Google has partnered with the United States Department of Defense to help the agency develop artificial intelligence for analyzing drone footage, according to Gizmodo. The move has set off a firestorm among employees at Google when they learned of the tech giant’s involvement. Google’s pilot project with the Defense Department’s Project Maven has not been previously reported, but it was discussed widely within the company last week when information about the project was shared on an internal mailing list. Project Maven is an effort to identify objects in drone footage. Some Google employees voiced outrage that the company would offer resources to the military for surveillance technology involved in drone operations, sources told Gizmodo. Other employees argued that the project raised “important ethical questions about the development and use of machine learning.” Though Google’s involvement in Project Maven is not related to combat uses, the issue has sparked concern among employees. Last fall, Google’s Eric Schmidt summed up the tech industry’s concerns about collaborating with the Pentagon when he said, “There’s a general concern in the tech community of somehow the military-industrial complex using their stuff to kill people incorrectly.” Project Maven was started in April 2017 and its stated mission is to “accelerate DoD’s integration of big data and machine learning.” The Wall Street Journal reports that the Defense Department spent $7.4 billion on artificial intelligence-related areas in 2017.
Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.
