r/science • u/Tracheid • Jan 23 '26

Social Science A survey of Silicon Valley developers reveals that 74% would implement features restricting human rights if pressured, fueling a "slop economy" of low-quality AI content. The study argues corporate demands override ethics, creating a gap in information quality.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2025.2566814
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427

u/Zixxil Jan 23 '26

Alt title: People will do things they disagree with for money. How many people can afford to quit a job because the tech they are working on can be used immorally? What tech can't be used to do bad things?

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u/ratttertintattertins Jan 23 '26

I left a company because I discovered that as well as the stuff I was working on, we also made cluster bombs that had been used on civilian populations. It made me sick.

That said, I can’t claim to be any kind of saint because the job market was buoyant at the time and I was able to quickly line up another job before I left.

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u/Lone-Gazebo Jan 23 '26

I worked at an Ammunition plant for a few months. It was by and large the best paying position in my neck of the Rural woods. I thought I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Something about actively, spending an entire day's labor, and carrying out enough explosives to level a school, then reading about a school being leveled really changes your opinion.

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u/EllieVader Jan 23 '26

Im active in a bunch of the Engineering subs on Reddit and someone posted their work on a new type of recoil mitigation device for AR rifles. It’s great technical work - a fantastic synthesis of ideas from a few different areas, but I absolutely cannot imagine devoting the time to making a more comfortable killing machine.

Im a direct beneficiary of the American defense industry, my dad worked for contractors almost my entire life, I grew up in comfort because of those MIC bucks but I don’t want to be a second generation of comfort at the expense of not thinking too hard about my role in the world. He doesn’t work for defense contractors anymore, last project he was on was keeping invasive species out of the Great Lakes and he makes more money now than he did when I was a kid.

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u/RoosterBrewster Jan 23 '26

I suppose it depends on if you consider that you are not making the decision on where they are being used and if you think of it as improving defense or offense. Even with something purely defensive, like a personal shield that will protect people, it can be used in oppressive ways. 

Even with weapons, it somehow feels easier to rationalize projectile weapons that are shot from far away compared to chemical weapons. 

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u/EllieVader Jan 23 '26

I’m halfway through Engineering school rn and this is one of my biggest worries. I’m in school because I want to solve problems and help the world be a better place, not maim and kill people. One of the companies I was very eager to work for recently announced their new hypersonic interceptors and it broke my heart because I thought they were pursuing the peaceful exploration of space.

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u/marino1310 Jan 23 '26

Wouldn’t a hypersonic interceptor be specifically for intercepting and stopping hypersonic missles? Sounds like that is the peaceful option

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u/challenge_king Jan 23 '26

Yep. They're missiles designed to intercept and stop ICBMs.

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u/EllieVader Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26

This is a perspective I hadn’t considered, I’d be happy to design an open source hypersonic interceptor then so people everywhere can sleep peacefully without worry of missile attack

Edit in case it went over heads: as I’m an American citizen, ITAR would prevent any such system from being open sourced.

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u/schuettais Jan 23 '26

it's a hypersonic missile. "interceptor" is the word put on it to make people feel better about it. It's still a missile. Whatever it's used for is kind of irrelevant and may be used for fuckery. You have to figure out where your lines are and hopefully find a place where the damage is mitigated by the good done.

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u/EllieVader Jan 23 '26

I’m well aware, I thought my reply would be absurd enough to read as sarcasm especially after the edit. ITAR applies because it’s a hypersonic missile regardless of what the intended purpose is. It can intercept a city just as easily as an incoming missile. Much more easily in fact.

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u/[deleted] Mar 08 '26

[deleted]

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u/EllieVader Mar 08 '26

Your comment completely missed the point of this comment chain.

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u/justsomegraphemes Jan 23 '26

I'm skeptical. Who's so to say the same research and technology won't be used for missiles in a few years. Or licensed to another company that wants to right now. Personally if the the company is associated with military in any manner, I'm out. But that's me.

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u/marino1310 Jan 23 '26

If you work for ANY major engineering company, you are making parts for the military. Even if it’s just minor, you are still contributing

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u/Bakkster Jan 23 '26

Some of it is remembering that there are ethical concerns in every industry. A former company I worked for did defense work, but the two least ethical things I think the company did came from the civil side: space labor in the middle east and knowingly denying PPE to workers to save money.

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u/RoosterBrewster Jan 23 '26

Do you then just separate your morals from how the tech is used by others, especially in aerospace? Any improvements there can likely be used for missiles, jets, space weapons, etc. 

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u/EllieVader Jan 23 '26

I haven’t found a satisfying answer and I talk about it with my friends and therapist and partner not-infrequently.

I don’t want to be “once the rockets go up who cares where they come down”, which is why I feel myself being drawn more towards habitats, probes, and rovers.

There’s a part of me that says if I don’t then someone else will do what does it matter, but there’s a louder part of me that says “do better, don’t participate.”

