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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract [gizmodo.com]

It's been nearly three months since many Google employees—and the public—learned about the company's decision to provide artificial intelligence [gizmodo.com] 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 [soylentnews.org]
Google Employees on Pentagon AI Algorithms: "Google Should Not be in the Business of War" [soylentnews.org]

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