i do robots software eng @uwaterloo
loo
Joined October 2017
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biggest lie high school tells you is that significant figures matter i just write a random number of digits and call it a day
Sean Yang retweeted
We’re bringing the magic of Waymo to Toronto! 🇨🇦
In the coming days, you’ll begin seeing Waymo’s all-electric vehicles driving through Toronto’s streets as we lay the groundwork for our ride-hailing service.
Our goal is to begin serving riders in 2028.
Sign up for future updates: waymo.com/waymo-in-canada
if i was president my last act would be to pardon everyone in prison and see what happens from there
Sean Yang retweeted
We discovered a sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices. We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier. We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest. The FBI’s investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work.
At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was terminated.
We take protecting our technology, data, and people seriously, and as a matter of national importance. Our security program is designed to protect against a wide range of threat actors, from insider risks to cybercriminals to nation states, and this case is an example of how AI can help address these sophisticated security threats.
Sean Yang retweeted
We are entering a new era of discovery now:
openai.com/index/sharing-ai-…
Sean Yang retweeted
- I understand a lot of the pushback is that this is dangerous for impressionable underclassmen, especially without guardrails and oversight, and especially with potentially opaque foreign funding.
I *agree* with these concerns! This is more-so addressing folks who think military technology has absolutely no place in Canadian universities, which is illogical because they already are.
Sean Yang retweeted
re: waterloo's military "design team"
- I think it's good to push back on the broad mimetic culture that thinks it's cool or prestigious, beyond normal professionalism, to build systems that kill/oppress people (Luckey is the worst version of this)
- I think it's bad to think such industry should not be built in Canada (with the implication that university students are involved in all Canadian industries). 19 year olds can vote, can drink, can be deployed, can be officers. Yet they can't build radar? What?
- As context, a plurality of Chinese and US universities are involved in kinetic weapons research / manufacturing, and a plurality of Canadian universities are involved in non-kinetic weapons research, including Waterloo. No pandoras box here beyond that which Diefenbaker opened decades ago.
Sean Yang retweeted
sign here if you're on board:
studentweaponspledge.org/
a recently formed "design team" at waterloo is recruiting students to build weapons systems. by their own account they're independent of the university, funded, and in talks with major defence contractors.
i don't think the people involved are villains. but "design team" makes it sound like a student learning project, and it isn't one. there's no outside oversight, and no public answer on who owns what gets built or where it's allowed to end up.
i got into tech to build a better world, not better weapons. i think we as students have the power to shape the future we want to see. so i'm making a pledge, and asking others to make it with me:
1: i won't build systems designed to target people.
2: i won't work on weapons without binding, public limits on who they're sold to and how they're used.
i'm putting together an open letter. if you'd sign, comment or dm me. and if you're on this design team, i'd still like your answer: what would you refuse to build or sell?
sign here if you're on board:
studentweaponspledge.org/
Sean Yang retweeted
correction to the above: i wrote that this team has no outside oversight. that was wrong. they've told me the work is supervised by a uwaterloo professor who has final say, and is done in his lab. they're building toward a government counter-drone sandbox that covers detection only.
my initial post was based off their recruiting post, which mentioned funding and talks with defence contractors. they've since published an faq, and i should have waited for their reply before posting.
the pledge and the open letter stand, but they're about a general standard, not this team specifically.
correction to the above: i wrote that this team has no outside oversight. that was wrong. they've told me the work is supervised by a uwaterloo professor who has final say, and is done in his lab. they're building toward a government counter-drone sandbox that covers detection only.
my initial post was based off their recruiting post, which mentioned funding and talks with defence contractors. they've since published an faq, and i should have waited for their reply before posting.
the pledge and the open letter stand, but they're about a general standard, not this team specifically.
Sean Yang retweeted
As someone who loves robotics and has seen what's capable, it's such a privilege to be able to work in such a complex field filled with so many possibilities on how it can change lives for the better.
Saw a lot about these waterloo defense guys and thought it was funny because any roboticist who's really seen the field could think of a million other complex and impactful problems to work on other than a 2dof turret. Says a lot about these guys trying to start it lol