SoylentNews

About a Dozen Google Employees Have Resigned Over Project Maven

posted by janrinok on Monday May 14 2018, @11:53PM   
from the courage-of-their-convictions dept.

takyon writes:

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"

---

Original Submission

• Re:Good sign... if you own any Google stock (Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday May 15 2018, @02:57AM

  by Arik (4543) on Tuesday May 15 2018, @02:57AM (#679915) Journal

  Yeah, nah, I'm going to have to call bull on this one too.
  
  Workers and employers have two-way relationships, not one-way. Very few, if any, workers are attracted to their job initially, or motivated to stay with it long-term, *solely* on the basis of pecuniary interests. Employers often understand this and use it in recruitment, and google is a particularly visible example of that, touting their working environment heavily in recruitment.
  
  Well, you can't have it both ways. If you hire a lot of people at least partially on the strength of 'this is a good place to work because we fit your values' then you shouldn't be shocked if those same employees may later want to have a word with you about how you're currently doing on that score.
  
  

  --
  If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+4
  Insightful=4, Total=4
  Extra 'Insightful' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		5