14 ms·

Google Won't Renew Contract for Project Maven, Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program

152 points by mark-ruwt 8y ago

mtgx 8y ago
I imagine that in the 2-3 years this contract run, Google shared most of what they needed to share with the Pentagon in order to catch-up to the company's current AI capabilities.
- mkempe 8y ago
  The project is ongoing.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  I would actually lean into the belief that they're probably heavily pushing Google Cloud services (as Google does tend towards), and that there's a decent chance Google's work done on Maven won't operate at all if Google stops providing those services.
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  I doubt that. It's what, a $9 million contract? Assuming Google is making a profit or at least breaking even, I'd doubt there's more than 15 or so people working on this full time.
  - mkempe 8y ago
    This $9m amount was a lie by Google management to the employees. The actual project revenue is much higher, and was planned to reach $250m.
mkempe 8y ago
Dystopia was hiding behind official lies, while already being in the works: "The emails also show that Google and its partners worked extensively to develop machine learning algorithms for the Pentagon, with the goal of creating a sophisticated system that could surveil entire cities. ... 'the wisdom and strength of our people will bring about multi-order-of-magnitude improvements in safety and security for the world' ... Google intended to build a 'Google-earth-like' surveillance system ... Google’s artificial intelligence would bring 'an exquisite capability' for 'near-real time analysis'" paired with drone-killing. [added for the down-haters] Examples of the lies: - concerned employees were told that Google’s DoD contract was worth only $9 million - "Google downplayed its work, saying it had merely provided its open-source TensorFlow software to the Pentagon" In the name of building real-time, total surveillance in support of automated killing by drones.
sqdbps 8y ago
Congrads google activists you have hurt your employer's business and business prospects and prevented your colleagues from working on really interesting AI applications relegating their life's work to sorting photo albums. Oh, and none of that will make a difference because a competitor of yours will pick up the slack and be in a position to offer really interesting work to attract and retain researchers.
- uidjidjdj 8y ago
  Go fuck yourself shill
- notsofastbuddy 8y ago
  Google is, after all, a company famously hurting for business and business prospects.
  - sqdbps 8y ago
    Nor is Microsoft or Amazon. There aren't many clients out there the size of the DoD and the cloud business is all about locking in large clients.
  - chibg10 8y ago
    No but they are infamous for missing opportunities
- ycmbntrthrwaway 8y ago
  If we cannot find better applications for so-called AI than bullshit like sorting photo albums and military applications, maybe we should not do it at all? I am still sure there are enough industrial, medical and civil applications for Google to work on, no need to resort to "photo albums" immediately.
  - melling 8y ago
    That’s sort of an academic answer. Perhaps Google should go straight for creating the Singularity? Business works by creating a product that someone will pay for. Then they reinvest those profits, grow the company, etc to improve that product. Maybe we’ll eventually get the robotic butler that consumers will pay for, but in the meantime the Apple II robotic/AI revolution has been a little slow to materialize.
anon12341234 8y ago
A clear statement that Google likes terrorism more than its investors.
kozikow 8y ago
Great. There will be plenty of people willing to take Google's place.
- droopyEyelids 8y ago
  Willing, but capable? Who has the AI, Maps, signals intelligence, and everything else capability to replace Google?
  - dannypgh 8y ago
    NSA?
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    Baidu. ;- )
LinuxBender 8y ago
If they give the project a new name, I vote for "Blackbriar".
- DragonBourne 8y ago
  That could be how they came up with "Maven" in the first place, and not the Java framework.
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
The thing I think everyone needs to remember for the future is that Google is only backing off on Maven because of the bad PR. They aren't suddenly growing a conscience, and you can be sure that given the chance to secretly get involved in a horribly unethical program for hundreds of millions of dollars is still definitely an option for them.
- hammock 8y ago
  Companies don't have consciences. "Bad PR," talent drain and other happenings led to this and for PEOPLE (who do have consciences), these can continue to be considered as valid tactics for achieving a desired end.
- it_learnses 8y ago
  this is so stupid. Meanwhile Chinese govt is going full steam head with AI. This will come back to bite Americans.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    I suspect China will eventually regret creating it's own dystopian society. (Some would argue it is already there.) And anyways, please explain the bogeyman: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17210194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17210194
- cromwellian 8y ago
