Η Google φέρεται να ετοιμάζεται “επιθετικά” για να κερδίσει μια σύμβαση με το Πεντάγωνο, παρόλο που ορισμένες από τις προηγούμενες προσπάθειες συνεργασίας με το Υπουργείο Άμυνας προκάλεσαν μεγάλες αντιδράσεις στους υπαλλήλους της, σύμφωνα με τους New York Times.
According to the publication, Google's Cloud division has reassigned engineers to prepare the company's proposal to contribute to the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability program, which the Department of Defense of USA describes as an attempt "to achieve dominance in both traditional and non-traditional combat".
The contract that Google is reportedly considering is a contract that will be open to many companies to submit bids. The Department of Defense estimates that it could be a multi-billion dollar project. In a document outlining what cloud providers are expected to do, the Department of Defense states that anyone wishing to win the contract should be "allowed access to critical battle data" with multiple levels of classification (such as Secret and Top Secret).
In addition, the program requires applicants to be able to “provide advanced data analysis services that enable me better safety data-driven decision-making and timely decision-making at the tactical level”.
Google says it has regulations on how it can use artificial intelligence in relation to the military, which it put in place after employee backlash. In 2018, reports surfaced that Google had developed technology AI to analyze video taken by military drones as part of the initiative Project Maven of the Pentagon.
Thousands of employees signed a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai stating that Google should not be involved in wars and that the project endangered the company's reputation and went against its stated values. Eventually, the company gave in and stated that it would stop the project.
When Google ended its contract with Project Maven, it announced the principles of artificial intelligence ethics, promising not to work with weapons using artificial intelligence or artificial intelligence surveillance projects that could provoke outrage from human rights advocates or of the private life.
The company, however, said it would continue to work with the military "in many other areas", leaving a window into future collaborations.
