This is reductivist to the point of insanity. Google is a large company, and this news makes me ashamed of the behaviors of thr execs at the helm, ceetainly, but not everyone inside of Google are evil, or passively in line with these guys.

I'm a software engineer in research, actively working on projects that are open source and designed to better the field of AI and CS as a whole. The work my group does is also applied research, and we are doing work to change policies internally for the better.

I know of literally nowhere else in the industry where I can do this. How, exactly, does this make me evil again?

> I know of literally nowhere else in the industry where I can do this. How, exactly, does this make me evil again?

I wouldn’t say it makes you evil - but it sounds like you’ve reached a decision that you can tolerate those actions in exchange for a paycheck.

I don’t think anyone can judge themselves morally perfect, but I also don’t think it’s really possible to compartmentalize your association with your employer - “I only identify with the good things I like”. The comment you replied to was deleted before I could read it, I’m not replying to their specific comments

I write drivers for phones at Google. Am I evil?

Is this worthy of social outcast?

Criticise big tech, but please don't let perfectly rational arguments turn into rhetoric.

You know the potential harm the company you choose to work for, and you've decided to look past that for a presumably large salary.

It's no different to working for a chemical company you knlw are dumping toxic sludge into the environment then saying but i only work in the label printing department.

You probably aren't evil, but you have blood on your hands and don't bd surprised if people judge you for that.

Ignore the noise. Big players in the space will always draw criticism. There's a huge difference between an organization and an individual. There's value in what you do, and I appreciate your work.

Presumably you and most of us here on HN have plenty of options regarding where we work, so I would say that if you work for a questionable company, then yes, you are, indeed, questionable. I wouldn't say evil exactly, but I certainly do question your ethics and morals a bit.

Now, its important to note that I do not know your personal circumstances, so I wouldn't go out of my way to tell you that you made bad choices or anything like that, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't silently (ok not so silently now, but you did ask) question your choices at least a little bit. At the end of the day, only you can know how moral you are as a person, but if writing drivers helps evil company maintain its evil, then...

> Is this worthy of social outcast?

Of course not, we're all humans and unless you directly do evil acts, I wouldn't say you should be socially outcast for it. But people will form opinions based on who you work for.

Side note. Are there any good resources for learning this?

I have done driver code in the past, a virtual block device that inteterfaced with the block layer.

But I want to go deeper. And understand how the code meets the metal.

Linux kernel source is a good start. Read up on just about everything in thr kernel docs on I2C, SPI, and regsets. Read datasheets, play around with dev boards.

There's no manul for it, really -- its close to old school software engineering on old machines. You have to learn the raw memory layouts, interfaces and some level of electronics theory, and wrestle with datasheets in the start.

Once you've figured out how a peripheral does its work, then you start looking at kernel drivers. For Android, drivers are a split thing: you have to write the kernel driver, then write a user space component called the HAL backend. There's a bit more documentation on that in thr AOSP tree, but not a whole lot.

Basically, you have to learn by doing. Find a chip you want to use in Android, and give it a try on a PandaBoard or some other SBC that can run it.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Its good to know that there is no quick path to this and simply need to sit down and understand the code, and play around with real hardware.

With the amount of human rights abuses, criminal activity, worker harm, and sexual harassment that's been disclosed about Google execs over the last several years, isn't it evil to make those people richer?

There isn't a single good guy at the top of Google. How can working there in 2020 not be a red flag to future employers that you stayed when you should've known better?

Don't get me wrong, there are workers trapped by visa policies or people who honestly lack the job mobility, but if you do legitimately have a choice where you work, doesn't it start to say something about you after a while?

I do honestly hesitate to vilify a large class of people solely based on employment, but I don't think it's an entirely unwarranted question: Can you be a good person if you choose to further the agenda of evil?

You said you "write drivers for phones". That sounds innocent enough, and I'm sure it's interesting work. But if that's Android, we should consider that Android will likely be found to have been built upon a stolen platform. It was created by a man who regularly sexually harassed employees, and whom Google paid a $90 million bonus after they knew that. The guys who still have a controlling interest in Google have all also sexually harassed employees, and continue to profit from Android today.