  That may be a component, but IMHO, pronouncements and explanations haven't diminished employee objections to say the least.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    Corporations have no ethics or morals, though. Google has no conscience of it's own. Employees can perhaps keep it in check, for a while. But the notion that people have held that Google is good for society is a myth, and people are increasingly realizing it. Sure, employees may continue to protest actions like this in the future... if they find out about them. Bear in mind, a significant component of this incident involved Google lying and downplaying the importance of this project. Shortly after yesterday's article containing leaked emails, a Googler expressed public shame of having promoted articles by one of the people in said emails, which explicitly talked about concealing Google's involvement with the military implementing AI, and shortly thereafter, announced intention to leave. This person had blocked me a mere couple months ago for saying that "Google is not worth saving", and today, perhaps they'd agree with me. Eventually, Google will cross a line that everyone considers too far. For me, it was several years ago. For this individual, it was yesterday. How long will Google have people there who still object to the behavior the company engages in? Where's your line?
C50VGicCxmHC 8y ago
This will really hurt their enterprise cloud business. Google has shown to have a bunch of employees who will leak confidential discussions to the press and try to PR damage their employer. If you are a large company looking for a home, that is exactly the kind of environment you want to avoid. In addition, many of the large US companies have a military component. Examples are GE, Boeing, United Technologies. How many of those companies want something like what happened with Maven to happen to them. Finally, the success of this project will further embolden Google employees to use these same tactics of leaking and hurting Google's image in the future. Given how things progress, the next protest is likely to be about something that is even more gray area than Maven.
- imbokodo 8y ago
  You're correct that a corporation's biggest enemies are the workers who do all the work and create all the wealth of that corporation. You're also correct that this is a victory for those workers and a defeat for the corporation.
  - C50VGicCxmHC 8y ago
    In "moral crusades" like this, it is often a very vocal minority that dominates the discussion. I seriously doubt that it was a majority of Google employees who objected to this.
    - vkou 8y ago
      Democracy is not a proxy for morality. Not to mention that historically, moral progress tends to happen because of the unreasonableness of small groups of people. Demanding that people sit on their hands until they get 51% support for their cause, is asking that nothing ever get done. Whomever started this project certainly did not poll the employee base, and establish 51% support of it.
    - pixelcloud 8y ago
      That is a great opinion and I can do that too!! I seriously doubt the majority of Google Employees would support defense contracting.
aregsar 8y ago
While there are good intentions here, what happens if China and Russia military get ahead of US military in this technology due to us limiting ourselves
- ajross 8y ago
  That's where I am too. I mean, war stuff is bad, it kills people, and the US certainly isn't 100% trustworthy. At the same time... there's a real don't-rock-the-boat problem here. The last 3/4 of a century of US military dominance has been notable for a decrease in military/para-military violence on an order that humanity literally has never seen. It's not zero for sure, it's not always just, we may not always be the good guys, but seriously: if you are a random person anywhere in the world, you are vastly less likely to be killed by someone's bullet than you were pre-WW2. And that's important. A world without a dominant US military is a world with fewer US-driven injustices. That doesn't seem like a good bet to be a "better world", though.
  - cryptoz 8y ago
    > the US certainly isn't 100% trustworthy. The US is the most wildly insane, two-faced and upside-down country in the world right now in terms of military. The commander-in-chief routinely makes nuclear threats, actively hurts his own citizens in times of need, and seeks to decrease military stability by accelerating climate change and isolating his country from the world. The commander-in-chief lies about every single thing in his day-to-day life, as well as his political life; he is mentally unstable and not fit to serve. The US military is 100% untrustworthy as its direct leader has shown himself to be literally insane. > there's a real don't-rock-the-boat problem here The US is the one rocking the boat. It has already happened and it happens daily. > A world without a dominant US military is a world with fewer US-driven injustices. That doesn't seem like a good bet to be a "better world", though. I disagree. That seems like a very incredibly great bet, to me. The time of US military leadership is over. That happened the day our Military Commander In Chief stood on his inauguration day and lied about the number of people in front of him. Perhaps the US will return to a positive leading role one day, but it is not there now and it has not been for years. All this aside, I do not agree that Google is the right place to develop US Military technology. Edit: Additionally, the commander-in-chief of the US military also stated point blank that we may not have presidential elections any more in the future. This is not a time to champion US democracy, military might, etc.
mkempe 8y ago
