We’re roughly halfway through 2018, and one of the most important AI stories of the year so far is Project Maven and its fallout at Google. The program to apply AI to analyze drone video footage began last year, and this week we learned that the Pentagon plans to expand Maven and establish a Joint A…
We’re roughly halfway through 2018, and one of the most important AI stories of the year so far is Project Maven and its fallout at Google. The program to apply AI to analyze drone video footage began last year, and this week we learned that the Pentagon plans to expand Maven and establish a Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.
This week we also learned that Google believed it would make hundreds of millions of dollars from participation in the Maven project, and that Maven was reportedly tied directly to a cloud computing contract worth billions of dollars. Today news broke that Google will discontinue its Maven contract when it expires next year. The company is reportedly drafting a military projects policy due out in the coming weeks. According to the New York Times, the policy will include a ban on projects related to autonomous weaponry.
Most revealing in all this are the words of leaders like Google Cloud chief scientist Dr. Fei-Fei Li. In emails obtained by the New York Times, written last fall while Google considered how to announce its participation in Maven, executives were conscious of just how divisive an issue autonomous weaponry can be.
“Avoid at ALL COSTS any mention or implication of AI,” she wrote. “Weaponized AI is probably one of the most sensitized topics of AI — if not THE most. This is red meat to the media to find all ways to damage Google… I don’t know what would happen if the media starts picking up a theme that Google is secretly building AI weapons or AI technologies to enable weapons for the Defense industry.”
Since Google’s involvement with Maven became public in March, the project has certainly attracted attention from some members of the press. I’ve written that Google should listen to its employees and stay out of the business of war, and that Maven reflects the need for a Hippocratic oath for AI practitioners, but the backlash isn’t just coming from journalists.
Inside Google, about a dozen employees resigned in protest, and more than 3,000 employees — including AI chief Jeff Dean — have signed letters that say Google shouldn’t participate in the creation of autonomous weaponry. Outside Google, petitions from organizations like the Tech Workers Coalition and International Committee for Robot Arms Control have also attracted signatures from the broader tech and AI community.
One overlooked or little-known fact as the debate wages on about Google’s participation in Maven: Google isn’t the only tech company invited to participate in Maven. IBM and smaller firms like Colorado-based DigitalGlobe have also been invited to participate in the program, according to Gizmodo.
AI isn’t new. Military usage of AI isn’t either, but as AI enters spaces beyond personalized results when you open the Airbnb app, the ethical stances AI practitioners choose to take can play a role in shaping and defining how this discipline is applied to virtually every sector of business, government, and society.
For AI coverage, send news tips to Kyle Wiggers and Khari Johnson, and guest post submissions to Cosette Jarrett — and be sure to bookmark our AI Channel .
Thanks for reading,
Khari Johnson
AI Staff Writer
P. S. Please enjoy the Microsoft AI platform State of the Union delivered at the Build conference:
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