<comment><USER4> I suspect that number is far lower... like 95%

PC Gaming may be mainstream now but in its nerdier days awareness of cracking was quite high... and I imagine it still is among demographics that cannot afford to plunk down $60 for the latest whatever-they-want

<comment><USER5> Awareness of cracking is high, but if you own a PC that can play these games you can afford 60$ to pay for the game. Or you can just wait a little and get one of the millions of games on Steam for approximately no money.

<comment><USER6> You can put together a competent gaming PC for about $400 these days. Buy a refurb business desktop with a fourth-gen i5, add a GTX 1650 and you can run pretty much any game at 1080p on medium settings.

A lot of young people (or people in middle-income countries) can scrape together a few hundred bucks for an entry-level gaming PC, but would find a $60 game to be prohibitively expensive. IMO the move away from demo versions and physical media has substantially incentivised piracy - if you can't try before you buy and can't resell your game, you're less inclined to hand over your hard-earned cash for a game that you might hate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find the dynamic between passionate hackers doing it for free against paid DRM writers to be very interesting, gets to show you how passion for problem solving can sometimes trump people writing software for money no matter the money involved

<comment><USER8> I think it's just much harder to write effective DRM than to break it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the 75 days is mostly due to games that nobody cares about. High profile games tend to be cracked within hours or days. For example, Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order was already cracked by the time that my favorite gaming magazine printed their launch review.

[https://iscracked.info/is-star-wars-jedi-fallen-order- cracke...](https://iscracked.info/is-star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-cracked)

<comment><USER10> What about FIFA then?

<comment><USER9> Is there any significant difference between the 2018 and 2019 versions?

Also, online multi-player games tend not to get cracked, because then you'd just get banned.

<comment><USER11> _online multi-player games tend not to get cracked, because then you 'd just get banned_

I think that's another way of saying they're too hard to crack properly, i.e. the servers can always detect cracked copies of the game because the modifications aren't perfectly disguised.

<comment><USER12> How do you crack an online service that doesn't authenticate you without a valid license key?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think it a grand irony that the only graphs on this page that aren't barely- interpretable depictions of category error are, of all things, the pie charts.

<comment><USER14> Could you elaborate on that please

<comment><USER13> It makes no sense to draw a (smoothed!) curve between e.g. 5 releases 450 days ago to 3 releases 420 days ago. The most charitable interpretation is that the y axis is releases/month, but (a) a rolling average would be a more appropriate visualization for that figure (b) the numbers are clearly actually just discrete releases ascribed each of the points at 30-day intervals (c) that's not what the label says anyway.

The other line graphs have basically the same problem.

Meanwhile, pie charts are infamous for being abused to show things that don't actually add up to 1, but in this case they're actually being used fairly appropriately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Given the large number or urban legends about Denuvo I can only assume it's a pain for the cracking community and given how widespread it is, it probably helps publishers.

Average cracking times are still way above 30 days which is the most crucial period.

</comment><comment><USER16> Does someone know if insiders are releasing the cracks or are these cracking groups independent?

<comment><USER17> Denuvo is based on VMProtect, at least in part, which implements DRM through virtualization and encryption of the original code. Since it takes days to "crack Denuvo", I'm guessing they are cracking the encryption key or doing some sort of statistical reassembly of the raw code from a sample base. In either case it doesn't sound like there are any insiders involved, no.

[https://vmpsoft.com/](https://vmpsoft.com/)

The back story is that at some point VMPSoft was suing Denovo for buying a single license of VMProtect and then using it to roll out their own DRM system. It was a complete LOL really. They ended up settling out of court.

<comment><USER15> Is it based on vmprotect? I thought it can just be combined with it. There are games that use both.

<comment><USER17> From what I remember it used to be just a wrapper around VMProtect. This was a couple of years ago though, so you are most likely right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think it'll still deliver what publishers want until that number's under a week.

New releases are big money. The biggest money.

It'd be nice to see them formally acknowledge this by republishing DRM-free copies after 90 days.

</comment><comment><USER19> It is still profitable to add Denuvo for game publishers, because most sales happen in the first week.

<comment><USER20> You are assuming that everyone purchasing a game, would not purchase it if they could download a pirated version. Call me naive, but I like to think that a lot of people that have the money to purchase a game in the first week, would still purchase it even if a cracked version is available. Just look at the billions of revenue earned by Spotify and iTunes before it, even if most music is available on release date (or even before the release date!) online without even needing cracks. I like to think that most (!) people pirating stuff, would not purchase the pirated product at all if no pirated version were available.

On the other hand, you seem to be missing the number of people just sick of DRM and all the hoops it makes you go through before actually being able to play a game. Some people may just start pirating games because the hoops of running a cracked version are easier than the hoops of running a legit version with all the DRM restrictions. Or they may just give on games altogether and decide to spend their valuable time and money on something else entirely.

So adding DRM may just as well be a net negative for game publishers.

I don't have the data to say which is correct, but just assuming that DRM is profitable because most sales happen in the first week, before a crack is available, seems a bit too simple.

