February 8 news.GoogleGoogle recently removed its commitment to "not develop AI systems for weapons" from its AI principles, a decision that has sparked widespread controversy. The founder and former head of Google Brain, who is also the founder and head of Google's AI program, said the decision was controversial.Andrew Ng(Andrew Ng) spoke out in favor of Google's decision at the Military Veterans Startup Conference in San Francisco.
"I'm glad Google changed its stance," said Ng in an on-stage interview with TechCrunch at the conference Thursday night.
Earlier this week, Google removed this seven-year-old commitment from its AI principles page. At the same time, Google published a blog post written by DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, emphasizing that companies and governments should work together to build AI systems that "support national security.
Google's promise in 2018 to "not develop weapons AI" came as a result of protests by thousands of employees within the company against Project Maven, a partnership with the US military. The project involved providing AI technology to military programs for parsing video images that could be used to improve the accuracy of drone strikes. However, Wu Enda expressed his dismay at the protesters at the time. "Many veterans are willing to bleed and die for our country to protect us," he said at the conference, addingSo how can corporate America refuse to help the servicemen and women who fight for us?"Though he was not at Google during the Maven program protests, Wu was a key driver of Google's AI and neural network space. Today, he leads an AI-focused venture studio and AI fund, and is a frequent speaker on AI policy.
Wu has also said he was pleased to see California's SB 1047 vetoed and the Biden administration's AI executive order overturned, as he believes both measures would have hindered the development of open-source AI in the US. He argued that the key to U.S. AI security is ensuring that the U.S. can technologically compete with China, noting that AI drones will "revolutionize the battlefield.
1AI notes thatThere's been disagreement within Google about the use of AI in the military. Meredith Whittaker, a former Google AI researcher and now president of Signal, led protests against the Maven project in 2018. When Google decided not to renew its contract for the Maven Project, she voiced her support, arguing that the company "should not be involved in war." In addition, former Google AI researcher and Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton has called on governments around the world to ban and regulate the use of AI in weapons. Veteran Google executive and current DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean has also signed an open letter opposing the use of machine learning in automated weapons.
In recent years, Google and Amazon have come under renewed scrutiny for their contract with the Government of Israel for the Nimbus Project. The project involves providing cloud computing services to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Last year, employees of both companies organized sit-in protests against the partnership.
The U.S. Department of Defense's chief AI official has previously said that there is a growing interest in using AI in militaries around the world. With tech giants such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure, many companies are looking to recoup their investment by partnering with the military.