They are building real-time, total surveillance in support of automated killing by drones, supported by almost all of Google's existing commercial projects (Earth-wide mapping, detailed street maps, business directories, phone-tracked location...). The NSA programs disclosed by Snowden seem childish by comparison.
mesozoic 8y ago
Looks like Google is going to wound itself greatly for letting leftists take over their hiring and internal culture. Shunning real diversity of opinion and ability to reason while trying to have diversity of skin color and genitalia. It appears that the management is starting to realize the danger and fight back hopefully not too late. https://gizmodo.com/alphabet-shareholders-and-employees-want-executive-pay-1826244537 https://gizmodo.com/alphabet-shareholders-and-employees-want...
- blackbrokkoli 8y ago
  When you make a really specific statement, why use the super broad term "leftists"? This american pseudo-dichotomy is not helping the discussion and is just fueling partisanship...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
dfsegoat 8y ago
Anyone else have a problem with this? Someone else will be doing this work in place of Google, as it is inevitable that AI and defense will merge. So for those reasons, IMO, it is childish to quit and try to not assert some ethical control over something while you can. Maybe the next co. who fills the contract will be the one where the AI engineers who quit now work? TLDR: Get the program killed, or control it on your terms ethically. Don't pass it off on the next highest bidder.
- jdashg 8y ago
  Is there an ethical approach to making drones better at killing people?
  - dfsegoat 8y ago
    Yes according to the Red Cross, and experts in International Human Law (aka The Rules of War) - there is an obligation for people to develop these systems (or not) responsibly and TO ALWAYS KEEP A HUMAN IN THE LOOP [1]. Note Nov 2017 was the first annual meeting: the law on this is literally being determined on the fly, so simply running from it rather than providing input and working to determine limits isn't very helpful. https://www.icrc.org/en/document/expert-meeting-lethal-autonomous-weapons-systems https://www.icrc.org/en/document/expert-meeting-lethal-auton... https://www.un.org/disarmament/publications/occasionalpapers/unoda-occasional-papers-no-30-november-2017/ https://www.un.org/disarmament/publications/occasionalpapers...
    - sitkack 8y ago
      That has nothing to do ML and the statistical targeting of people based on behavior.
  - CapricornNoble 8y ago
    Yes. Precision reduces deaths, overall. Do you know what happens when weapons are NOT precise? The military simply uses more of them, and a BUNCH of human beings end up "collateral damage" in the process. Applying AI to help sort "not a threat" from "threat" should result in the US dropping fewer Hellfires on wedding parties. Operation Meetinghouse, 1945: ~100,000 killed in 2 days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_1945) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_194... Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965-68: 30,000-100,000 killed over 3 YEARS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder The numbers are all over the place for Pakistan drone strikes, but even the high-end estimates are <10,000 over the past 10 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._drone_strikes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._... https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/ https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/
AdamM12 8y ago
Engineer's that were working on this should quit and form their own company to continue the work. Whether the drones can autonomously fire or not is a legislative issue. Cloud cert would be a big issue unless they can resell AWS which I believe already has it.
strainer 8y ago
This sends a more powerful message than if the corporation had just avoided the work in the first place. I am hopeful and inspired by the employees stand. Lights are shining through the cracks in the conflict dominated narrative of these times, and we have never had greater means to analyse and resolve our troubles with each other and with our environment. Thankyou Googlers for showing up for resolution.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  No it doesn't. It still gives them between 6 months and 18 months (whenever the contract expires in 2019) to continue working on this project. They may even finish it during that timeframe. This is purely PR fluff.
  - strainer 8y ago
    Its not PR fluff that one of the worlds most prestigious workforces has publicly rejected this kind of work. Money cant buy that quality of publicity, it has come from the hearts and minds of the workforce.
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      If they had listened, they would pull out immediately. Not sure if you realize that they'll continue working on this for a few more months before they are out...
      - strainer 8y ago
        There is certainly going to be a special atmosphere while the few unlucky engineers finish up the existing contract for legalities sake.
    - crb002 8y ago
      Unlikely. Alphabet will spin off the division and sell it for blood$.
  - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
Google drops another endeavor. Add it to the graveyard.
finnthehuman 8y ago
So is Google going to keep up this trend of self-criticism? Or have we finally found out how google defines "evil," and it's only things that involve literal killing?
lawrenceyan 8y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/8jhxek/ethical_considerations_of_working_at_a_military/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/8jhxek/e...

