I've finally re-found a talk I think about at least once a week

"But don’t let that distract you; it was designed to kill people."

" Don't Get Distracted " by Caleb Hearth

A deeply important watch for anyone in software/hardware engineering, especially in a AI era

(available in both text or (I highly recommenced) video)

https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBdBoWAtLNI

@benjojo i am reminded of this awesome logo the Gulaschprogrammiernacht hacker event had in 2017:
#gpn https://zkm.de/en/event/2017/05/gulaschprogrammiernacht-gpn-2017

@benjojo Younger me definitely walked away from a promising job opportunity at a company I'd had a very positive internship experience with because one of the demos they were very thrilled about internally was where they'd lined up all the visualization and telemetry systems correctly so that, factoring in all GPS, accelerometer, and dead-reckoning signal, their model showed a missile bulls-eyeing a bridge.

... As I've gotten older, I haven't ever felt like I made the wrong choice but I think I would have made it for different reasons. Because the alternative to such software existing isn't "Nobody launches that bomb." It's "They launch three and pray one hits."

In a war... If the military can't find the cellphone in the apartment complex to send a sharpshooter drone in, they level the whole building. What one does with that knowledge is on one's own conscience.

@benjojo @mei I found the text version better personally. But WOW, this is a gem. I'm gonna send it to the next person who asks me "you can work at [defense contractor in the area] on stuff that's not for killing people". Because it puts into words _with evidence_ what I already know deep down much better than I can.