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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.
Is all military work unethical? There's a lot of it and it employs a bunch of people.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
If you define "the military objectives of my side are good, and those of their side are evil", then you can justify almost anything that helps you win.
Clearly, using algorithms to pre-sort images, while useful in its own right, is just the start. The obvious followup is having drones designed such that if they're jammed, they can still attempt to carry out their mission as best as they can on their own (thus reducing or eliminating the military effectiveness of jamming as an anti-drone weapon; Russia has gotten very good at such electronic warfare).
Jesus: "Son of a
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"
Have you ever worked for the DoD as a contractor? I have and this nonsense about Google only doing work for the DoD that is “ethical” is laughable. The military-industrial conplex is about the least ethical group of people you can find.
Do you hear people complaining about other US corps involved with the US military?
Yes, I have. Ever heard of this thing called the “military-industrial complex?” People have been complaining about it for going on 60 years.
Have you ever worked for the DoD as a contractor?
Ex-DoE contractor, centered around weapons. I did some analysis of explosive material for reliability concerns, did a lot of work on defeating improvised nukes, and did some work on a large-bore aircraft gun. I feel better about the work I do now, but I don't feel like my DoE work was unethical. The explosive in question could one day be used to detonate a nuke and kill a bunch of people; the aircraft gun could claim victims. I bear non-zero responsibility for those deaths. Making the call on whether a killing is ethical or not is out of my hands, but I accepted that. If you want to damn me, you also have to damn the people pulling the trigger, the people ordering those people around, and the tax-payers that aren't doing everything in their power to stop it.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Ummm, less ethical than Google?
Yes, but that isn’t some endorsement to say that Google is a beacon of ethics. Far from it.
I find that hard to believe. At least the DoD is honest about what they do: kill the enemies of the US.
Honesty is not the same as being ethical. If a person is honest that they beat up young children to steal their candy does that make them ethical?
Google's entire business model is based on lying to their product while they strip-mine their privacy.
Because the DoD has never lied or done things that have invaded the privacy of US citizens? LOL. Methinks you need to brush up on PRISM, NSLs, etc.