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

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

#11

Post by ycmbntrthrwaway »

sqdbps wrote: post #5

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.

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.

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

#12

Post by ocdtrekkie »

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.

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

#13

Post by ocdtrekkie »

mtgx wrote: post #2

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.

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.

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

#14

Post by hammock »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #12

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.

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.

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

#15

Post by melling »

ycmbntrthrwaway wrote: post #11
sqdbps wrote: post #5

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.

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.

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.

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

#16

Post by sqdbps »

notsofastbuddy wrote: post #10
sqdbps wrote: post #5

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.

Google is, after all, a company famously hurting for business and business prospects.

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.

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

#17

Post by it_learnses »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #12

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.

this is so stupid. Meanwhile Chinese govt is going full steam head with AI. This will come back to bite Americans.

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

#18

Post by noonespecial »

sqdbps wrote: post #5

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.

Maybe those colleagues could just go work at the competitor if thats what interests them?

The fact that everyone doesn't feel like they'd like to work on AI military drones doesn't even mean that they are opposed to them in principle.

How is it not OK for a company to collectively decide that maybe, even though killing machines are going to exist, they would rather not be the ones working on them?

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

#19

Post by j2kun »

sqdbps wrote: post #5

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.

You do realize that most of the top-tier machine learning researchers are among the thousands protesting DoD work.

There is more than enough work, money, and intellecutalism in bringing AI to medicine, safety, transportation, supply chain optimization, law, art, music, and many other applications.

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

#20

Post by zethraeus »

ycmbntrthrwaway wrote: post #11
sqdbps wrote: post #5

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.

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.

they do photo albums.
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