152 points by mark-ruwt 8y ago

mtgx 8y ago

I imagine that in the 2-3 years this contract run, Google shared most of what they needed to share with the Pentagon in order to catch-up to the company's current AI capabilities.

mkempe 8y ago
The project is ongoing.
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
I would actually lean into the belief that they're probably heavily pushing Google Cloud services (as Google does tend towards), and that there's a decent chance Google's work done on Maven won't operate at all if Google stops providing those services.
Rebelgecko 8y ago
I doubt that. It's what, a $9 million contract? Assuming Google is making a profit or at least breaking even, I'd doubt there's more than 15 or so people working on this full time.
- mkempe 8y ago
  This $9m amount was a lie by Google management to the employees. The actual project revenue is much higher, and was planned to reach $250m.

mkempe 8y ago

Dystopia was hiding behind official lies, while already being in the works: "The emails also show that Google and its partners worked extensively to develop machine learning algorithms for the Pentagon, with the goal of creating a sophisticated system that could surveil entire cities. ... 'the wisdom and strength of our people will bring about multi-order-of-magnitude improvements in safety and security for the world' ... Google intended to build a 'Google-earth-like' surveillance system ... Google’s artificial intelligence would bring 'an exquisite capability' for 'near-real time analysis'" paired with drone-killing. [added for the down-haters] Examples of the lies: - concerned employees were told that Google’s DoD contract was worth only $9 million - "Google downplayed its work, saying it had merely provided its open-source TensorFlow software to the Pentagon" In the name of building real-time, total surveillance in support of automated killing by drones.

sqdbps 8y ago

Congrads google activists you have hurt your employer's business and business prospects and prevented your colleagues from working on really interesting AI applications relegating their life's work to sorting photo albums. Oh, and none of that will make a difference because a competitor of yours will pick up the slack and be in a position to offer really interesting work to attract and retain researchers.

uidjidjdj 8y ago
Go fuck yourself shill
notsofastbuddy 8y ago
Google is, after all, a company famously hurting for business and business prospects.
- sqdbps 8y ago
  Nor is Microsoft or Amazon. There aren't many clients out there the size of the DoD and the cloud business is all about locking in large clients.
- chibg10 8y ago
  No but they are infamous for missing opportunities
ycmbntrthrwaway 8y ago
If we cannot find better applications for so-called AI than bullshit like sorting photo albums and military applications, maybe we should not do it at all? I am still sure there are enough industrial, medical and civil applications for Google to work on, no need to resort to "photo albums" immediately.
- melling 8y ago
  That’s sort of an academic answer. Perhaps Google should go straight for creating the Singularity? Business works by creating a product that someone will pay for. Then they reinvest those profits, grow the company, etc to improve that product. Maybe we’ll eventually get the robotic butler that consumers will pay for, but in the meantime the Apple II robotic/AI revolution has been a little slow to materialize.

anon12341234 8y ago

A clear statement that Google likes terrorism more than its investors.

kozikow 8y ago

Great. There will be plenty of people willing to take Google's place.

droopyEyelids 8y ago
Willing, but capable? Who has the AI, Maps, signals intelligence, and everything else capability to replace Google?
- dannypgh 8y ago
  NSA?
- microcolonel 8y ago
  Baidu. ;- )

LinuxBender 8y ago

If they give the project a new name, I vote for "Blackbriar".

DragonBourne 8y ago
That could be how they came up with "Maven" in the first place, and not the Java framework.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

The thing I think everyone needs to remember for the future is that Google is only backing off on Maven because of the bad PR. They aren't suddenly growing a conscience, and you can be sure that given the chance to secretly get involved in a horribly unethical program for hundreds of millions of dollars is still definitely an option for them.