<comment><USER21> Don't forget about hyped up kids, they spend months posting to forums and Reddit about how (new game) will be the best thing ever. Then once they get a chance to play it are disappointed since it is impossible to live up to the expectations they have built up in their mind, then immediately move on to the next big thing.

Before it's cracked they will probably buy it because of how excited they are and FOMO

<comment><USER22> Kids also don't have much money to buy games, _and_ have lots of free time to figure out how to pirate them. Maybe some of them can convince their parents to buy it for them.

For me Buying a 60-80$ AAA game (I was a teen in the early 00s) by earning 5$ from time to time mowing the lawn or washing my dad's car was a hard sell. Even when I started working retail at min wage (7$), it was still a hard sell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There are many problems with the headline.

First of all, a lot of Denuvo games no one cares about, either due to low popularity or because they aren't very different to the older, cracked version. These are a dozen of games that add times in the multiple hundreds of hours, warrantlessly.

Second, cracking groups often voluntarily hold off on cracking games so that they are already updated by then. Often for multiple weeks to a month, where you see the crack to be on yesterday's update.

In reality, I'd estimate cracking times to be around one or two weeks, with some high profile, usable at launch games to be cracked in hours.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have about 200 games in my library but not a single one with denuvo. With denuvo it you aren't buying a game, but just a permission which can expire at any moment and it's gonna be up to the developer if they want to fix it or not.</comment>


AI at Google: our principles - <AUTHOR> https://blog.google/topics/ai/ai-principles/ <comment><USER2> So, I'm all for giving someone the benefit of the doubt if they have a change of heart upon reconsidering an issue, but this coming after the fact rings a bit hollow to me. I think the only principle at play here is that it became a PR issue. That's fine, but let's be honest about it.

Early emails between Google execs framed this project only in terms of revenue and potential PR backlash. As far as we're aware, there was no discussion about the morality of the matter (I'm not taking any moral stance here just to be clear.) Once this became an internal and external PR issue, Google held a series of all hands meetings and claimed that this was a "small project" and that the AI would not be used to kill people. While technically true, those same internal emails show that Google expected this to become a much larger project over time, eventually bringing in about $250M / year[1]. So even then they were being a bit disingenuous by focusing only on the current scope of the deal.

And here we are now with a release from the CEO talking about morality and "principles" well after the fact. I doubt many people do anyway, but I'm not buying the "these are our morals" bit.

[https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/06/01/report-g...](https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/06/01/report- google-thought-military-drone-project-would.html)

<comment><USER3> I doubt that Google spelling out their moral stance is intended to convince you right away that they're all good now. It's a public standard that they're setting for themselves. If you think their actions don't match their words, you now have concrete terms and principles to critique and compare with. It's a benchmark to which employees and the public can hold them accountable.

<comment><USER4> Historically has anyone succeeded in holding such giant firms accountable to their own stated principles? At the moment, I like those principles more than I like Google.

<comment><USER5> The funny thing about "holding people accountable" is that people rarely explain what it means, and I'm not even sure they know what it means? It's a stock phrase in politics that needs to be made more concrete to have any meaning.

<comment><USER6> And it requires that you be in a position of power - otherwise it's just heckling, which isn't likely to have any real impact. In this case it'd be having the ability to impose fines, or discipline corporate officers, etc.

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't think of bad press is "just heckling." A company's reputation can be worth billions in sales.

It's true that many boycotts fizzle out, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The best way to lead is by example. Thank you, Googlers.

The choice not to accept business is a hard one. I've recently turned away from precision-metrology work where I couldn't be certain of its intent; in every other way, it was precisely the sort of work I'd like to do, and the compensation was likely to be good.

These stated principles are very much in line with those that I've chosen; a technology's primary purpose and intent must be for non-offensive and non- surveillance purposes.

We should have a lot of respect for a company's clear declaration of work which it will not do.

<comment><USER8> Turning away will slow things down but AI for military applications will happen. Someone will fill the void.

<comment><USER9> That doesn't make it ok to be the one to fill it.

<comment><USER10> On a geopolitical level, it does. It's far better for the world that the United States developed atomic weapons before either Germany or the Soviets did.

<comment><USER11> The US were the only one to use atomic weapons on a already defeated enemy/at all.

<comment><USER7> The Japanese were hardly already defeated. Had the bombs not been dropped, the United States would have invaded Japan directly, island by island, until the country surrendered. The loss of life on both sides would have been tremendous.

Source: My grandfather had orders to go and do exactly that when the dropping of the bombs ended the war.

<comment><USER12> This is of course one of the justifications American leaders used, and as always the victor gets to set the perceived historical narrative. Politically it was extremely important for the US to believe the bomb materially shortened the war given the huge amount of resources the Manhattan Project had consumed that otherwise could have been invested elsewhere in the war effort, especially when the military had to justify the incredible expense to Congress (adjusted for inflation the total cost is around 30 billion in 2018 dollars). I've recently been reading the excellent "The Making of The Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes which covers the events of this period in much detail.

The US had already been ridiculously effective using firebombing to level Japanese cities with their B-29s - so much so, they actually had to consider slowing down/changing targets to leave enough behind to use the Atomic Bomb on: there was almost nothing left worth hitting in strategic terms. By the time the bomb was dropped Japan was largely a beaten nation already considering surrender, Tokyo a smoldering rubble pile save for the Imperial Palace.

