Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated in June 2018 that the company will no longer develop artificial intelligence (AI) for “weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people.”
This was after the company’s own employees protested against its participation in the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Project Maven, which would have utilized Google’s AI to analyze drone footage for the military.
But his promise proves to be nothing but empty words because Google is still very much in the business of war.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, in which Pichai is also the CEO of, continues to invest on startups that supply the military with surveillance tools. These investments were made under Alphabet’s venture capital arm, GV (formerly Google Ventures). According to an article by Forbes:
“In 2016 GV acquired a stake in Palo Alto-based Orbital Insight and in 2017 Google took equity in Planet, headquartered in San Francisco. Together, in the last three years, the two firms have won at least $30.5 million in Defense Department contracts, alongside deals with space intelligence agencies, for projects that could be said to ’directly facilitate injury.’”
Orbital is a software company whose AI sifts through massive amounts of satellite imagery, drone footage and smartphone location data to aggregate physical changes on Earth. Planet, on the other hand, can “quickly and cheaply” launch satellites capable of producing high-quality imagery into space.
While both of these companies have initially worked on altruistic projects, they eventually shifted into doing surveillance work for the government and intelligence agencies, which many people, including their own employees, consider unethical. But as the article notes, “the big money in the geospatial game resides in government coffers.”
Despite these ethical concerns, Orbital and Planet continue to reassure that they do not provide services that can result in violence or infringe on human rights. Planet’s spokesperson pointed Forbes to its ethic’s code, which states that:
“Our partners may not use our products to further actions that sponsor harm, abuse, aggression, violence, or other violations of human rights.”
Meanwhile, Orbital’s spokesperson insisted their work with the DOD helps keep the country safe and secure by helping the agency “zoom in on the physical world and monitor global activity so they can avoid surprises and proactively address critical situations.”
Google’s AI principle also states they will only proceed where “the benefits substantially outweigh the risks, and will incorporate appropriate safety constraints.” Despite these reassurances, Google, as well as the geospatial surveillance companies they invest in, do not really have a hold on what their militaristic customers do with the data they were provided.
Source:
Forbes, December 22, 2020