Don't Be Evil: Google Drops Pentagon's A.I Contract, Create Censored Search Engine For China

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‘The Business of War’: Google Employees Protest Work for the Pentagon

By SCOTT SHANE and DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI | APRIL 4, 2018

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WASHINGTON — Thousands of Google employees, including dozens of senior engineers, have signed a letter protesting the company’s involvement in a Pentagon program that uses artificial intelligence to interpret video imagery and could be used to improve the targeting of drone strikes.

The letter, which is circulating inside Google and has garnered more than 3,100 signatures, reflects a culture clash between Silicon Valley and the federal government that is likely to intensify as cutting-edge artificial intelligence is increasingly employed for military purposes.

(Read the text of the letter.)

“We believe that Google should not be in the business of war,” says the letter, addressed to Sundar Pichai, the company’s chief executive. It asks that Google pull out of Project Maven, a Pentagon pilot program, and announce a policy that it will not “ever build warfare technology.”

That kind of idealistic stance, while certainly not shared by all Google employees, comes naturally to a company whose motto is “Don’t be evil,” a phrase invoked in the protest letter. But it is distinctly foreign to Washington’s massive defense industry and certainly to the Pentagon, where the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, has often said a central goal is to increase the “lethality” of the United States military.
From its early days, Google has encouraged employees to speak out on issues involving the company. It provides internal message boards and social networks where workers challenge management and one another about the company’s products and policies. Recently, the heated debate around Google’s efforts to create a more diverse work force spilled out into the open.

Google employees have circulated protest petitions on a range of issues, including Google Plus, the company’s lagging competitor to Facebook, and Google’s sponsorship of the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Employees raised questions about Google’s involvement in Project Maven at a recent companywide meeting. At the time, Diane Greene, who leads Google’s cloud infrastructure business, defended the deal and sought to reassure concerned employees. A company spokesman said most of the signatures on the protest letter had been collected before the company had an opportunity to explain the situation.

The company subsequently described its work on Project Maven as “non-offensive” in nature, though the Pentagon’s video analysis is routinely used in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations, and Defense Department publications make clear that the project supports those operations. Both Google and the Pentagon said the company’s products would not create an autonomous weapons system that could fire without a human operator, a much-debated possibility using artificial intelligence.

But improved analysis of drone video could be used to pick out human targets for strikes, while also better identifying civilians to reduce the accidental killing of innocent people.
Without referring directly to the letter to Mr. Pichai, Google said in a statement on Tuesday that “any military use of machine learning naturally raises valid concerns.” It added, “We’re actively engaged across the company in a comprehensive discussion of this important topic.” The company called such exchanges “hugely important and beneficial,” though several Google employees familiar with the letter would speak of it only on the condition of anonymity, saying they were concerned about retaliation.

The statement said the company’s part of Project Maven was “specifically scoped to be for non-offensive purposes,” though officials declined to make available the relevant contract language. The Defense Department said that because Google is a subcontractor on Project Maven to the prime contractor, ECS Federal, it could not provide either the amount or the language of Google’s contract. ECS Federal did not respond to inquiries.

Google said the Pentagon was using “open-source object recognition software available to any Google Cloud customer” and based on unclassified data. “The technology is used to flag images for human review and is intended to save lives and save people from having to do highly tedious work,” the company said.

Some of Google’s top executives have significant Pentagon connections. Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Google and still a member of the executive board of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, serves on a Pentagon advisory body, the Defense Innovation Board, as does a Google vice president, Milo Medin.

In an interview in November, Mr. Schmidt acknowledged “a general concern in the tech community of somehow the military-industrial complex using their stuff to kill people incorrectly, if you will.” He said he served on the board in part “to at least allow for communications to occur” and suggested that the military would “use this technology to help keep the country safe.”
An uneasiness about military contracts among a small fraction of Google’s more than 70,000 employees may not pose a major obstacle to the company’s growth. But in the rarefied area of artificial intelligence research, Google is engaged in intense competition with other tech companies for the most talented people, so recruiters could be hampered if some candidates are put off by Google’s defense connections.

As Google defends its contracts from internal dissent, its competitors have not been shy about publicizing their own work on defense projects. Amazon touts its image recognition work with the Department of Defense, and Microsoft has promoted the fact that its cloud technology won a contract to handle classified information for every branch of the military and defense agencies.

The current dispute, first reported by Gizmodo, is focused on Project Maven, which began last year as a pilot program to find ways to speed up the military application of the latest A.I. technology. It is expected to cost less than $70 million in its first year, according to a Pentagon spokeswoman. But the signers of the letter at Google clearly hope to discourage the company from entering into far larger Pentagon contracts as the defense applications of artificial intelligence grow.

Google is widely expected to compete with other tech giants, including Amazon and Microsoft, for a multiyear, multibillion-dollar contract to provide cloud services to the Defense Department. John Gibson, the department’s chief management officer, said last month that the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud procurement program was in part designed to “increase lethality and readiness,” underscoring the difficulty of separating software, cloud and related services from the actual business of war.