"The bomb simply had to be used -- so much money had been expended on it. Had it failed, how would we have explained the huge expenditure? Think of the public outcry there would have been... The relief to everyone concerned when the bomb was finished and dropped was enormous." \- AJP Taylor.

Of course no one can say with certainty, but I certainly don't consider the answer to this question to be a simple one.

<comment><USER10> The US had no way of knowing for sure what the top-level strategic decisions were in Japan. All they knew was that, throughout the war, Japanese troops virtually never surrendered, repeatedly fought to the death, and engaged in outright suicidal tactics including Kamikaze attacks. This persistence not only continued but intensified on Okinawa. There was no reason to believe that the Japanese military would ever stop short of fighting to the bloody end.

Even after Nagasaki, it took personal intervention from the Emperor and the foiling of an attempted coup for Japan to surrender.

Of course, _dropping_ the bomb and _developing_ the bomb are two distinct, albeit related, ethical questions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >2\. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.

They DO realize that the YouTube recommendation algorithm is a political bias reinforcement machine, right?

Like, I think it's fun to talk trash on google because they're in an increably powerful position, but this one isn't even banter.

<comment><USER14> I'm convinced that Google is touting its' 'principles' with a hackneyed blog post probably written by some PR flack.

As an American, I'm disappointed, and positively enraged by the hubris on display here. A bunch of (non-US) employees have pressured Google and therefore compromised the national interests of the United States.

See this for an alternative viewpoint: [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct- per...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec- google-artificial-intelligence-national-security-project-maven- america-0607-story.html)

It's high time these companies are regulated and their malfeasance reined in by the United States.

<comment><USER15> > and therefore compromised the national interests of the United States.

Did I miss something? Was the Selective Service Act amended to extend to corporations, too? Was Google drafted?

Last I checked, cooperation with the United States military has been purely on a volunteer basis since Vietnam.

<comment><USER14> You raise an interesting point. What makes Google the corporation better than males under 26?

If you believe in corporate personhood, then Google, Facebook are definitely villains --- avoiding taxes, running ads from enemy states etc, while maintaining a shroud of secrecy and non-accountability --- positively treasonous acts if committed by a person. If you do not, then what right is violated by making corporations subject to the Selective Service Act?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Several comments don't seem to understand what the "unfair bias" mentioned is. It doesn't have anything to do with censoring your favorite conservative search result.

The machine learning "bias", at least the low hanging fruit, is learning things like "doctor == male", or "black face = gorilla". How fair is it that facial recognition or photo algorithms are trained on datasets of white faces or not tested for adversarial images that harm black people?

Or if you use translation tools and your daughter translates careers like scientist, engineer, doctor, et al and all of the pronouns come out male?

The point is that if you train AI on datasets from the real world, you can end up reinforcing existing discrimination local to your own culture. I don't know why trying to alleviate this problem triggers some people.

<comment><USER17> It's definitely a problem worth alleviating. But it is "triggering" because it is an open problem to determine whether a bias is harmful, even for human beings. So it becomes an impossible/unreasonable amount of extra work if you demand it as a prerequisite.

For example, in your translation tool example, even a human translator would have trouble making the least offensive translation possible. She/he/(insert favorite pronoun here) would need to realize the audience is a young impressionable child who is about to base her entire world-view on whether there's statistically more of her gender in that one sentence of translation.

For a machine learning algorithm to understand enough about human nature to not offend the parent of that child, you're better off waiting for AGI that can surpass human tact.

<comment><USER16> You don't think a black person trying to use a photo management app and having their children's photos miscategorized as gorillas is harmful?

We know what biases people say offend them already, there's no evidence fixing them is harmful, but a non-zero risk that not fixing them is harmful.

I feel like what I'm encountering is a conservative bias against changing the status quo, "social engineering", and the like. It seems people don't like deliberate, non-organic, changes to the status quo (well, they don't tend to like organic ones either, like succeeding generations becoming say, more sexually liberal)

Machine learning can create filter bubbles, echo chambers, feedback loops, and people may attribute more weight to answers provided by machines than people, and so having machine learning reinforce even more strongly, current cultural biases that we're already seeking politically to ameliorate seems prudent and pragmatic to try and balance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.

I recommend _The impossibility of "fairness": a generalized impossibility result for decisions_[0] and _Inherent Trade-Offs in the Fair Determination of Risk Scores_[1]

[0] [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.01195.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.01195.pdf) [1] [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.05807v1.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.05807v1.pdf)

<comment><USER19> > Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.

This very high up and is written in a way which would explicitly allow "fair bias". This means activists will have a free hand to use their positions at Google to enforce their vision of political orthodoxy.

<comment><USER5> A search engine with no biases whatsoever is useless. The whole point is to be biased towards articles that users find more useful, not to give a random sample of the Internet (whatever that means).

I'm sure there will be internal debate over what biases are good ones to keep and nobody gets a free hand. But as a policy, it doesn't restrict Google's options very much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > We believe that AI should:

>

> 1\. Be socially beneficial.

