Last month,
The Free Thought Project reported that thousands of Google employees were speaking out about the company’s close relationship with the Pentagon, and their involvement in the business of war.
Initially, 3,100 Google employees signed a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, demanding that the company cancel an ongoing contract with the Pentagon that supported a drone program called “Project Maven.” As expected, Google has not backed down, and at least a dozen of the employees who signed the letter are now resigning from the company in protest.
Project Maven is an AI system that is being developed to scan images in drone footage and identify targets. It was
launched in April 2017, and according to a Pentagon memo, the objective is to “augment or automate Processing, Exploitation and Dissemination (PED) for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)” in order to “reduce the human factors burden of [full motion video] analysis, increase actionable intelligence, and enhance military decision-making.”
When the issue was raised last month, Google spokesperson Diane Greene assured the concerned employees that the technology “will not operate or fly drones” and “will not be used to launch weapons.”
However, the employees saw right through this excuse and pointed out in their letter that, “While this eliminates a narrow set of direct applications, the technology is being built for the military, and once it’s delivered it could easily be used to assist in these tasks. This plan will irreparably damage Google’s brand and its ability to compete for talent.”
weiter hier:
https://www.activistpost.com/2018/05...r-machine.html