[pjw] INFO: Google To Pentagon: "We're Eager To Do More" (Breaking Defense

[Peace and Justice Works]

A word of caution to those who use Google to do internet searches and 
Gmail for email: Google is eager to help the US military.

On the bright side (from the article, below)

  > True, Google has decided not to work on weapons systems <

However, they completed work on "Project Maven" which gathered images from 
various drones which were undoubtedly used to select targets.

I try to use DuckDuckGo which promises privacy, there are likely other 
search engines out there (and free email services) you can find if you 
don't want to work with Google.

Remember, in 2015 they dropped their motto "Don't be evil."

https://time.com/4060575/alphabet-google-dont-be-evil/

dan handelman
peace and justice works

  https://breakingdefense.com/2019/11/google-pentagon-pledge-to-work-together-were-eager-to-do-more/?
Google To Pentagon: ?We?re Eager To Do More?
Google wants to move beyond the ?frustrating? criticism of Project Maven and
work closely with the Pentagon?s year-old Joint AI Center, senior VP Kent
Walker said.
    By   [74]Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on November 05, 2019 at 3:34 PM

    WASHINGTON: Google?s withdrawal from the military?s [76]Project Maven
    was a one-time ?reset? that will not hinder growing cooperation on a
    wide range of other projects, the company?s senior vice president for
    global affairs said today. ?We?re eager to do more,? Senior VP Kent
    Walker said.

    In what turned into an unlikely lovefest this morning, Kent Walker,
    Google?s current senior vice president for global affairs; Eric
    Schmidt, formerly Google?s chairman and now the [77]chairman of the
    Pentagon-appointed [78]Defense Innovation Board; and Lt. Gen. John
    ?Jack? Shanahan, the former head of Project Maven [79]now leading the
    Pentagon?s year-old Joint AI Center, sat side by side.

    They were on stage at an artificial intelligence conference hosted by
    the congressionally chartered[80] National Security Commission on
    Artificial Intelligence.

    ?We did a very successful collaboration with the Google team on this
    [i.e. Maven],? Shanahan said with no hint of bitterness. ?We got all
    the way to the end of the contract? ? [81]Google?s mid- 2018
    announcement was a pledge not to renew its current contract, which it
    kept working on until it wrapped up early this year ? ?and we got
    products that we were very pleased with.?

    ?What was happening internal to the company, how that played out, is a
    little bit of a different story,? Shanahan acknowledged. ?Even some of
    the software engineers on that project, they got to the point they
    almost felt a little bit ostracized, because others [82]criticized them
    for working with the Department of Defense. But day to day? we got
    tremendous support from Google.?

    ?My objective in this panel [is] to put to bed this notion that somehow
    Silicon Valley wouldn?t work with the military,? Schmidt said. ?We?ve
    clearly seen examples ? small companies, large companies.?

    ?It?s been frustrating to hear concerns around our commitment to
    national security and defense, and so I wanted to set the record
    straight,? said Walker, himself the son of a career military man. On
    Maven, he said, ?we decided to press the reset button until we had the
    opportunity to develop our own set of AI principles [and] internal
    standards and review processes. But that was a decision focused on a
    discrete contract, not a broader statement about our willingness or our
    history of working with the Department of Defense.?

    Today, Google is working with Shanahan?s JAIC on projects ?from
    cybersecurity to healthcare to business automation,? he said. It?s
    working with DARPA on ?fundamental projects? to make AI less brittle,
    combat deep fakes, and keep computer hardware improving despite
    obstacles to Moore?s Law. It?s ?priming the pump? for further work on
    modeling & simulation, training, and recruiting. And it?s ?actively?
    pursuing additional national security certifications.

    ?We are looking forward to working more closely together in the
    future,? Kent said.

    True, Google has decided not to work on weapons systems, Kent
    acknowledged: ?We recognize the limits of our experience in that area.?
    But that?s just one aspect of a general caution about potential
    unintended consequences of technology, he said. Google carefully
    reviewed a project to teach computers to read lips, for example, until
    it was confident the technology could not be applied for long-range
    surveillance, only for aiding the deaf in one-on-one conversations.
    It?s working on safeguards for facial-recognition systems. And, he
    emphasized, unlike many competitors, it has limited its operations in
    China to advertising and open-source research, neither a particularly
    tempting target for espionage.

    (That said, Google has also been [83]bitterly criticized ? by human
    rights activists and its own employees ? for developing censored search
    algorithms for Chinese users. Former Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work
    has blasted the company for conducting AI research in China that he
    said would [84]indirectly benefit the People?s Liberation Army).

    ?We are a proud American company,? Walker said, in words that must have
    been music to the ears of Pentagon officials. ?We are committed to the
    cause of national defense for the United States of America, for our
    allies, and for peace and safety and security in the world.?