hammock 8y ago
Companies don't have consciences. "Bad PR," talent drain and other happenings led to this and for PEOPLE (who do have consciences), these can continue to be considered as valid tactics for achieving a desired end.
it_learnses 8y ago
this is so stupid. Meanwhile Chinese govt is going full steam head with AI. This will come back to bite Americans.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  I suspect China will eventually regret creating it's own dystopian society. (Some would argue it is already there.) And anyways, please explain the bogeyman: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17210194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17210194
cromwellian 8y ago
That may be a component, but IMHO, pronouncements and explanations haven't diminished employee objections to say the least.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Corporations have no ethics or morals, though. Google has no conscience of it's own. Employees can perhaps keep it in check, for a while. But the notion that people have held that Google is good for society is a myth, and people are increasingly realizing it. Sure, employees may continue to protest actions like this in the future... if they find out about them. Bear in mind, a significant component of this incident involved Google lying and downplaying the importance of this project. Shortly after yesterday's article containing leaked emails, a Googler expressed public shame of having promoted articles by one of the people in said emails, which explicitly talked about concealing Google's involvement with the military implementing AI, and shortly thereafter, announced intention to leave. This person had blocked me a mere couple months ago for saying that "Google is not worth saving", and today, perhaps they'd agree with me. Eventually, Google will cross a line that everyone considers too far. For me, it was several years ago. For this individual, it was yesterday. How long will Google have people there who still object to the behavior the company engages in? Where's your line?

C50VGicCxmHC 8y ago

This will really hurt their enterprise cloud business. Google has shown to have a bunch of employees who will leak confidential discussions to the press and try to PR damage their employer. If you are a large company looking for a home, that is exactly the kind of environment you want to avoid. In addition, many of the large US companies have a military component. Examples are GE, Boeing, United Technologies. How many of those companies want something like what happened with Maven to happen to them. Finally, the success of this project will further embolden Google employees to use these same tactics of leaking and hurting Google's image in the future. Given how things progress, the next protest is likely to be about something that is even more gray area than Maven.

imbokodo 8y ago
You're correct that a corporation's biggest enemies are the workers who do all the work and create all the wealth of that corporation. You're also correct that this is a victory for those workers and a defeat for the corporation.
- C50VGicCxmHC 8y ago
  In "moral crusades" like this, it is often a very vocal minority that dominates the discussion. I seriously doubt that it was a majority of Google employees who objected to this.
  - vkou 8y ago
    Democracy is not a proxy for morality. Not to mention that historically, moral progress tends to happen because of the unreasonableness of small groups of people. Demanding that people sit on their hands until they get 51% support for their cause, is asking that nothing ever get done. Whomever started this project certainly did not poll the employee base, and establish 51% support of it.
  - pixelcloud 8y ago
    That is a great opinion and I can do that too!! I seriously doubt the majority of Google Employees would support defense contracting.

aregsar 8y ago

While there are good intentions here, what happens if China and Russia military get ahead of US military in this technology due to us limiting ourselves

ajross 8y ago
That's where I am too. I mean, war stuff is bad, it kills people, and the US certainly isn't 100% trustworthy. At the same time... there's a real don't-rock-the-boat problem here. The last 3/4 of a century of US military dominance has been notable for a decrease in military/para-military violence on an order that humanity literally has never seen. It's not zero for sure, it's not always just, we may not always be the good guys, but seriously: if you are a random person anywhere in the world, you are vastly less likely to be killed by someone's bullet than you were pre-WW2. And that's important. A world without a dominant US military is a world with fewer US-driven injustices. That doesn't seem like a good bet to be a "better world", though.
- cryptoz 8y ago
  > the US certainly isn't 100% trustworthy. The US is the most wildly insane, two-faced and upside-down country in the world right now in terms of military. The commander-in-chief routinely makes nuclear threats, actively hurts his own citizens in times of need, and seeks to decrease military stability by accelerating climate change and isolating his country from the world. The commander-in-chief lies about every single thing in his day-to-day life, as well as his political life; he is mentally unstable and not fit to serve. The US military is 100% untrustworthy as its direct leader has shown himself to be literally insane. > there's a real don't-rock-the-boat problem here The US is the one rocking the boat. It has already happened and it happens daily. > A world without a dominant US military is a world with fewer US-driven injustices. That doesn't seem like a good bet to be a "better world", though. I disagree. That seems like a very incredibly great bet, to me. The time of US military leadership is over. That happened the day our Military Commander In Chief stood on his inauguration day and lied about the number of people in front of him. Perhaps the US will return to a positive leading role one day, but it is not there now and it has not been for years. All this aside, I do not agree that Google is the right place to develop US Military technology. Edit: Additionally, the commander-in-chief of the US military also stated point blank that we may not have presidential elections any more in the future. This is not a time to champion US democracy, military might, etc.

mkempe 8y ago

They are building real-time, total surveillance in support of automated killing by drones, supported by almost all of Google's existing commercial projects (Earth-wide mapping, detailed street maps, business directories, phone-tracked location...). The NSA programs disclosed by Snowden seem childish by comparison.

