Google’s Military Drone Progam Led To Positive Change.
Back in 2017, Google was awarded a contract from the US military to develop and advanced artificial intelligence program, that could assist the military as part of its larger aim of using AI to better battlefield technology and help automate some of the leg work involved in operating a drone. Specifically, Google were awarded the contract to develop the technology to identify with a high level of precision what was a building, what was a tree, a car, a child, and well, you get the idea. The aim was to make the identification of objects easier and automated to remove false positives and help with automatic targeting.
In April 2018, Google’s involvement in the project was publicly leaked. Google in all its might did the best it could to downplay involvement, and amounted their involvement to nothing more than setting up a few programs and running a few training classes. However, Google employees didn’t quite view it through the same 250-million-dollar-contract-tinted glasses. There were widespread resignations and protests across Google campuses, with many staff calling on Google to stop all involvement in military contracts. By the end of the brief affair, an open letter to Google’s CEO had amassed more than 3,100+ signatures from staff alone calling for an end to the involvement.