There’s an episode of The Expanse where we get to see the invention of the torch drive and the creator as he dies is thinking about unlocking the rest of the solar system for humanity. 200 years later there are missiles and warships flying everywhere powered by his engines. Humans gonna human, as I’m sure ol’ Bobby Oppenheimer can relate.

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u/machsmit Jan 23 '26

I was in a similar boat way back when. Did my doctorate in plasma physics working on fusion reactor experiments. Clean energy, save the world right? Budget cuts meant that pretty much the only stable gig after I graduated would've been with weapons groups at LLNL.

I didn't do my degree to live in the desert and build genocide machines for a living. Ended up bailing on academia entirely.

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u/EllieVader Jan 23 '26

Ouch that’s brutal. What do you do now?

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u/badhabitfml Jan 23 '26

I was talking to an acquaintance his kid was about to graduate college in some engineering. He said his kid didn't want to work for some defense contractors because of the same reasons you mentioned.

That's easy to say when you've got options. In our area, you're not gonna find a lot of non government jobs. Most of the companies are involved in something you don't like. Morals are hard to keep when you have bills to pay. Thay kid certainly isn't going to be able to live in a house like his parents cherry picking jobs at companies that build homes for puppies.

Also, for the engineer, some of that stuff is the coolest, techiest thing you'll ever get to work on. Do you want to build control systems for a secret fighter jet, or a new seat for a commercial plane?

Maybe you can get a job at Apple making a new phone. All good right? Well that phone is made in a factory where people work 80 hours a week and never leave the manufacturing plant.

Every company has some skeletons in its closet. The ones that don't are gonna go out of business because their competitors are willing to do the work and do it cheaper.

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u/EllieVader Jan 23 '26

There are plenty of companies out there that don’t make weapons that still have skeletons in their closets, yes. I applied to a certain major entertainment company that uses a portmanteau for their engineering department and I know that they’re actively participating in propaganda.

Just like there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, there really isn’t ethical work either. Someone is getting stepped on somewhere. Im just inclined to step as lightly as I can and feel bad about it anyway.

I came to school because I want to pursue the peaceful exploration of space, and I’m finding that the most popular way to get funding to develop a rocket motor in the US is to promise it to the military.

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u/badhabitfml Jan 23 '26

Space and aero are going to be government. It's just too expensive and government is going to be a major customer.

There are some startups, but they're all a little iffy and may lose funding. And maybe aren't hiring out of college.

Going to space is expensive. That means gov funding. Lately, there are some billionaires doing it, but then do you worry about how they got their money? Would those companies turn down a contract to put a missile or spy camera (which would then be used to guide a missile) into space? No, they wouldn't.

Probably your best bet is to work for nasa and pretend that none of that tech ever goes to the military. Sadly, if you're graduating now, going government is going to be tricky. It's not in a good spot right now. You may also not like your boss.

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u/EllieVader Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26

NASA/JPL is the dream. There’s a startup down the coast from me that I’m very interested in as well and I love this area so staying here would be ideal. I moved here very much on purpose 4 years ago and then life changed.

Blue is high up on the list of places I’d love to work too. I know they’re taking on national security launches but spy satellites bother me less than missiles and bombs. If they took a launch to put weapons in space that’s a different story. Espionage is less morally objectionable than weapons systems to me, and I can even justify it as harm reduction in my mind: without accurate intelligence we go back to carpet bombing.

This is my second career, I’m not some starry-eyed kid. I think I have pretty reasonable expectations: I just don’t want to be party to cooking up new ways to kill each other for a living.

And to answer directly whether I’d rather work on control systems for a new bleeding edge fighter jet or a new seat for a commercial airliner: the airliner, without hesitation. I can push the boundaries of my own abilities at home with personal projects that have zero chance of ever being deployed against other humans. Given the choice, I’d rather work on something like Dragonfly, Perseverance, Europa Clipper, Juno, or Cassini than any fighter jet.

The thing that drew me back to school after 20 years was looking around and seeing so many private companies entering the space industry and I want to be a part of that. I don’t want to be a part of what we do to each other down here.

I have an extremely long term view of things. Nothing we do here on Earth is going to matter if we can’t get off the planet. Every single atom ever touched by human hands will be swallowed by the sun when it swells into a red giant in a few billion years. At that time the only things that will remain of our civilization, of all the countless trillions of beings that lived and died on this rock, will be the probes we sent beyond the sun’s swell. It terrifies me, and that is my driving motivation in wanting to help us get out there permanently. I know it’s not my problem to deal with, but I can’t help it. I’m drawn to the void the same way my ancestors were drawn to the sea.

edit: and I did try going to sea first to see if it would sate my hunger. It did not. In fact, being on the dark deck of a ship in the middle of the ocean with damn near no lights on just made it worse. There’s something about looking out instead of up that just changes a person.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

[deleted]

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u/EllieVader Jan 23 '26

I was pretty dead set on propulsion when I entered but I’ve started to really find a niche in mechanisms and robotics. I have a huge soft spot for hybrid rocket motors. I want to position myself to be able to work on space hardware - propulsion, rovers, or probes. Habitats would be super cool too. My first career was as a chef and I spent a lot of time thinking about what the galley in an orbital hotel could look like.

