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The Military AI Google Software The Almighty Buck Hardware Technology

Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work To Grow Exponentially (theintercept.com) 84

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.
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Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Military Drone AI Work To Grow Exponentially

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  • They should just be doing this work under a "partnership" with a heavily funded startup.

  • by Lunix Nutcase ( 1092239 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:12AM (#56709512)

    But trust Google because they’re going to be “ethical.” Why do people still believe a single word Google says? They’re a two-faced corporation just like the rest of them.

  • Someone think (Score:4, Informative)

    by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @08:13AM (#56709524) Journal
    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.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      What you're referring to is dual-use technology that is typically hit with embargos and forbidden/restricted export.

      But make no mistake, the primary goal is military, it just happens to also be useful in a civilian context to help pay for it.

      • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        The civilian context is so much more easy to present if Uncle Sam did all the hard work.
        The don't ask don't tell origin story of so many trusted US brands.
    • Think of HK-Drones. I for one can't wait!

    • Every drone in use is another work shift. AI coders enjoying gainful employment.

      That's only slightly true now, and it will become less true as the drones become more capable. Then one size fits all and you don't need customization. Also, this requirement for human operators is temporary. Sooner or later they're going to make it legal to operate drones in some contexts completely autonomously. For example, right now you need a licensed drone pilot to do a commercial survey of a wind turbine. (Until they introduced commercial drone pilot licensing, that person had to be an actual pilot.)

    • To extend your comment......

      Think of the children. Peaceful robots doing daycare. In fields of flowers on sunny days. Blue skies. Won't you think of the children?
  • by Anonymous Coward

    https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e

    INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a new crowd-funded investigative journalism project, breaks the exclusive story of how the United States intelligence community funded, nurtured and incubated Google as part of a drive to dominate the world through control of information. Seed-funded by the NSA and CIA, Google was merely the first among a plethora of private sector start-ups co-opted by US intelligence to retain ‘information superiority.

  • by kbg ( 241421 ) on Friday June 01, 2018 @11:23AM (#56710546)

    I knew long ago when their motto was "Don't be evil" that it was only a question of time until it changed to "Be evil to make more money" because all capitalist companies evolve into doing evil things because evil things are more profitable.

  • I have create a target recognition system using opencv and caffe. I working now on getting it to run on a RasPi by simplifying the neural net. I used blue uniforms for this first test target category..

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