Select date
Microsoft President: We’ll Give Pentagon ‘All the Technology We Create’ (VIDEO)
from Sputnik News:
Tech companies have had to grapple with increasing pressure over the past year from employees wary of the dangers of giving the US military their all-powerful tools, such as artificial intelligence.
Google, for example, saw a massive uproar from its employees after it was revealed that the company was working on Project Maven, a Pentagon project to use artificial intelligence to analyze drones. While Project Maven remains a degree away from AI-powered weaponry, it’s another step down a slippery slope, according to the 4,000 Google employees that signed a letter opposing their company’s cooperation with the US Defense Department. In June, Google said it would not renew their contract for the project.
Speaking after Trump troll farm founder Palmer Luckey at the defense forum was Microsoft President Brad Smith, who began by bloviating about cyber & talking about last year's WannaCry malware: "In the history of humanity, there had never been a day of warfare quite like that." pic.twitter.com/3HNHyaTlUv
— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) 3 December 2018
On Saturday at the Ronald Reagan National Defense Forum, one panel spoke directly to the conundrum Silicon Valley finds itself in, caught between a public that is wary of a Terminator-like future of autonomous killbots and a Department of Defense with deep pockets and a growing hunger for AI’s applications to traditional tools of warfare.
Microsoft Pres. Brad Smith talks about how the company has responded to employees wary of working with the defense department. Basically, 'we want our boys to have the best.' pic.twitter.com/a9FtK0EI79
— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) 3 December 2018
That panel, entitled “A view of defense from Silicon Valley: How can we better engage the tech world?,” featured Microsoft President Brad Smith; Rachel Olney, who founded a geographic location startup called Geosite; Palmer Luckey, founder of virtual reality company Oculus VR; and Michael Brown, director of the Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, which gives companies grants to work on prototype projects that could help the US military.
Loading...
