Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract (gizmodo.com)

Kate Conger, reporting for Gizmodo: It's been nearly three months since many Google employees -- and the public -- learned about the company's decision to provide artificial intelligence to a controversial military pilot program known as Project Maven, which aims to speed up analysis of drone footage by automatically classifying images of objects and people. Now, about a dozen Google employees are resigning in protest over the company's continued involvement in Maven.

The resigning employees' frustrations range from particular ethical concerns over the use of artificial intelligence in drone warfare to broader worries about Google's political decisions -- and the erosion of user trust that could result from these actions. Many of them have written accounts of their decisions to leave the company, and their stories have been gathered and shared in an internal document, the contents of which multiple sources have described to Gizmodo.

Comments

It's only a matter of time

[Anonymous Coward]

before Google themselves are so entrenched in American government and policies that there will be assassinations attributed to them.

Good to see that some of the people are stand up against it.

Of course

[Brett Buck]

They were all in when it was a creepy private data mining operation, but do something to support the legitimate aims of government and defend the nation, and it goes against their precious principles.

    We are creating a generation of sociopaths, who have inverted their priorities and have no notion of right or wrong.

Re:Of course

[stephanruby]

We are creating a generation of sociopaths, who have inverted their priorities and have no notion of right or wrong.

We're talking about AI being used to control drones.

It's a slippery slope. At a certain point, those drones won't need any humans remote controlling them.

And those drones definitely won't "have any notion of right and wrong".

Re:Of course

[Nidi62]

We are creating a generation of sociopaths, who have inverted their priorities and have no notion of right or wrong.

You're right, but you're wrong on who the sociopaths are. The sociopaths are the ones using drones to bomb weddings. A lot of what the US does to "protect the nation" is counterproductive, because all it does is breed more enemies. A perfect example would be, oh, I don't know, supporting and approving apartheid by moving the embassy to Jerusalem.

Re:Of course

[Rick Schumann]

"Legitimate aims of government" indeed.

Thye don't want their work being used for weapons systems, that's not what they signed up for, and their moral compass dictates that leaving is the right move. Are you actually claiming that they should be punished for not living according to their own conscience, that their employer or the government should have the right to force them to do work that goes against their own conscience? If so then how un-American of you.

..oh, and never mind the fact that these so-called 'AIs' (which are pseudo-intelligent at best, not real Artificial Intelligence) will inevitably make mistakes, which will lead to non-combatants being targeted and killed. That's at the core of why these people are 'quitting in protest', and that's why people make a moral choice to not work on weapons of war.

Re:Of course

[Sarten-X]

The sociopaths are the ones using drones to bomb weddings.

Uh... The people using the drones are the ones asking for an AI to tell them "Even though the local informant said this was a training camp, it looks more like a wedding".

Re:Of course

[Nutria]

As if corporations are somehow less evil, less prone to abuses of power than governments?

Re:Of course

[vux984]

"We are creating a generation of sociopaths, who have inverted their priorities and have no notion of right or wrong."

People ostensibly working for a civilian advertising company; don't want to contribute directly to the development of autonomous military drone killing machines. And you call them 'sociopaths' who have no notion of right or wrong?

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what artificial means.

"artificial - made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically as a copy of something natural."

All the AI produced so far is at best in the pseudo category precisely because it can't actually mimic natural behavior, reactions, etc. Advanced pattern matching that works really well so long as you're selective on your inputs? Yes. Start throwing in really unrelated input and get horribly obvious false positives? Yes. Humans have the ability to recognize that false positives might be occurring or be nonsensical and will stop to take a second look. There's nothing about "AI" that includes judgement or consideration.

But, who knows, maybe even with all that AI will make less mistakes. So, we should use it anyways because it'll mean less civilian casualties, right? Watch "A Taste of Armageddon". The real sickness is that we have so many targets and we're already too willing to "go to war" because we've made it so asymmetrical. Aiding this will only make more war. The per incident civilian casualties may go down, but the number of encounters and the number of civilian causalities will surely go up. And if by some miracle the numbers do go down, each Google employee who worked on it will know that every failure on their part means the death of an innocent person. Maybe military folk can live with that because it's their job*. Apparently there's at least a dozen Google employees who do not want that to be their job.

* I can understand an 18 year old being naive and joining the military because the US does a very good job indoctrinating its younger population that what the military does is justifiable for national security. I'm less understanding if they start to recognize the inconsistencies and the evilness of what the US government pushes for foreign policy and still go along with their job because turning conscientious objector might result in some sort of harm to them. There are a lot of places where law enforcement isn't a thing, but the US military doesn't act like the police. It's not so simple to argue that it is protecting US borders and the range of "US interests" is too broad to justify most thing. In the end, it's hard to know where the sociopaths begin in the military.

Re:Of course

[Rick Schumann]

Indeed what they were supporting before was vastly more harmful to more people than any weapon system.

I'd strongly dispute that. While I am a strong advocate for privacy rights, having Google scrape your personal data doens't make you bleed out or lose limbs. I find your argument to be invalid.

Re: Of course

[GameboyRMH]

Adding an AI means there is now an unbiased process looking for alternative interpretations.

AI is not necessarily unbiased. In fact it's very good at learning biases in its training data. So if it was trained on data generated by people who tend to mistake weddings for training camps, it will do the same. The difference is that now they can blame the computer for messing up.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

"...corporations cannot send men with guns to kick your door down in the middle of the night."

They can use the government to do those things for them. It really only depends on how influential a particular corporation is.

Re:Of course

[GameboyRMH]

You mistake the divide of this apartheid as being between Jews and Arabs when it's actually between Israelis and Palestinians.

Re:Of course

[squiggleslash]

You know, it's possible for the same act to be done for good or neutral reasons, while in other contexts be bad.

I'm fine with Google collecting data to determine what ads to show me as long as it keeps that data secure and doesn't share it with anyone else. If Eric Schmidt can find out quickly that squiggleslash is also J. Smith from California and is into {list of sexual fetishes}, that's a problem. If server-x5-452.google.com can figure out that I'd be more likely to respond to an ad for a Ubuntu powered robotic lawnmower than a green high heeled shoe, then they can knock themselves out, that's fine by me.

Similarly you're claiming it's totally OK to murder the families of terr... oh, you weren't? You were claiming that something something national security and didn't actually have a positive scenario other than MERIKA HELL YEAH?

Because unfortunately, and with good reason, the dozen or so Google employees saw their work in terms of "OK, we're going to move from helping businesses send their message to receptive potential customers" to "Those drones that keep being used to kill supposed enemies of America and everyone around them including their families and innocent bystanders? Yeah, we're going to make those even less moral by removing the input from a human being who could, at least theoretically, pull the plug in a blatant act of murder."

Here's hoping the first drone gets hacked, and is re-targeted... at you.

Re: Of course

[vux984]

"FTFY" my ass.

There is nothing sociopathic about wanting to avoid your lifes work to directly go into creating weapons for war.

It might be idealistic. It might even be naive. But its not the mark of a sociopath.

Re:Of course

[Brett Buck]

As I said, sociopaths.

      Weapons systems are absolutely necessary for you to be able to sit around whining about how tough you have it, while perfectly safe and warm with mind-boggling technology all around you.

      And such a great humanitarian they are, basically refusing to work on a system *intended to reduce collateral damage*. You know what, it would be one hell of a lot cheaper and easier, and well within technology, to just carpet bomb. But no, they want to make the strikes more precise so they *don't have to to that*. So by all means, great heroes, refuse to participate, we still have to get the right guys and any additional collateral damage be damned to salve your precious fucking conscience.

      No one says they are supposed to work against their own conscience, they can absolutely do whatever they feel comfortable with. Apparently they either don't care about innocent bystanders getting killed unnecessarily, or they are such complete sociopaths that their own precious widdle sensibilities are more important than serving the country doing more-or-less the same work they would be doing anyway.

      Or they are sociopaths who just don't care that we might have to nuke a city instead of put one round of 30-06 or one missile into a terrorist camp and only get the bad guys.

Have we passed Peak Google?

[IGnatius T Foobar]

At this time we may begin to wonder whether we have passed Peak Google. Now that the company is large enough to get itself tangled up in politics, people from all political persuasions are watching its every move and looking for things to get upset about. The privacy issue could also be Google's biggest systemic problem, raising distrust in the company similar to IBM and Microsoft before it. We know how this ends -- a long, slow decline.

Personally, I'm very happy with DuckDuckGo. In just a few years it went from completely-unusable to a perfectly fine Google alternative. And I certainly wouldn't trust my email to any server other than my own.

National Defense is Critical -- Cannot Deny It.

[Slicker]

While there are many classically liberal views I agree with, sometimes I think they just go too far. National defense is a critical industry for the survival of the country and, although the United States is not perfect and certain has its share of blame for tragedies in the world, global dominance by Russia or China would be far, far worse..

In national defense, we've been falling backward (in relation to Russia and China) for the last few decades. Our main battle tanks are two generations behind Russia's and their air defense systems are also greatly enhanced. Iran successfully took over one of our most sophisticated drones and captured in, a couple years ago, using electronic warfare... Although we have the F-22 and the F-35 jets, we are falling in most other areas and are even behind in some.

Also, the cost of war is very prohibitive for us as Congress requires subcontractors in virtually every state to fund any new project. Both potential enemies can easily outlast us in a protracted war, financially.

And of course there is that AI in combat is not only inevitable but moving ahead at a very fast pace in both China and Russia. Although U.S. services still require a human in the loop of any kill decision, Russia absolutely does not. They are allowing agent kill decisions by default. This isn't a should we are shouldn't be ethical issue. This is about survival.

Re:B-Bye, I wish you well....

[b0s0z0ku]

I doubt they'll be blacklisted, but if they are, nothing wrong with quitting the industry and working for an entity that actually has a conscience. Do education/development work in poorer parts of the US with an NGO. Go back to school, get an M.D. or nursing degree. Actually help fellow humans or do good research.

Life's too short to work in the ad-tech or military murder industries for the rest of one's life.

Re:Better just to kill everyone?

[b0s0z0ku]

You're more likely to be killed slipping in a bathtub or crossing the street than in a terrorist attack in the US. We grossly over-reacted after 9/11. What we should have done is blockaded, sanctioned, and embargoed Saudi Arabia, the source of funding for the perpetrators that caused 9/11. Would have been cheap AND effective, even if we'd have felt some pain as far as oil prices in the short run.

But no, we were just itching to use the toys that we didn't have a chance to use during the Cold War. We wasted a few trillion and made the world LESS safe.

I don't blame them

[Rick Schumann]

Allow me to explain this to those of you who don't get it: These people are 'quitting in protest' because they didn't sign up to work on weapons of war, and they have every right to quit over this because otherwise they're not living according to their own conscience. Having worked in the defense industry (by the way, what we worked on was training systems, not weapons systems; what we developed helped keep soldiers safe) it's far from the first time someone has made a decision like this, and in fact people who have objections to contributing to the development of deadly weapons of war very often make this clear when they're interviewing for a job. These people clearly did not forsee this and are now acting accordingly and do not deserve to be criticized for that.

..oh, and by the way: It's inevitable that the so-called 'AI' (inaptly named; is really not much more than 'pseudo-intelligence' at best) will make mistakes, and those mistakes will likely mean non-combatants becoming collateral damage. That's at the core of why they're quitting, and I for one don't blame them one bit.

What a bunch of idiots...

[Karmashock]

1. AI and expert systems are going to be a standard in war regardless of what google does or doesn't do.

2. The US government is hardly the only power trying to integrate this tech into its military.

3. For all the largely LARPy ire at US foreign policy, what is the alternative hegemonic power you would prefer from the available contenders? Currently - Russia, China, maybe one of the Islamic countries or a coalition there of Pakistan/Turkey/Iran/etc. Of those which would you prefer to be the hegemonic power? Because Switzerland isn't a contender, sweethearts.

Given the above reality... What does protest quitting Google do?

Its meaningless virtue signaling. It accomplishes nothing productive. And even if it did slow or shut down the US development of AI enhanced weapons, that would only give one of the other major powers an advantage. And since literally every single one of those powers is if anything more questionable in its ethics regarding war... What are you really doing here?

I get it. We don't live in an ideal world. This world has war. We kill each other on occasion. But that isn't going to stop. Idealism is a sad substitute for sound foreign policy.

As the line goes "if you desire peace, prepare for war."

I desire peace. And I know that if I were sent into the fires of a war, I would want the best weapons my country could supply for me. I cannot therefore in good conscience frustrate the development or deployment of any equipment or programs for our people that I would want for myself in the same situation. I want to live. I want to live in peace and security. And the only way that is going to happen on this planet short of submitting to enslavement... is to be formidable.

By all means, refuse to work on Google's AI project. It is a free country. No one will force you to work where you do not wish to work. But it is meaningless.

The tech will get developed and become standard. Everyone knows this. Opposing it is futile.

Nothing noble about harming others

[sjbe]

Harming one's legitimate enemies is not only not evil, but perfectly just and, indeed, noble.

People declare others to be their "enemies" for all sorts of idiotic and irrational reasons. Tribalism not the least among them. Just because you don't like someone doesn't make harming them a justifiable activity. I could not disagree more with your statement as it stands. There is nothing "noble" about harming anyone. Sometimes it is necessary and occasionally it is just. But noble? No.

Autonomous killbots

[rsilvergun]

is where I see this going. If you can Id good targets from pictures offline then it won't be long until you can do it in realtime. There's a world of difference between using AI to sell me McDonald's Cheeseburgers & BMWs and using it to kill people.

What's scary is you're having trouble with the difference (and if you are, so are other people). Even ignoring the fact that our drone program is anything but legitimate it ought to be obvious why someone who makes advertisements for a living wouldn't want to switch over to weapon's manufacture.

National Defense is a Cult of Bedwetters

[Uberbah]

The United States could dismiss the entire Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force tomorrow and have more than enough for it's actual defense needs. You even seen a globe, bro? The United States is surrounded by the world's largest oceans and two friendly allies. You've faced one invasion in your entire history, 200 years ago, and for a war you started.

In national defense, we've been falling backward (in relation to Russia and China) for the last few decades. Our main battle tanks are two generations behind Russia's and their air defense systems are also greatly enhanced. Iran successfully took over one of our most sophisticated drones and captured in, a couple years ago, using electronic warfare... Although we have the F-22 and the F-35 jets, we are falling in most other areas and are even behind in some.

Russia's entire defense budget is $45 billion dollars. You spend over a trillion. The United States doesn't need to defend itself from the rest of the world. The rest of the world needs to defend itself from the United States.

It's not Russia occupying Europe with 30 installations in Germany alone. It's not China starting wars for bullshit reasons and assassinating people on the other side of the planet from it. It's all you. It's only you, and your terrorist allies Saudi Arabia and Israel.