> 2\. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.

> 3\. Be built and tested for safety.

> 4\. Be accountable to people.

> 5\. Incorporate privacy design principles.

> 6\. Uphold high standards of scientific excellence.

> 7\. Be made available for uses that accord with these principles.

While I like this list a lot, I don't understand why this is AI-specific, and not software-specific. Is Google using the word "AI" to mean "software"?

<comment><USER21> Great point. AI is not the only way to reinforce biases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > AI applications we will not pursue [...] Technologies that cause or are > likely to cause overall harm. [...] Weapons or other technologies

This statement will have zero impact on subsequent sensational headlines or posters here claiming Google is making killbots.

<comment><USER23> Well, now you are talking about philosophical questions.

\- Is pursuing an AI that kills 10 bad guys but saves 20 good ones overall bad?

\- Is pursuing an AI that doesn't kill anyone but pushes us to watch ads and lose our life on youtube overall bad?

<comment><USER24> > \- Is pursuing an AI that kills 10 bad guys but saves 20 good ones overall > bad?

\- Yes. If your philosophical development is to the point where there are clearly defined good guys and bad guys in your mind I suggest you read more.

<comment><USER25> Am I philosophically underdeveloped if I think it's pretty clear that 20 merchants and shoppers in a souk are the good guys, and the people with suicide vests on are the bad guys?

<comment><USER24> An argument that relays heavily on racial prejudice and emotional appeal is philosophically underdeveloped.

<comment><USER26> A suicide vest isn't racially prejudiced. Identifying those that are wearing them isn't an emotional appeal.

<comment><USER24> The identification of a person wearing a suicide vest isn't a racial or emotional problem.

Declaring that a person wearing a suicide vest in an Arab market is inherently bad does play on racial prejudice and emotional appeal. It's impossible to separate that statement from a decade and a half of propaganda, and the trauma caused by the numerous suicide attacks on civilians in the western.

<comment><USER27> Forget "inherently" good or bad. It's entirely possible that the guy in the vest isn't a morally horrible person; he may have been brainwashed since birth and genuinely believe that his actions will bring about a better world. Still, he intends to kill himself and as many other people as possible, and if I have the ability to cause the only death to be his, I'm doing that every time.

<comment><USER24> I understand the self defense argument. Law Enforcement and Armies are trained to respond with violence to people with intent to kill. The passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 are heros.

Killing "bad people" to save "good people" is not a self defense argument. The statement is too general. Is it okay to do medical testing on criminals if it speeds the advancement of medicines that saves law abiding citizens lives? We could have limits to only use people found guilty of the worst crimes and increase the legal burden of proof for criminals going into the medical testing program. It would decrease overall harm. It would kill bad guys to save good guys. Still, this practice is illegal for good reason. We need a better reason to kill someone than they are bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Some time ago, the π day... I become aware of the following. Sadly I totally agree with the "trend" :(

"If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever- increasing inequality."

\-- Stephen Hawking

</comment><comment><USER29> Under "AI applications we will not pursue", its telling that the first rule basically allows them to override all the subsequent ones - "where we believe that the benefits substantially outweigh the risks". "We believe" gives them a lot of leeway.

<comment><USER30> "We believe that AI powered nukes will lead to world peace when nobody dares go up against them, therefore we're going ahead with the project."

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is > to cause or directly facilitate injury to people.

> We want to be clear that while we are not developing AI for use in weapons, > we will continue our work with governments and the military in many other > areas. These include cybersecurity, training, military recruitment, > veterans' healthcare, and search and rescue.

I wonder if this is an official response to the people at Google[1] who were protesting[2] against Project Maven.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google- letter-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo- pentagon-project.html)

[2] [https://static01.nyt.com/files/2018/technology/googleletter....](https://static01.nyt.com/files/2018/technology/googleletter.pdf)

<comment><USER32> I concur. This post seems to be specifically targeting the negative perception the resignations were generating.

<comment><USER33> Is there any room in your cynicism for any other view?

For example, maybe Google leadership did hear the complaints, then realized what was happening and what could happen, and decided that something needed to be done to create and uphold values.

I don't approve of defensive cynicism, I don't believe it makes a better world. In fact, I think that defensive cynicism is the reason why the world sucks. Let me guess, you don't vote because "all politicians are liars"? How's that working out for you?

<comment><USER32> Sorry for your pain. I understand this realistic approach bothers you a bit. As it happens, I expect decency from individuals, not corporations. My skepticism is justified in Google's post, since at the end of all the words, absolutely nothing was changed. If Google were truly listening, they would stop working on the project immediately. Therefore, rather than outright contrition, this post reads more like "Sorry, not sorry."

Politicians follow Hotelling's Law. It doesn't actually matter who you vote for as long as you vote. The only thing that changes is the flavour, and that's a matter of personal preference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Also on this topic, from students who would interview at Google. It's important to hear how the upcoming generation, who would actually be doing this work, feel

[https://gizmodo.com/students-pledge-to-refuse-job- interviews...](https://gizmodo.com/students-pledge-to-refuse-job-interviews- at-google-in-p-1826614260) [Students Pledge to Refuse Job Interviews at Google in Protest of Pentagon Work]

<comment><USER35> From my observations in my college, Google is starting to become the new "Microsoft". It is still seen as well paying, and nerdy but it is no longer new and exciting. Facebook is taking over Google's spot as the well established but still exciting tech company, while Airbnb seems to be taking FB's spot as the new and exciting tech company.

