Re:Google to open artificial intelligence centre in China
by johansch on Wednesday December 13, 2017 @06:45PM
(#15918767)
> Was it known the nazis were evil when IBM helped them? Did IBM even know what their stuff was used for?
Yes. That was clearly shown in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
Edwin Black made a pretty convincing case that the IBM chairman Thomas J. Watson, Sr was quite aware of what the IBM equipment was used for - and actually quite enthusiastic about it all.
So think of that connection next time you use "Watson".
Different times, different situations. The US was full of anti-semites too, and didn't hesitate to put anyone with Japanese heritage into concentration camps after Pearl Harbor - and nobody cared. That stuff has been covered up / hardly mentioned, ever since. And the US and its citizens doesn't seem to have a problem putting "enemy combatants" into concentration / torture camps after 9/11 (Guantanamo Bay). And that's just the stuff we know of. There's also the much more mysterious CIA dark sites, who knows what went on in there.
I'm not saying China is any better from a moral standpoint, but the US and the businesses in there - often working together - aren't any better. See also the Snowden leaks, that proved the big tech companies were in cahoots with the NSA, amongst other things to profile for "enemy combatants" in the US.