The employees’ protest letter to Mr. Pichai, which has been circulated on an internal communications system for several weeks, argues that embracing military work could backfire by alienating customers and potential recruits.

“This plan will irreparably damage Google’s brand and its ability to compete for talent,” the letter says. “Amid growing fears of biased and weaponized AI, Google is already struggling to keep the public’s trust.” It suggests that Google risks being viewed as joining the ranks of big defense contractors like Raytheon, General Dynamics and the big-data firm Palantir.

“The argument that other firms, like Microsoft and Amazon, are also participating doesn’t make this any less risky for Google,” the letter says. “Google’s unique history, its motto Don’t Be Evil, and its direct reach into the lives of billions of users set it apart.”
Like other onetime upstarts turned powerful Silicon Valley behemoths, Google is being forced to confront the idealism that guided the company in its early years. Facebook started with the lofty mission of connecting people all over the world, but it has recently come under fire for becoming a conduit for fake news and being used by Russia to influence the 2016 election and sow dissent among American voters.

Paul Scharre, a former Pentagon official and author of “Army of None,” a forthcoming book on the use of artificial intelligence to build autonomous weapons, said the clash inside Google was inevitable, given the company’s history and the booming demand for A.I. in the military.

“There’s a strong libertarian ethos among tech folks, and a wariness about the government’s use of technology,” said Mr. Scharre, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington. “Now A.I. is suddenly and quite quickly moving out of the research lab and into real life.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html
 
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Thousands of Google employees asked CEO Sundar Pichai to stop providing AI tech for the US military's drones

Thousands of Google employees have pleaded in a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai to stop providing technology to the Pentagon that could be used to improve the accuracy of drone attacks.

"We believe that Google should not be in the business of war," wrote the signers of the letter circulating within the company, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

The signers, who represent a fraction of parent company Alphabet's 70,000 employees, ask that Google withdraw from Project Maven, a Pentagon pilot program, and for the company to pledge to never again "build warfare technology."

On Wednesday, in response to questions from Business Insider, a Google spokeswoman forwarded a statement. "We know that there are many open questions involved in the use of new technologies, so these conversations - with employees and outside experts - are hugely important and beneficial," the statement read in part.

Last month, Google shocked many inside and outside the Mountain View-based company when it confirmed that it was providing the US military with artificial-intelligence technology that interprets video imagery. According to experts, the technology could be used to better pinpoint bombing targets. The revelation first appeared in a report by Gizmodo.
An internal schism

Responding to Gizmodo's story, Google said the company's technology was "non-offensive" in nature and noted that the AI might assist military planners from hitting civilians. Google and the Pentagon added that the work under Project Maven would not lead to any autonomous weapons systems, the kind of robotic killing machines that critics fear will rise when AI is combined with weapon systems. Apparently, this came as small solace to some Google employees.

Google has long been associated with with the corporate motto "Don't be evil," and news the company had become a defense contractor has created something of internal schism, according to the Times report. Still, disagreements within the company are nothing new. Managers have long encouraged workers to voice opinions and concerns about Google's direction.

In the past, petitions have been circulated on a range of issues including Google's sponsorship of a right-leaning conference. One internal debate led to the firing of James Damore, an engineer, who was critical of the company's diversity policies and claimed he was discriminated because of his conservative views.

How much effect the letter to Pichai will have remains to be seen but the company's ties to the Pentagon go beyond Project Maven. Eric Schmidt, Google's former CEO and a current member of the executive board of Google's parent company, Alphabet, is a member of a Pentagon advisory board.
Below is a copy of Google's full statement to Business Insider.

"An important part of our culture is having employees who are actively engaged in the work that we do. We know that there are many open questions involved in the use of new technologies, so these conversations - with employees and outside experts - are hugely important and beneficial. Maven is a well publicized DoD project and Google is working on one part of it - specifically scoped to be for non-offensive purposes and using open-source object recognition software available to any Google Cloud customer. The models are based on unclassified data only. The technology is used to flag images for human review and is intended to save lives and save people from having to do highly tedious work. Any mmilitary use of machine learning naturally raises valid concerns. We're actively engaged across the company in a comprehensive discussion of this important topic and also with outside experts, as we continue to develop our policies around the development and use of our machine learning technologies."

http://www.businessinsider.com/goog...sundar-pichai-end-pentagon-ai-contract-2018-4
 
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“Wars not my voice”



It’s like the left has literally become the parody of itself...
 
Because they have family members in the areas this military stuff will be used and are conflicted.

Too many people living in the u.s. today that are convicted about putting America first.

Probably the most dangerous part of immigration.
 
I'll be honest, I only read the first 6-y paragraphs.


An interesting clash between profit and principles.


I'm betting profit wins.

But I'm not happy about it.
 
Unpatriotic shit heads. Not surprising

Also-
Pentagon program that uses artificial intelligence to interpret video imagery and could be used to improve the targeting of drone strikes.