<comment><USER36> I have rather the opposite impression of Facebook. They seem sort of tired and are moving onto the same level as Uber in terms of ethical conduct.

<comment><USER30> Facebooks business seems to be suffering in various dimensions...

The key figure, minutes of time spent on the site in total, is being warped to include Instagram and Whatsapp, trying to hide the fact that Facebook itself is dying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've been asking myself this question for over 20 years: who are these people that click on ads anyway?

Ads are inherently going to be the opposite of Google's values, yet Google depends on them for the vast majority of their revenue. They show you some search results in line with their values, and if you can't get to the top of that "intrinsically", you buy ads or SEO. The folks that use that system to exploit the least intelligent win here, and Google takes a share of the profit.

Based on my Google search results in the recent past, Google isn't doing a good job of making sure the "best" websites (by my own value system, of course) make it to the top. I find myself having to go into second and third page results to get legitimate information. I'm seeing pages of medical quackery that "sounds good" but isn't based on science when I try to find diet or exercise advice.

As technology becomes more democratic, more people will use it. That means that the people that spend more time trying to sell you shit are going to win, because they're the ones that are willing to reverse-engineer the algorithm and push stuff up to the top. They add less value to society because they're spending all their time on marketing and promotion.

I wish I knew how to solve this problem. By imposing morals, Google "bites the hand that feeds".

</comment><comment><USER38> US government should consider accelerating breaking Google monopoly. So that " __….we understand there is room for many voices in this conversation. __" becomes more meaningful.

</comment><comment><USER39> As much as I appreciate the conflict of interest here between doing good, making money, helping the US government do its thing, and simply chickening out for PR reasons; I'd like to provide a few sobering thoughts. AI and misappropriation by governments, foreign nations, and worse is going to happen. We might not like it but that cat has long been out of the bag. So, the right attitude is not to decline to do the research and pretend it is not happening but to make sure it ends up in the right hands and is done on the right terms. Google, being at the forefront of research here, has a heavy responsibility to both do well and good.

I don't believe Google declining to weaponize AI, which lets face it is what all this posturing is about, would be helpful at all. It would just lead to somebody else doing the same, or worse. There's some advantage to being involved: you can set terms, drive opinions, influence legislation, and dictate roadmaps. The flip side is of course that with great power comes great responsibility.

I grew up in a world where 1984 was science fiction and then became science fact. I worry about ubiquitous surveillance, un-escapable AI driven life time camera surveillance, and worse. George Orwell was a naive fool compared to what current technology enables right now. That doesn't mean we should shy away from doing the research. Instead make sure that those cameras are also pointed at those most likely to abuse their privileges. That's the only way to keep the system in check. The next best thing to preventing this from happening is rapidly commodotizing the technology so that we can all keep tabs on each other. So, Google: do the research and continue to open source your results.

<comment><USER40> This was basically the same argument the Zentrumspartei made for voting for the Enabling Act in 1933.

<comment><USER41> What was their argument? Do you have a link?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Reminded me of their first principle, and how well they did with that one: "Don't be evil"

<comment><USER43> Pretty well, all things considered.

<comment><USER44> 3 antitrust cases in the EU (Shopping, Android, and Adsense), and a couple of FTC antitrust cases im the US (one of which Eric Schmidt lobbied away through Obama) say otherwise.

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/18/google_had_obamas_e...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/18/google_had_obamas_ear_on_antitrust_probe/)

If that's supposed to be "our best", we're in trouble.

<comment><USER45> Antitrust isn't about committing a crime so much as competing so well that the the company sucks the oxygen from the room. Becoming a monopoly isn't evil. It's an excess of success.

It's the responsibility of government antitrust law, not Google, to 'un- distort' the playing field and resurrect competition / opportunity. No one expects a corporation to voluntarily give away marketshare to ensure it doesn't run afoul of antitrust law, just because the company also vowed not to be evil. A negotiated settlement with regulators is exactly where this kind of matter should lead; no crime done.

<comment><USER46> Yes, being a monopoly isn't evil, leveraging monopoly position is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's good that they're openly acknowledging the misstep here. However, I wish that the "will not pursue" section got the same bold-faced treatment as the one above it.

It seems appropriate at this point for industry leaders in this field, and governments, to come together with a set of Geneva-convention-like rules which address the ethical risks inherent in this space.

<comment><USER47> It certainly leaves the door open. Reminds me of that saying that no ethically trained software engineer would write a DestroyBaghdad procedure, but would write a DestroyCity procedure to chick Baghdad could be passed as a parameter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> > Technologies that gather or use information for surveillance violating > internationally accepted norms.

What does that even mean? Internationally accepted? By what nations and people groups? I'm pretty sure China and Russia have different accepted norms than Norway and Canada - which ones will you adhere to?

