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  • Hacker News
  • Thanks for trying
    by rhmn_mdov
  • more comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48925271
    by fragmede
  • > learned that Google sells its Cloud services to the relevant agencies within DHS

    Can a US company refuse the US government as a customer?

    by throwaway26727
  • Depends on your definition of "customer."
    by staticautomatic
  • If you want to do good in the world: You are not alone!

    Its not easy to do at this moment in time, but be patient, consistent, and spread your attitude to others.

    by adverbly
  • ICYMI

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

    by ChrisArchitect
  • Primary source: https://turntrout.com/why-i-left-google-deepmind
    by aleph_minus_one
  • The author misses one GLARING explaination as to everyone's motivations... money. Literally... just money. There's so much money right now. Enough to eliminate all principles.

    What is particularly heartbreaking is that the nerds were supposed to be the gatekeepers of good. And we're just watching this fall apart in realtime. Principles matter little when starting at a $1,000,000,000 check deposited directly into your personal bank account.

    by superxpro12
  • > There's so much money right now. Enough to eliminate all principles.

    > Principles matter little when starting at a $1,000,000,000 check deposited directly into your personal bank account.

    Maybe for some of us, sure.

    by esseph
  • I'll always support someone taking a personal stand about what they can or cannot do. Ethical issues always invite the most criticism but my experience is that it's rare for anyone to really give anything up for their ethics (this person likely has money saved up and will land on their feet but even this situation is more than most people would do).
    by tdb7893
  • Great show of principles and character, +1000 to the author.

    What can we "regular people" do?

    My approach, which is very inconvenient, is to try as much as possible to not feed my consumer spending money to tech giants. In some cases I fail at this (e.g., my wife and I will always buy a family membership for YouTube Plus with music; we still order some things online from Amazon) but I make an effort.

    I have been an AI practitioner for over 40 years and I want to use the very best AI coding agents, etc., but I am forcing myself to just use access to cheaper open weight models from smaller US inferencing companies (my last $$ subscription runs out in a few days).

    by mark_l_watson
  • However way people that are deep into the cog wake up I support it. Once the truth was seen you didn't bend and stood by your principles, it must have been very challenging to navigate that from the inside with your entire identity tied to and associated to the thing you ended up growing out from. Appreciate you, welcome to your new life. May you find peace and continue to do good work next.
    by hmokiguess
  • Very long to read, but highly principled. I feel his desperation. Powerful people can too easily do little, and ignore their consciences. I appreciate he named those he spoke to; it came across as fair, and makes them accountable for what they did or did not do.
    by vintagedave
  • >Powerful people can too easily do little, and ignore their consciences.

    IOW:

    >Congress remains a potted plant in the corner.

    by fuzzfactor