I don’t know details about his work at Google but it isn’t uncommon for people who have gotten caught criminally to have done plenty to push the envelope over the years, with actions going from ok, to aggressive, to sleazy, to unethical (but still legal), to unethical (possibly civil offenses), and eventually to criminal. It isn’t usually that someone turns overnight.
Again, I don’t know details here but if you see past corporate crime stories, people got rewarded on the way to the end, which served as positive reinforcement for them to think they are doing the right thing.
For example, the conflicts of interest — and eventual rewards — at 510 Systems were quite possibly a major positive reinforcement.
> it isn’t uncommon for people who have gotten caught criminally to have done plenty to push the envelope over the years
That's actually part of espionage 101- pressuring a person through each little step on the ladder so that they can get all the way up to straight-up criminal behavior without ever doing anything that much worse than they did the week before.
I'm not saying this is an incident of espionage, just that espionage folks have recognized what you pointed out, and basically made it a step by step formal process.
Yes. It's the reason why so many crimes are punished severely (e.g. think about how hard driving-under-the-influence is punished). If you did it enough to get caught, especially as part of an active investigation rather than being passively discovered, you probably did way more of it.
Again, I don’t know details here but if you see past corporate crime stories, people got rewarded on the way to the end, which served as positive reinforcement for them to think they are doing the right thing.
For example, the conflicts of interest — and eventual rewards — at 510 Systems were quite possibly a major positive reinforcement.
https://www.wired.com/story/god-is-a-bot-and-anthony-levando...