</comment><comment><USER49> > We want to be clear that while we are not developing AI for use in > weapons...

we will be developing AI for things that have weapons attached to them. We hope our lawyerly semantics are enough to fool you rubes for as long as it takes us to pocket that sweet military money.

<comment><USER50> reminds me of the joke

>"It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a NukeChicago procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a NukeCity procedure, to which Chicago could be given as a parameter."

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> So was the "Don't be evil" principle or mantra that we're all disappointed about documented in a blog post? For some reason I thought it was on a page like this: [https://www.google.com/about/our- commitments/](https://www.google.com/about/our-commitments/)

Either way it's just a statement on a webpage which has all the permanence of a sign in their HQ lobby. It's going to be hard to convince people that statements like this from a Google, a Facebook, or an Uber really mean anything — especially long term.

Will their next leadership team or CEO carry on with this?

<comment><USER52> _Don 't be evil_ is on the Code of Conduct:

[https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of- conduct.html](https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Pretty rich for them to claim privacy is important when all of this technology is based on funneling your private data straight to them for storage and processing.

</comment><comment><USER54> But how? Let's assume I personally offer artificial intelligence services. So I provide some API's where my customers upload training and testing data, and I return a trained ML model. I do not know who uses my service or what they are doing...

Furthermore, if ban the military. Then another company could do it for them. So every customer would have to explain their activities?

<comment><USER55> FTA:

> As we develop and deploy AI technologies, we will evaluate likely uses in > light of the following factors: [...] Nature and uniqueness: whether we are > making available technology that is unique or more generally available

Presumably this means they would allow the US military to use their cloud services like any other customer. This is almost certain not to happen because of the classified nature of their data.

Also, this is meant to guide how Google decides what to develop, not (AFAICT) meant as a terms of service for customers. Though I bet Google still reserves the right to block accounts it decides are using its platform in a way they think is immoral.

Disclaimer: I work for Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> This likely took careful consideration and deliberation among a number of people. Google should be commended for the effort.

</comment><comment><USER57> What do you think about the following potential additions?

1\. "Pursue legislation and regulation to promote these principles across the industry."

2\. "Develop or support the development of AI based tools to help combat, alleviate, the dangers noted in the other principles in products developed by other companies and governments."

</comment><comment><USER58> At least they are starting the conversation. I'd be much more comfortable with principles of design and implementation in addition to outcomes. For example, transparency is essential. Also:

 _5\. Incorporate privacy design principles.

We will incorporate our privacy principles in the development and use of our AI technologies. We will give opportunity for notice and consent, encourage architectures with privacy safeguards, and provide appropriate transparency and control over the use of data._

Why not "give people control over their privacy and over their information"? That's a commitment to an outcome. "Incorporate ... principles", "give opportunity", "encourage", and "appropriate transparency and control" are not commitments. Google seems to be hedging on privacy.

<comment><USER59> they're only starting it because of the backlash from employees internally and more importantly the external backlash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> The principles state that they will not make weapons. However the latest report I've seen states that their current contract for the military ends some time in 2019. [1]

So while google says it will not make weapons, it seems that for the next 6-18 months it will continue to do so.

Does anyone know when in 2019 the contact expires? It seems odd to come out with a pledge not to make weapons while continuing to make weapons (assuming that is what they are doing).

(Full disclosure, I am a contractor at an Alphabet company, but I don't know much about project Maven. These are my own opinions.)

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/1/17418406/google-maven- dron...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/1/17418406/google-maven-drone- imagery-ai-contract-expire)

<comment><USER61> I believe it continues through March 2019.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Google: We take Pentagon contracts to track people's location with our AI. That's so bad.

Also Google: We will totally use our AI to 'legally' track a single mom that clicked a fine print EULA once while signing into our app. That's totally fine. It's different mmk?

<comment><USER63> This comment comes off as intentionally disingenuous to me.

In the latter case, it's about serving up ads.

In the former case, it's literally about assassinating people from the sky.

They really _are_ different.

<comment><USER62> Both can be used for malicious prosecution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> >At its heart, AI is computer programming that learns and adapts

No, that's machine learning. AI is intelligence demonstrated by machines, and it doesn't necessarily mean that it learns or adapts.

</comment><comment><USER65> Luckily no one needs to worry about Google ever creating advancements AI (they can't, they lack the required skillset). Google is the modern day IBM, and AlphaGo is just another DeepBlue. I wonder when Google will make a gimmick like Watson. I guess Duplex is the beginning of it. It's amazing to see how many people were impressed by that. Then again, the tech scene lacks the scientific rigour that is required for spotting breakthroughs.

</comment><comment><USER66> Applications they will not pursue include those "that gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms." That's some fancy gymnastics there, Mr. Pichai. Well played.

I was wondering how or if they were going to address this. It saddens me to see that Google considers collecting as much data as possible about all its users to maximize ad revenue an international norm. It saddens me more to see that they're correct.

</comment><comment><USER67> Didn't Google have a motto of "Don't be evil," and then new management retired the saying? What's stopping that from happening again in this case?

<comment><USER68> No, it's still in there code of conduct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Great, another piece of "Don't be evil" with a new coat, and they can ditch it whenever they feel powerful enough to ignore society's feedback.