mesozoic 8y ago

Looks like Google is going to wound itself greatly for letting leftists take over their hiring and internal culture. Shunning real diversity of opinion and ability to reason while trying to have diversity of skin color and genitalia. It appears that the management is starting to realize the danger and fight back hopefully not too late. https://gizmodo.com/alphabet-shareholders-and-employees-want-executive-pay-1826244537 https://gizmodo.com/alphabet-shareholders-and-employees-want...

blackbrokkoli 8y ago
When you make a really specific statement, why use the super broad term "leftists"? This american pseudo-dichotomy is not helping the discussion and is just fueling partisanship...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

dfsegoat 8y ago

Anyone else have a problem with this? Someone else will be doing this work in place of Google, as it is inevitable that AI and defense will merge. So for those reasons, IMO, it is childish to quit and try to not assert some ethical control over something while you can. Maybe the next co. who fills the contract will be the one where the AI engineers who quit now work? TLDR: Get the program killed, or control it on your terms ethically. Don't pass it off on the next highest bidder.

jdashg 8y ago
Is there an ethical approach to making drones better at killing people?
- dfsegoat 8y ago
  Yes according to the Red Cross, and experts in International Human Law (aka The Rules of War) - there is an obligation for people to develop these systems (or not) responsibly and TO ALWAYS KEEP A HUMAN IN THE LOOP [1]. Note Nov 2017 was the first annual meeting: the law on this is literally being determined on the fly, so simply running from it rather than providing input and working to determine limits isn't very helpful. https://www.icrc.org/en/document/expert-meeting-lethal-autonomous-weapons-systems https://www.icrc.org/en/document/expert-meeting-lethal-auton... https://www.un.org/disarmament/publications/occasionalpapers/unoda-occasional-papers-no-30-november-2017/ https://www.un.org/disarmament/publications/occasionalpapers...
  - sitkack 8y ago
    That has nothing to do ML and the statistical targeting of people based on behavior.
- CapricornNoble 8y ago
  Yes. Precision reduces deaths, overall. Do you know what happens when weapons are NOT precise? The military simply uses more of them, and a BUNCH of human beings end up "collateral damage" in the process. Applying AI to help sort "not a threat" from "threat" should result in the US dropping fewer Hellfires on wedding parties. Operation Meetinghouse, 1945: ~100,000 killed in 2 days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_1945) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_194... Operation Rolling Thunder, 1965-68: 30,000-100,000 killed over 3 YEARS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder The numbers are all over the place for Pakistan drone strikes, but even the high-end estimates are <10,000 over the past 10 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._drone_strikes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._... https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/ https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/

AdamM12 8y ago

Engineer's that were working on this should quit and form their own company to continue the work. Whether the drones can autonomously fire or not is a legislative issue. Cloud cert would be a big issue unless they can resell AWS which I believe already has it.

strainer 8y ago

This sends a more powerful message than if the corporation had just avoided the work in the first place. I am hopeful and inspired by the employees stand. Lights are shining through the cracks in the conflict dominated narrative of these times, and we have never had greater means to analyse and resolve our troubles with each other and with our environment. Thankyou Googlers for showing up for resolution.

craftyguy 8y ago
No it doesn't. It still gives them between 6 months and 18 months (whenever the contract expires in 2019) to continue working on this project. They may even finish it during that timeframe. This is purely PR fluff.
- strainer 8y ago
  Its not PR fluff that one of the worlds most prestigious workforces has publicly rejected this kind of work. Money cant buy that quality of publicity, it has come from the hearts and minds of the workforce.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    If they had listened, they would pull out immediately. Not sure if you realize that they'll continue working on this for a few more months before they are out...
    - strainer 8y ago
      There is certainly going to be a special atmosphere while the few unlucky engineers finish up the existing contract for legalities sake.
  - crb002 8y ago
    Unlikely. Alphabet will spin off the division and sell it for blood$.
- 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

em3rgent0rdr 8y ago

Google drops another endeavor. Add it to the graveyard.

finnthehuman 8y ago

So is Google going to keep up this trend of self-criticism? Or have we finally found out how google defines "evil," and it's only things that involve literal killing?

lawrenceyan 8y ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/8jhxek/ethical_considerations_of_working_at_a_military/ https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/8jhxek/e...