Not like they're making nukes for the military. It'll be used to make sure there's less accidental strikes on civilians vs sending it right through a known terrorists window
 
I'll be honest, I only read the first 6-y paragraphs.


An interesting clash between profit and principles.


I'm betting profit wins.

But I'm not happy about it.

Are you against making our military strikes more precise so we can get the bad guys with less collateral damage though?

These employees argued that Google is going against its "Don't Be Evil" motto just by working with the U.S military. Personally, I do not think helping to reduce civilian casualty on the battlefield is evil.

Now, if these employees of a U.S company believe that their country's arm forces is inherently evil, therefore working with the armed forces is equate to helping evil, then that would explains a lot about their stance.
 
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Lol, when you get to Google, Microsoft, Apple level, you are now under the US government.

But it's just a conspiracy theory.
 
I doubt Google execs have any say in the matter, let alone regular employees. This does sorta point towards people yearning for a Google replacement- they've gotten too large and cozy with the government/corporate world.
 
Are you against making our military strikes more precise so we can get the bad guys with less collateral damage?

Google's motto is "Don't Be Evil". I do not think Google helping the U.S military to reduce civilian casualty on the battlefield is evil in anyway.

By military strikes, do you mean kid in a bunker with a joystick pressing a button on illegal drones, illegally flying into restricted airspace and killing people in foreign countries that we're not at war with?
 
Are you against making our military strikes more precise so we can get the bad guys with less collateral damage?

Google's motto is "Don't Be Evil". I do not think Google helping the U.S military to reduce civilian casualty on the battlefield is evil in anyway.
Is it as simple as black and white?
Unpatriotic shit heads. Not surprising

Also-


Not like they're making nukes for the military. It'll be used to make sure there's less accidental strikes on civilians vs sending it right through a known terrorists window
Okay, and if that "terrorist" is a 16 year old American citizen being terminated without due process? Do you consider that patriotic?
 
Are you against making our military strikes more precise so we can get the bad guys with less collateral damage?

Google's motto is "Don't Be Evil". I do not think helping to reduce civilian casualty on the battlefield is evil.

War is ambiguous at best.


And if I'm working for a tech company that previously wasn't contracted with the government (I'm speculating), wasnt making tech for military use, that's a huge change.

Now everyone employed for that company has to choose if they want to be involved in this. Maybe thousands of employees leave. That's a hell of a thing for a company to do.


I'm glad I don't personally have to make a choice like this.
 
Employees of a corporation, worth $102 billion, is telling the CEO what to do.

Not sure those bright employees are aware it's supposed to be the other way around.
 
Because they have family members in the areas this military stuff will be used and are conflicted.

Too many people living in the u.s. today that are convicted about putting America first.

Probably the most dangerous part of immigration.



Don’t they want their family members to have the best technology, precisely so it keeps them out of danger???


America First is the best thing for not only America, but the rest of the world. If America wasn’t floating all these other first world nations, and they actually had to protect themselves, there wouldn’t be a whole lot of spending on helping Africans and other impoverished countries around the world.
 
I wouldn't be keen on making weapons which enable robots to kill humans.

Alot of people want nothing to do with weapons used by humans, but weapons used by robots is another level of evil.
 
I doubt Google execs have any say in the matter, let alone regular employees. This does sorta point towards people yearning for a Google replacement- they've gotten too large and cozy with the government/corporate world.

"Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg famously commented that a great engineer is worth a 100 average engineers (something every developer knows deep in their heart). He was talking about A-players, and in my opinion the worst thing any startup can do is accept less than the best and brightest."
 
Is it as simple as black and white?

Okay, and if that "terrorist" is a 16 year old American citizen being terminated without due process? Do you consider that patriotic?

Has your fantasy world scenario ever actually happened? I don't have a lot of sympathy for Americans who go over to the middle east to fight alongside ISIS ya know?

I have shared my strong views that America needs to become more isolationist and not get involved in wars/skirmishes/regime changes in the ME. But even with that, working on tech for more accurate bomb delivery would be a good thing for reducing civilian casualties since unfortunately the Hawks in gov don't share my views as of now would be pretty cool

I'm actually looking at a gig with Oshkosh Defense who's making the new jltv (humvee replacement). That would be cool, just off put that they're hiring a bunch of contract engineers and I don't want to be back on the job hunt in 3-6 months
 
I work in a Technical field in support of the US Military. We have a College a few miles south of where I work. There is a bar closer to the College that I used to frequent. Through the years I've heard countless students of academia tell me how our military is evil or is led by greedy interests and that we kill innocents, etc etc. Then I invariably meet some of the same people years later in meetings for platform sustainment, mission software development, or test planning. The real world inevitably slaps these young idealists in the face. Google should send out a survey to see what employees support this. If an overwhelming # support it then drop the contracts. Then fire half of the people who supported the measure citing the decrease in revenue as the reason. That would teach them that they can have an opinion and cling to ideals but you NEVER shit where you eat because there are consequences.
 
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