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Comment by dredds | Hacker News Reader

1 - "China vs America AI Race" by Eric “If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear” Schmidt. (note: all AI requires "spying", a-la Tesla Autopilot, smart-watches etc)

2 - Eric Schmidt's Pentagon Offensive: "..through his own venture capital firm and a [$15] billion fortune, Mr. Schmidt has invested millions of dollars into more than half a dozen defense start-ups.. The former Google C.E.O. has reinvented himself as the prime liaison between Silicon Valley and the Military-Industrial Complex.

[1] https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-versus-am...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/technology/eric-schmidt-p...

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Could you elaborate on what your point is? I am an American and I trust the American government to look out for my interests a lot more than I do the Chinese. In fact I have no problem at all with Schmidt's efforts to accelerate AI usage in our military.

I'm not the OP but do you understand that the American companies also operate in other countries right?

WhatsApp, IG, FB, YouTube is used globally and after Snowden revelations I'm pretty sure they can be used to look out for your interested as a US citizen, not that this is aligned with my interests as a non American citizen.

Watch "A Good American" (doco) and let me know if "the govt" (parts thereof) have citizen's best interests at heart.

AI in the wrong hands (MIC) has been a warning in countless films. Competing with China's Military by weaponizing AI is not the solution to a problem. It's "becoming what you fear".

We've seen SV employees protest the moves their corporations are making (facial recog, lethal robotics, etc) so Eric taking this out of Google into "startups" is really skirting around the perception issue (ie. PR of doing "evil").

The dichotomy here is between allowing the Chinese or the American governments access to my information. Without reservation, if those are the choices, I would prefer the former.

Perhaps competing with China in AI is not the perfect solution, though I cannot think of a better one, but it sure beats being out competed by them.

There are no absolutes here, its about accepting that we live in an imperfect world and picking the least bad outcomes we can.

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