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Radio News: Google dropping military contract

Jun 04, 2018 10:50 pm
Gizmodo reports that Google is not renewing its contract with the U.S. Department of Defense providing artificial intelligence to analyze drone footage. Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene announced the decision June 1, and next week the company is said to be announcing a different direction. Google will unveil new ethical principles about its use of artificial intelligence. Gizmodo also revealed internal Google emails that showed the company was working, "to develop machine learning algorithms for the Pentagon, with the goal of creating a sophisticated system that could surveil entire cities." In one of the emails Gizmodo uncovered, Fei-Fei Li, chief scientist for AI at Google Cloud, wrote, “Google is already battling with privacy issues when it comes to AI and data; 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.” Now Greene is telling employees that the ethical use of artificial intelligence is important, and that, “It is incumbent on us to show leadership.”