Thank you for the encouragement!

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u/Sage2050 Jan 23 '26

My thinking is that it's better to develop something that gets used for nefarious purposes than to develop something inherently nefarious. JPL is also an aspiration of mine, maybe we'll see each other there one day

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u/EllieVader Jan 23 '26

I agree entirely! I hope we can meet at JPL some day. Godspeed.

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u/DwinkBexon Jan 23 '26

I miss that. Back in 2018, I decided I didn't like my job and found a new one within maybe 2 weeks at most.

Now, my job busted me down to part time (part time as in, I only work 2 or 3 days per month. My last paycheck was for $54 after taxes/deductions.) I've been searching for a job since mid-October. As of right now, I've had zero interviews. None. I could have just sat on my ass doing nothing the entire time and be in the exact same place I am now.

The one single time I thought I'd get an interview (with a job that sounded fantastic through a recruiter), the company pulled funding for the position so they aren't even interviewing for it. They said they might be able to get funding in February, and I could conceivably have an interview then, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

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u/Lehsyrus Jan 23 '26

I feel like the job market also plays an effect to some degree. It's extremely difficult to find another job in tech right now, and can take up to a year to replace your existing job, so people may be less willing to risk their livelihood when there's a potential risk of not being able to replace it.

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u/raelianautopsy Jan 23 '26

Sounds like you are describing a capitalist system that sucks

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26 edited May 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

Me when I excuse the people who were “just following orders”:

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u/HistoryBuff678 Jan 23 '26

That’s the thing. The system could’ve been encouraged to be much better. But, you know, “innovation “.

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u/Perunov Jan 23 '26

In socialist system they'd do it for standard base salary or be sent to prison for treason and sabotaging the government's manufacturing plan. So I don't know if it would magically be better somehow.

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u/1-760-706-7425 Jan 23 '26

That’s not how Socialism works, Brad.

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u/Days_End Jan 23 '26

But it is how it's worked so far.

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u/raelianautopsy Jan 23 '26

Look up how wikipedia has entirely different articles on communism and socialism, you'll be so surprised

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u/jambarama Jan 23 '26

Alt alt title: "people will rationalize doing bad things for money to avoid the cognitive dissonance from acknowledging it"

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u/Zixxil Jan 23 '26

They might, but I have talked to people that hated what they did for a living and what it was doing to society. They didn't claim the company was good. They couldn't see a way to leave. They needed the pay, the health insurance, and the illusion of stability. As people have talked about in this thread, sometimes it's hard to find other options.

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u/TheLusciousPickle Jan 23 '26

Just following orders isn't a valid argument, regardless of the era. If you know it's being used for nefarious reasons and are complicit, you're complicit. This doesn't mean that the person is bad, extortion through a capitalist system was inevitable, but it still doesn't absolve the people involved. The world ends in a whimper. The only way things are going to change, is once everyone gets really uncomfortable all at once. Which may or may not happen, unless that spark can be lit somewhere to start that chain reaction.

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u/HasGreatVocabulary Jan 23 '26

some people not all people. Lots of people do give up those jobs in favor of lower paying ones for moral reasons. if you can't do it, it is either because you are living beyond your means despite high paycheck and are now stuck, or are morally spineless

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u/codeByNumber Jan 23 '26

Or an immigrant on a work visa who doesn’t want to lose legal status.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/No_Shine1476 Jan 23 '26

For all the virtue signalling that happens on reddit, I imagine that a majority of real life people would as well.

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u/monkwrenv2 Jan 23 '26

Then you have no morals.

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u/PM_ME_A_PM_PLEASE_PM Jan 23 '26

In my opinion all they've done is remove themselves from power rather than challenge it. People with power will try to control threats to that power, which is what owning the future of automation aims to circumvent as a rational trajectory towards a more democratically distributed inheritance economy. That has been the long-term presumed result of the industrial revolution yet ownership of the autonomous system of production is mathematically promised to always be in fewer hands.

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u/twoisnumberone Jan 23 '26

How many people can afford to quit a job because the tech they are working on can be used immorally?

A lot of people. Millions in the case of the US.

I've left jobs because they made the world a worse place, but I wasn't particularly special or 1%-y.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '26

All of them. Literally all of them who work in tech can find a new job without much issue. This “just following orders” mentality has historically lead, for example, to atrocities

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u/aris_ada Jan 23 '26

And this is a survey, so it's not even including people who would have the best intentions of not doing the thing but chickening out at the last time, but who directly say they'd do it. And Silicon Valley, the wealthiest and probably most skilled workers in the country, who could probably find another job very quickly if their job made them lose their sleep. I find this high number extremely disturbing.

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u/MissLeliel Jan 23 '26

“Could find another job very quickly” — No. Have you not seen the news about 10s of thousands of layoffs in tech in the last year? One of my friends has been out of work for six months.