Such statement absolutely relieves the pressure came from the public, hence law makers. Can we make sure big companies are legally accountable for what they claim to the public? Otherwise they can say just whatever persuades people to be less vigilant about what they are doing, which is so deceptive and irresponsible.

</comment><comment><USER70> >4\. Be accountable to people. >We will design AI systems that provide appropriate opportunities for feedback, relevant explanations, and appeal. Our AI technologies will be subject to appropriate human direction and control.

Youtube moderation and automated account banning combined with the inability to actually get in contact with a human show they they have a long way to go with this principle.

<comment><USER71> That is going to be a tough one, and possibly even impossible based on where current ML tech is leading. A laudable goal, but taking a complex system with a training time of many GPU years and asking it how it came up with the answer basically nets a very large pile of numbers (weights) tied together in a complex multidimensional relationship that we just plain can't follow outside of the system. Right now the practical focus is on trying to stop feeding the systems biased data. Your example is spot on, save for the 'not able to talk to someone' which is just googz being too aloof and too cheap

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Trust is like a mirror: you can fix it if it's broken, but you'll always see the crack in that motherfucker's reflection.

</comment><comment><USER73> I was kind of reminded of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics while going through the Principles, especially the 7th one.

<comment><USER74> 3\. Be built and tested for safety.

4\. Be accountable to people.

6\. Uphold high standards of scientific excellence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> > Technologies that gather or use information for surveillance violating > internationally accepted norms.

I guess Google's policy of sucking up any and all data doesn't go against internationally accepted norms.

This entire article reads like BS if you think about what Google actually does.

</comment><comment><USER76> This is pretty weak tea. It seems to completely justify working on anything, as long as the tiny part that Google engineers touch is software, and they aren't personally pulling triggers.

> _1\. Technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm. Where > there is a material risk of harm, we will proceed only where we believe that > the benefits substantially outweigh the risks, and will incorporate > appropriate safety constraints._

Is this "We have solved the trolley problem"?

Benefits to who? US Consumers? Shareholders? Someone in Afghanistan with the wrong IMEI who's making a phone-call?

Without specifying this, this statement completely fails as a restraint on behavior. For an extrajudicial assassination via drone, is 'the technology' the re-purposed consumer software to aid target selection, or the bomb? Presumably the latter in every case.

> _2\. Weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation > is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people._

This leaves the vast majority of military applications in scope. By this definition, Project Maven (the cause of resignations/protests) meets the criteria of not _" directly facilitat[ing] injury to people"_. It selects who and what to cause injury too at lower cost and accuracy, to scale up the total number of causable injuries per dollar.

> _3\. Technologies that gather or use information for surveillance violating > internationally accepted norms._

Google _set the norms_ for surveillance by being at the leading edge of it. It's pretty clear from Google's positioning that they consider data stored with them for monetization and distribution to Goverments completely fine. Governments do, too. And of course, _" If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."_[0].

> _4\. Technologies whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of > international law and human rights._

It's difficult to see how this could be anything but a circular argument that whatever the US military thinks is appropriate, is accepted as appropriate, because the US military thinks it is.

The most widely accepted definitions of human rights are the UN's, and the least controversial of those is the Right to Life. There are legal limits to this right, but by definition, extrajudicial assassinations via drone strike are in contravention of it. Even if they're _Googley extrajudicial assassinations_.

[0]: [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric- schmid...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt- dismisses-privacy)

<comment><USER77> Was going to say much the same thing, thank you. You said it much better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Love this leadership from Jeff Dean and the team at Google AI. Technology can be an incredible lever for positive change, but can just as easily be a destructive force. Always import to think principally about how to ensure the former is the case and not the latter.

</comment><comment><USER79> I wished they could define and clarify what "harm" means.

</comment><comment><USER80> AI can and will be used to cause harm. I hope this doesn't cause US huge disadvantage against other nations like China where govt has more control and access to AI.

</comment><comment><USER81> > Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.

AI will likely reflect the bias of its training set, which likely reflects the bias of the creators. So, it is fair to say that AI will be biased?

<comment><USER82> There is definitely a risk of machines learning to reinforce existing but undesirable bias in real-world training data. There is research into documenting forms of bias so they can be recognized and countered when selecting training data.

[https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-risk-of-machine- lear...](https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-risk-of-machine-learning- bias-and-how-to-prevent-it/)

[https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/279927](https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/279927)

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> The same AI tech developed for "search and rescue" can be easily re-purposed for "search and destroy". How would Google prevent that from happening?

</comment><comment><USER84> As someone who has worked in the defense industry his entire career (and served in the Army before that), I find the general tone of most of these comments - in particular the ones coming from supposedly loyal American citizens - disturbing (not to mention insulting). Almost makes me wish we'd actually institute mandatory national service.

That said, I'd love to work on ML/AI related defense projects. Thanks to Google, more of this type of work will surely be thrown over to the traditional defense contractors - so maybe I'll get that chance, eh?

