There are other valid use cases than war for AI.

Of course there are. But once it exists, a technology will be used for all purposes. The choice is in the making, anything else is virtue signaling.

One second, I have to go turn my stove off. It could be used to start a forest fire.

Not all products will get abused, there’s better tools already (like matches/lighters/etc) or there’s just no good abusive use cases. Some products are just begging to be abused. You can’t really tit for tat with a household appliance here, these straw men aren’t of the same planet.

That is not analogous to this petition.

Very few. Most use is a pure negative for society.

Then start your own company where you control the direction of the products. All these people make millions and only speak up after they are set for life.

War will be a comparatively honest use of this technology compared to how the likes of Google will monetize it going forward.

I’m torn. On the one hand it’s nice that the rank and file take a stand against extreme overreach. On the other hand these rank and file scientists, engineers, whatever are fostering a technology which has so many at-best questionable effects on all of society.

Idealists who “genuinely”[1] want to change the world “for the better”[1] will just move on to the next Interesting Problem if it ends up making the world worse.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47179649