    That said, ?we approach that task thoughtfully, as we do with? a
    variety of advanced technologies,? he went on. ?We want to be
    thoughtful and have clear frameworks and transparency and understanding
    as we move forward.?

    The [85]five AI principles published last week by Schmidt?s Defense
    Innovation Board are a good starting point for ethical collaboration
    between industry and military, Walker and Shanahan agreed. So too,
    Shanahan added, is the National Security Commission?s own interim
    report released yesterday, which he said calls for ?a shared sense of
    responsibility about our AI future, a shared vision about the
    importance of trust and transparency.?

    Part of the problem that affected Project Maven, Shanahan said, was a
    lack of transparency ? though he added that the government was willing
    to talk and it was Google?s initial reluctance to discuss their role in
    public that led to public misunderstanding. ?It is not a weapons
    project,? he emphasized, but an effort to analyze huge amounts of
    surveillance video collected by unarmed drones (although, of course,
    that analysis could detect targets for other forces to strike).

    ?We lost the narrative very quickly,? Shanahan said. ?I view what
    happened with Google and Maven as a little bit of a canary in a coal
    mine?It would have happened to somebody else at some point, but this
    idea of transparency and a willingness to talk about what each side is
    trying to achieve may be the biggest lessons of all.?

    ?The fact that it happened when it did, as opposed to on the verge of a
    conflict or a crisis? ? [well, other than the generation-long war on
    terrorism ? the editors] means ?we?ve gotten some of that out of the
    way,? Shanahan said.

    Government, industry, and academia need to work to restore the close
    cooperation that prevailed from the 1950s, through the rise of Silicon
    Valley from a group of government contractors to a global giant, but
    then degenerated as the private sector raced ahead of the military
    amidst post-9/11 concerns about privacy, surveillance, and collateral
    damage.

    ?Snowden, Apple encryption, mismatched operating tempo and agility,
    different business models, general mistrust between the government and
    industry ? we started talking past each other instead of with each
    other,? Shanahan said. ?Industry is moving so much faster than the
    Department of Defense, [so] we?re playing perpetual catch up ? and some
    employees in the tech industry see no compelling reason to work with
    the Department of Defense, and even those who want to work with DoD ?
    which I?d say is far more than sometimes is portrayed? we don?t make it
    easy for them.?

    All that said, Shanahan argued, the US government still does a far
    better job at having an open discussion about ethics, technology, and
    the military than do its great-power rivals. Consider the
    Pentagon-appointed Defense Advisory Board?s lengthy research and public
    hearings before publishing [86]its recommendations on AI ethics, he
    said:

    ?China and Russia did not embark on a 15-month process involving public
    hearings and discussion about the ethical, safe, and lawful use of
    artificial intelligence,? Shanahan said. ?They?re not doing it, and I
    don?t expect they ever will.?


   76. https://breakingdefense.com/2019/08/air-combat-commander-doesnt-trust-project-mavens-artificial-intelligence-yet/
   77. https://innovation.defense.gov/Members/
   78. https://breakingdefense.com/2019/11/google-pentagon-pledge-to-work-together-were-eager-to-do-more/i%20can%20tell%20you%20with%20certainty%20that%20China%20and%20Russia%20did%20not%20embark%20on%20a%2015-month%20process%20involving%20public%20hearings%20and%20discussion%20about%20the%20ethical,%20safe,%20and%20lawful%20use%20of%20artificial%20intelligence.%20THey%E2%80%99re%20not%20doing%20it%20and%20I%20don%E2%80%99t%20expect%20they%20ever%20will%20do%20it.
   79. https://breakingdefense.com/2019/08/joint-ai-chief-start-with-50-solutions-get-better-asap/
   80. https://www.nscai.gov/
   81. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/06/01/google-to-drop-pentagon-ai-contract-after-employees-called-it-the-business-of-war/
   82. https://breakingdefense.com/2018/04/a-treaty-to-ban-autonomous-intelligence-weapons/
   83. https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/19/google-shareholder-dragonfly-china/
   84. https://breakingdefense.com/2018/06/google-helps-chinese-military-why-not-us-bob-work/https:/breakingdefense.com/2018/06/google-helps-chinese-military-why-not-us-bob-work/
   85. https://breakingdefense.com/2019/11/google-pentagon-pledge-to-work-together-were-eager-to-do-more/i%20can%20tell%20you%20with%20certainty%20that%20China%20and%20Russia%20did%20not%20embark%20on%20a%2015-month%20process%20involving%20public%20hearings%20and%20discussion%20about%20the%20ethical,%20safe,%20and%20lawful%20use%20of%20artificial%20intelligence.%20THey%E2%80%99re%20not%20doing%20it%20and%20I%20don%E2%80%99t%20expect%20they%20ever%20will%20do%20it.
   86. https://breakingdefense.com/2019/10/ethical-ai-for-war-defense-innovation-board-says-it-can-be-done/