Android has no meaningful competition[1]. Android generally is provided with terms that extend and reinforce Google's monopoly, via a contract called the MADA. Every phone manufacturer has to agree to it, and it requires including and showcasing other Google apps. It's operated kinda like a cartel, and Google has threatened to banish manufacturers for things like, working with other search engines, web browsers, or location providers. Hilariously, Google has tried to present this cartel as some sort of open "alliance"... just an alliance where they are in charge and anyone who doesn't comply with their decisions is out of business.

Android was built and serves to protect Google's interest on mobile platforms. If location services is enabled, Google collects the location of nearly everyone on earth every five minutes. They've been caught regularly lying or obscuring how to disable this. Google has interfered with multiple attempts to protect user privacy on their platform, and while other web browsers have moved to block tracking by ad networks, Google engaged in marketing campaigns on how blocking tracking allegedly harmed user privacy.

Isn't working on this a political act? Can we separate pure engineering from the goals it furthers?

[1] iOS is not available to be licensed by manufacturers for use in phones. Android's only actual competitors are like Tizen, Sailfish, and maybe a couple flavors of Linux that work on phones.

My perspective on things:

If I jump to another company that "looks better" in the press, in Twitter circles etc... it's more likely I've gone somewhere which just doesn't allow employees to complain about things.

Every company has demons as bad as, if not worse -- the only difference with Google is employees aren't afraid to openly share the skeletons from the closet, and things like Maven/Dragonfly got cancelled as a result. Many other companies would've just fired half the workforce.

I don't like everything that happens here, but at least I get the impression that stuff is out in the open.

That's fair. I would express though that every time these skeletons happen, the whistleblowers and organizers don't survive the trip: Everyone from the Google Walkout organization was retaliated against and were fired or pushed to quit.

Maven got cancelled, but Google now has a contract with ICE/CBP's "virtual border wall" program and is working on a big contract with Saudi Arabia, after, you know, meeting with the very same guy who had a journalist cut into pieces. Thousands of Googlers may have walked out before, but they walked back in, and haven't walked out again, even though things are just as bad... or wose.

Timnit Gebru was immediately walked out for daring to question the ethics of Google's large scale AI systems. Lauded engineers like Jeff Dean were directly involved and defended the decision to get rid of her.

Sure, Google won't fire half it's workforce overnight, and plenty of rabblerousers are still there. But they keep removing the instigators who are loud enough to speak up and start those complaint processes.

And sure, moving to another FAANG isn't necessarily going to help, they all have those skeletons. But there is a ton of tech that isn't done by Fortune 50 companies. There's a ton of tech that is for the good of humanity or on new and innovative upstarts. The only alternative to Google isn't Facebook or Twitter.

> And sure, moving to another FAANG isn't necessarily going to help, they all have those skeletons. But there is a ton of tech that isn't done by Fortune 50 companies. There's a ton of tech that is for the good of humanity or on new and innovative upstarts. The only alternative to Google isn't Facebook or Twitter.

I would be happy to hear of tech companies falling under that bucket which meaningfully employ PhD's, and are either located in a low cost of living location or pay comparably to FAANG in a high cost of living location.

The question shouldn't be "can I make as much working for non-evil[1] companies" but rather how much of a premium are you willing to give up for doing what is good for society. For me, I'll happily earn less if it means that my conscience[2] is clear.

[1] I mean, I'm using "evil" loosely here. Its just an illustration, I'm not going to argue about how evil or not evil FAANG are.

[2] Of course, everyone has a different definition of what they consider questionable and will therefore draw the line in different places. Its a personal decision, but you should hopefully understand why someone who doesn't agree with your definition might judge you for it, rightly or wrongly.

If the phone is going to have spyware (Android with the Google proprietary services), then maybe?

On the contrary, I think we'll look back on this era and be sad about how we swung between extremes and lost the middle ground. Lost the concept of redemption and the understanding that most people are not one-sided and can be both forces for good and make mistakes at the same time.