As we have all read in the posts on this blog and heard in the lectures, artificial intelligence has come a long way. Various industries are or will be affected by artificial intelligence in one way or the other. Most practices of AI concern relatively innocent subjects (shopping, searching, etc.), however more radical applications will also be affected by AI. Today Google announced that they will no longer bid on a 10 billion dollar cloud computing contract of the Pentagon. This contract entails the transitioning large amounts of defense department data to the cloud. This might seem like a job perfectly fit for Google or any other cloud computing giant, although there is more than just cloud storage. Google said the contract did not align with their internal ethical guidelines regarding AI. This makes you wonder whether it was just really storing data in the cloud.
Google was previously involved in a project (Maven) with the Pentagon on analysing drone footage with artificial intelligence. The AI had to make decisions on whether to eliminate a target or not without human interference. Multiple questions can be asked. Do we want an autonomous working military? Do we trust the AI that much? Google asked itself these same questions and decided it wanted nothing to do with direct military purposes and quit the project. These statements concerned project Maven.
Google did not further elaborate its decision on the Pentagon contract other than that it violated its ethical guidelines. The other bidders (Amazon, Microsoft and IBM) still remain active in trying to get the contract. Google is quite outspoken on the ethical part of its technology (especially AI) in comparison to its competitors. Does google have higher ethical standards or is it just a way to market the fact they will perhaps not win the contract? They were in on the bid for two months.
Sources:
Google will not bid for the Pentagon’s $10B cloud computing contract, citing its “AI Principles”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-google-pentagon/google-drops-out-of-bidding-for-10-billion-pentagon-data-deal-idUSKCN1MI2BZ
https://nos.nl/artikel/2232035-onrust-over-google-s-hulp-aan-drones-van-het-amerikaanse-leger.html