</comment><comment><USER85> Humanity is racing ever faster to craft its own replacement as a species and we need to acknowledge this as our finest gift imaginable ... the cat is out of the bag on AI and no amount of corporate double speak can shed responsibility for any organization who employs armies who then freely spread these skills ... passing the torch to that which runs at light speed and is free of the limits of time which self evolves its own hardware and software can only be something we collectively should be proud of not afraid of ... rejoice as we molt and fly into the infinite now

<comment> wu-ikkyu >can only be something we collectively should be proud of not afraid of

If AI is used for mass murder of the human species, should we be proud? Humility, rather than hubris, is existentially important when it comes to wielding the most extreme power humanity has ever known

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> _AI applications we will not pursue_

 _Technologies that gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms._

They already failed.

</comment><comment><USER87> Its interesting the sections discussing 'privacy' and 'accountability to people' contain the least amount of information.

</comment><comment><USER21> In a way, the engineers who quit Google had some part in this success. Would it be unwise for Google to reach out to them?

</comment><comment><USER88> I do not know, really... if not them, someone else will do however. Google has a competitive advantage (they can hire & pay well the smartest minds on Earth) and is letting it go? EDIT: going to be even more controversial but needs to be said that Google just can't stay neutral here imho, they either work for autonomus killing machines or against them in order to preserve their market position and brand

<comment><USER89> If I don't build these gas chambers, somebody else will, so i might as well pocket the money.

You don't see a problem with that position?

<comment><USER88> I have no competitive advantage to take care of, though.

<comment><USER89> Questions of competitive advantage and profitability should likely be taking a backseat to concerns about autonomous killing machines.

<comment><USER88> Going to be even more controversial but needs to be said that Google just can't stay neutral here imho, they either work for autonomus killing machines or against them in order to preserve their market position and brand

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> The military is using open source software to sort images, with consulting help from Google. No killbots, no acts of war, just doing the _only_ thing that machine learning has any practical use for.

Science fiction writing is hard. I don't know why all of you are doing it for no pay. We can't judge Google for what we think they _might_ do. And so far, they're just using ml in the real world

</comment><comment><USER91> All corporations are amoral. They exist to maximise the profit of their shareholders. This is marketing. It is a nice sounding lie. If it were authentic, the last few months wouldn't have happened at Google. For me, it only makes it worse. Because they think we are suckers. Actions speak louder than words. These words ring hollow.

</comment><comment><USER46> I think the avoidance of harm is fundamentally flawed. Creation necessitates destruction. At times safety necessitates assault. Violence can not be eradicated we can only strive to maximize our values.

Anyone who claims to be non-violent has simply rationalized ignorance of their violence. See: vegans. (spoken as someone who eats a plant based diet)

</comment><comment><USER92> This seems like a PR stunt, but at least something. Nothing prevents them and reverting those newly found principles over time... similar with removing "Don't be Evil" from their mission - which kinda would have covered that. Google's goal is to make money and that's what this is about.

</comment><comment><USER93> Just follow the three laws of robotics and you'll be fine.

</comment><comment><USER94> google has no moral or principles. how could it possibly have those things? how can a global advertisement corp. not be evil? it doesn't make any sense!

</comment><comment><USER95> "We're just going to put the tip in...."

</comment><comment><USER69> Off topic, is there a way to tag all the stakeholders of the main company/government mentioned in title/article?

</comment><comment><USER11> 1) money, 2) profit, 3) revenue.

</comment><comment><USER96> Don't be Skynet?

</comment><comment><USER97> "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." Groucho Marx

</comment><comment><USER98> "Hey Google, give me three concrete examples of fair bias."

<comment><USER99> Bias has a very broad meaning in AI work. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias- variance_tradeoff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias-variance_tradeoff)

Most AI/ML/Statistics procedures use Occam's razor: prefer the simplest explanation of the data. That's a bias (toward simpler explanations), but not "unfair" to anyone.

<comment><USER13> Oh, so they mean the boring technical definition that nobody reading the page cares about?

We can trust google will try to build tools that are effective for googles buisness goals without it being proclaimed in a statement of principles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> New hot job title: AI ombudsman.

<comment><USER101> This is Google you are talking about. It's more like _hot new script: ai_ombudsman.py_

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> "Our AI is so powerful it needs special rules!" is pure marketing.

</comment><comment><USER103> The fact that "make money" isn't on the list means that you can't believe _any_ of it.

Also point 5 is an outright, blatant falsehood given Google's track record and indeed entire business model.

<comment><USER72> This is clearly the only reasonable response to these 'principles'. Google must have a strong employee presence here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER104> "Principles"

<comment><USER105> You've been posting a lot of unsubstantive comments. Could you please try to increase the amount of information?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER104> Sure thing; going into the future I'll make sure to; and sorry for breaking guidelines a bit.

I was thinking I should probably take a break from HN until the current news cycle's run its course (way too many things happening that I'm tempted to reply with one-liners to; works on Twitter, doesn't work here), and should have went with my intuition + will now.</comment></comment></comment>


iTunes is crap, even Apple thinks so - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/441111/i-hate-itunes-and-i-think-apple-does-too/

<comment><USER2> Please use the original title. You can express your opinion in a comment.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment>