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Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work To Grow Exponentially (theintercept.com)
In March, Google secretly signed an agreement with the Pentagon to provide cutting edge AI technology for drone warfare, causing about a dozen Google employees to resign in protest and thousands to sign a petition calling for an end to the contract. Google has since tried to quash the dissent, claiming that the contract was "only" for $9 million, according to the New York Times. Internal company emails obtained by The Intercept tell a different story: The September emails show that Google's business development arm expected the military drone artificial intelligence revenue to ramp up from an initial $15 million to an eventual $250 million per year. In fact, one month after news of the contract broke, the Pentagon allocated an additional $100 million to Project Maven [the endeavor designed to help drone operators recognize images captured on the battlefield]. The internal Google email chain also notes that several big tech players competed to win the Project Maven contract. Other tech firms such as Amazon were in the running, one Google executive involved in negotiations wrote. (Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.) Rather than serving solely as a minor experiment for the military, Google executives on the thread stated that Project Maven was "directly related" to a major cloud computing contract worth billions of dollars that other Silicon Valley firms are competing to win. The emails further note that Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing arm of Amazon, "has some work loads" related to Project Maven.
It will be ethical and not evil.
https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393
They should just be doing this work under a "partnership" with a heavily funded startup.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
But trust Google because they’re going to be “ethical.” Why do people still believe a single word Google says? They’re a two-faced corporation just like the rest of them.
I don't get the US.
Outside of silicon valley, as a generalization? *No one cares*.
Do you hear people complaining about other US corps involved with the US military? What about US tech firms like IBM, Oracle, Sun(history here), Microsoft, and EVERYONE ELSE!
Yet, Google gets involved -- Google which I hate I might had, but to be fair.. they get involved and BLAH BLAH BLAH.
There's no story here. At all. If this is a story, then setup some website that shows all companies in the US, and all their funding, and start bitching at the top!
of the contractors.
Every drone in use is another work shift. AI coders enjoying gainful employment.
Think of the positive peace side of cloud computing AI code that enjoys guiding drones.
A drone painted by a local artist that maps a famers fields.
In agriculture, archaeology, city planning, normal police work, geology.
An AI can work on so much more than just images of a well disciplined enemy in a free fire zone.
Think of the later spin off and peace dividend of having an AI thats so very advanced after all that free practice.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Google encourages a culture of outrage and activism in its ranks. Good luck not having every little thing that some random employee might object to sent directly to the press.
No wonder they dropped their "Don't Be Evil" slogan. Just in time to transition into an arm of the military industrial complex.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e
INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a new crowd-funded investigative journalism project, breaks the exclusive story of how the United States intelligence community funded, nurtured and incubated Google as part of a drive to dominate the world through control of information. Seed-funded by the NSA and CIA, Google was merely the first among a plethora of private sector start-ups co-opted by US intelligence to retain ‘information superiority.’
The origins of this ingenious strategy trace back to a secret Pentagon-sponsored group, that for the last two decades has functioned as a bridge between the US government and elites across the business, industry, finance, corporate, and media sectors. The group has allowed some of the most powerful special interests in corporate America to systematically circumvent democratic accountability and the rule of law to influence government policies, as well as public opinion in the US and around the world. The results have been catastrophic: NSA mass surveillance, a permanent state of global war, and a new initiative to transform the US military into Skynet.
An exponential growth function doesn't have a maximum. But I like the idea of "moving DOD aggressively to the cloud".
I'd be happy with a nation that keeps their mility in their own border unless asked or attacked.
We, the US, should close each and every foreign base.
Next, Googles policy of conduct will include "Do anything to make money".
so how long until domestic police departments are given military drones like all the other war hardware they are allowed to acquire and therefore find an excuse to use?
(I don't mean surveillance drones, I mean armed drones)
and if ballots can be hacked, imagine what happens when russia, china, north korea or iran figures out a way to hack drones to go off mission
they don't have to have guns or bombs, remember there are sound weapons now for crowd control and while gas and mace are illegal for military use, they are allowed for domestic use for some insane reason
The line Google is pushing about only making 9 million shows how laughably indefensible their position is. If their best excuse is "It's just a little evil, look at how little we made!" then they know there is no defence for their actions. It's like a bank robber saying what they did is okay because they only made off with a thousand dollars in their heist.
People sometimes question why companies like IBM worked for the Nazis when they knew what they were doing is wrong. There are now thousands of people working at Google we can ask directly to find out how they went from just being a search giant to working to kill people.
What do you expect them to do. Go to apple and have siri run their missiles.
Google: Please, take a day off or two if you need respite from the trauma of a man being mean to you. We care about social justice and equality.
Also Google: If you attempt to get in the way of our making a quarter of a billion dollars from the Department of Defense teaching drones how to precision strike people without trial, get fucked.
"I am just a snitch who uses my amazing intelligence to point out otherwise unknown things to the thugs that will then go kill that thing".
The thugs who kill that thing are the real bad people.... not the smart people who help knowing what their "help" is doing.....
La La La La I am not to blame.... La La La La While I create weapons of war La La La La that end up killing people.
(Also the government has never before subcontracted small pieces of a weapon across multiple contractors, each thinking their puzzle piece isn't part of a weapon.)
I.e. You may not even realize the government IS having you build weapons!
They had basically taken up residency in the White House under Obama. I think they were expecting a whole lot more than just this, the mushroom-headed little shits. Deluded by their sociopathy, I think they really believe they should have a hand in virtually *everything*. I thank my lucky stars whenever they get the boot, they are not an ethical (or particularly bright, skilled, or innovative) company. Most Valley empires are the Evil Empire, and though we may need technology, we don't want or need their nonsense or sad excuses for leadership.
It's hilarious that this is the same company that promotes a very tolerant, liberal, pacifist culture at in their workplace. It's pretty clear here - and this applies to other tech companies, that they have one god: money. Money rules all. Who gives a shit about people dying and violence as long as you're making money, right?! Something needs to change.
[the endeavor designed to help drone operators recognize images captured on the battlefield
Among many other things. Maven is about bringing all things AI into operational use at accelerated pace, harnessing the creativity and innovation of the industry and individuals in a way rarely experienced in as bureaucratic organization as the US military. Words are nice, actions are to be seen. Results? Maybe ATF doesn't have to hunt down so many US military issues in the future. Or something like that.
Google has detailed records on nearly half the human beings on the planet: activities, interests, ideologies, contacts, schedules, and location coordinates. They have been using this info to target persons with advertisements. Now they are working on targeting persons with drones. Is anyone else concerned?
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up the day Google suspiciously changed their motto from "Don't be evil." to "Do the right thing."... Kind of like, "Hey we are working on some really evil shit, so let's come up with a different motto that doesn't inadvertently draw attention to this fact"
I knew long ago when their motto was "Don't be evil" that it was only a question of time until it changed to "Be evil to make more money" because all capitalist companies evolve into doing evil things because evil things are more profitable.
Of *course* Google signed a contract "in secret". All commercial contracts default to being signed secretly. It's called an NDA.
Google employees violated their employment agreement by leaking confidential agreement info. Those employees - sniffs like their lunatic fringe SREs - are not paid to decide what is a good, or not good contract. Let's say we agree "US military = bad." Does that mean US civilian agency = bad, too? Which ones ? IRS = bad, but Dept of interior = good ?
What about companies? Gambling = bad ? ExxonMobil = bad ? Disney = good ? Sony = good ?
The bottom line is, that it's the bottom line that matters. If it's not illegal, Google employees should stick to making Google good at something that contributes to profits other than ad words, and otherwise STFU.
I have create a target recognition system using opencv and caffe. I working now on getting it to run on a RasPi by simplifying the neural net. I used blue uniforms for this first test target category..
You'll change your mind when you grow up.
It's interesting because you always see these massive contracts BEFORE atrocities begin.
Clearly they are preparing for a war which indicates premeditation, and the purpose which is profit.
I wonder what will be the pretext this time?