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Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract
It's been nearly three months since many Google employees—and the public—learned about the company's decision to provide artificial intelligence to a controversial military pilot program known as Project Maven, which aims to speed up analysis of drone footage by automatically classifying images of objects and people. Now, about a dozen Google employees are resigning in protest over the company's continued involvement in Maven.
[...] The employees who are resigning in protest, several of whom discussed their decision to leave with Gizmodo, say that executives have become less transparent with their workforce about controversial business decisions and seem less interested in listening to workers' objections than they once did. In the case of Maven, Google is helping the Defense Department implement machine learning to classify images gathered by drones. But some employees believe humans, not algorithms, should be responsible for this sensitive and potentially lethal work—and that Google shouldn't be involved in military work at all.
Previously: Google vs Maven
Google Employees on Pentagon AI Algorithms: "Google Should Not be in the Business of War"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 15 2018, @04:25PM
I don't know if he resents what they did. The way I read it, he is wondering what their situations are. Were they already on their way out the door? Were they affluent enough that they didn't need to be working? Did they already have jobs lined up to jump into, or knew that they could easily get another job? Knowing the answer to some of those questions would provide a little background before holding these guys up as Great Moral Crusaders. Remember during the last NFL season when Mike Pence walked out of the evening football game in a moral protest against the players who were kneeling during the National Anthem? Then it was (not surprisingly) revealed that was the entire point in going to Indianapolis in the first place and that there was never an intention to watch the game? That information confirms that his mighty stance based upon his high moral convictions was just a cheap political stunt meant to appease his boss. I think this guy is similarly wondering if there might be other motivations in play here.