4hw.com.cn: in the morning of April 5, Beijing time, thousands of Google employees, including senior engineers, signed a joint letter protesting the company's participation in the project Maven project of the U.S. Department of defense, which uses artificial intelligence technology to detect objects in video, which can be used for military purposes.
What's the matter with Google employees signing a joint letter
Google employees sign a joint letter
The letter, signed by more than 3100 employees, reflects a cultural clash between Silicon Valley and the federal government that could intensify as AI is increasingly used for military purposes.
"We don't think Google should be involved in war related projects," the protest letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai said. The employees who signed the protest letter asked Google to withdraw its project maven, which is working with the U.S. Department of defense, and the company to announce a clause that it will never develop war related technologies. Google's project with the U.S. Department of defense aims to use artificial intelligence technology to help detect objects in video.
It's no surprise that this idealistic stance comes from the employees of a company that uses the motto don't be evil, although not all Google employees signed the protest letter. This is clearly inconsistent with the position of the U.S. Department of defense, where Jim Mattis, the U.S. Secretary of defense, often emphasizes that one of his main goals is to increase the lethality of the U.S. military.
At a recent company wide meeting, questions were raised about Google's involvement in the Defense Department's project Maven. At the time, Diane green, Google's head of cloud infrastructure, defended the project and reassured employees who were concerned about it.
A Google spokesman said all employees who signed the protest letter had been recorded, and the company would explain the project at the right time.
Google said after the meeting that its work in the project Maven project was non-invasive. However, there are usually video analysis tasks in the anti riot and anti terrorist operations of the U.S. Department of defense, and according to the public information of the Department of defense, the project Maven project explicitly supports the above operations. Both the U.S. Department of defense and Google have said that their products will not be used to develop an automated weapon system that does not require human operation, and the use of artificial intelligence technology in such systems has been controversial.
Later, Google said in a statement: any use of machine learning technology for military purposes will naturally cause people's concerns, and we encourage company employees to participate in the discussion of this important topic. The statement also pointed out that Google's participation in the project Maven was non-invasive, and the spokesman declined to disclose the specific content of Google's work in the project.
Google stressed that the Defense Department is using open-source object recognition software, which is open to all Google cloud users, and is based on unmarked data. Google said: the technology is used to mark the objects in the video for the reference of subsequent relevant personnel, aiming to free relevant personnel from the heavy work such as video analysis.