Google Plans Not To Renew its Contract for Project Maven, a Controversial Drone AI Imaging Program (gizmodo.com)

Kate Konger, reporting for Gizmodo: Google will not seek another contract for its controversial work providing artificial intelligence to the U.S. Department of Defense for analyzing drone footage after its current contract expires. Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene announced the decision at a meeting with employees Friday morning, three sources told Gizmodo. The current contract expires in 2019 and there will not be a follow-up contract, Greene said. The meeting, dubbed Weather Report, is a weekly update on Google Cloud's business. Google would not choose to pursue Maven today because the backlash has been terrible for the company, Greene said, adding that the decision was made at a time when Google was more aggressively pursuing military work. The company plans to unveil new ethical principles about its use of AI next week.

Comments

Google's new project "MAESTRO"

[decipher_saint]

...which is all about drone-based AI assisted ... "package" ""delivery"".

I mean... I GUESS you could use this Death Ray as a weapon - but it's for PEACEFUL purposes - I swear

Re:Google's new project "MAESTRO"

[zlives]

thats project SANTA, cause we are thinking of the children...

Of course not

[Anonymous Coward]

Standard government (and business) practice when a program experiences any adverse PR: end it as soon as possible and start it up under a new name.

need to hire directly

[WindBourne]

It used to be that DARPA and DOD hired ppl directly. Starting under reagan, we had the big push to move towards contracting which is now an economic nightmare. In addition, we really should have a number of scientists on-board working on various new tech.

Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Google hires people based on skin color and genitals, which leaves them with subpar engineers. I know several of them, they're fucking nuts. You don't want them working on anything important or that needs to actually get finished.

If Google doesn't do it

[vlad30]

Some other company will and maybe they won't be as moral as the google employees or maybe they will be more so however other countries/organisations are certainly doing this so who would you prefer to own that space.