Thread by @delaneykingrox

So apparently #Unity just signed a major contract with the US military. The acquisition of WETA means all that augmented reality tech will be ideal for making training programs, but also interfaces for coordinating operations and running drones.

I have actually worked on pitches for military simulation contracts. I desperately needed the money, and was happy that the work was focused on non combative training- raising awareness of troops in urban situations with civilians to pick enemies from friendlies.

I usually have strict rules of what I work on. I have turned down a lot of jobs for things like cigarette commercials or propaganda. However every advert job has some moral problems.

Still, I am not comfy with this.

Obviously all games technology can be used for evil. We know games are used for recruiting, and commonly available flight simulators have been used for terrorist training.

I am an entertainer, and I like to think my work goes towards making people feel good.

Both by distracting from suffering, and allowing them to vent unhelpful emotions like anger and express natural human violence in a simulated, safe way.

This, however, feels seriously uncomfortable.

Now, training can be a good thing. Trained soldiers react in better ways than scared, clueless guys. It can give a precision that saves civilian casualties and saves the soldiers lives.

Augmented reality can be used to train corpsmen-field medics. It can be used for bomb teams

And games tech is great for learning languages, learning to deal with public in emergencies and so forth.

I worry that this isn't being used for good purposes.

I respect the military, what I don't trust is the politicians who pick their targets.

The current US track record for this is not good by any stretch of the imagination.

And I sure as hell don't want to encourage remote and automated/augmented reality controlled weapon systems.