Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2019-11-25)

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Bloomberg Businessweek November 25, 2019

haseveninstitutednewguidelinesdiscouragingworkers

from talking about politics at the office.

This has had the effect of further damaging trust

between Google and the restive parts of its workforce. In

November the company said it had fired an employee for

leaking details about colleagues to the media and placed

two others on leave for misusing internal data. But internal

sources described the disciplinary actions as a way to pun-

ish employee activists.

There’s widespread suspicion among activists within

Google that it continues to do this work in secret. Employees

have tried to call attention to Alphabet-backed startups that

may be pursuing government contracts and have attempted

to cut off certain lines of work before they begin. This sum-

mer, a Bloomberg Businessweek reporter asked employee

activists whether Google was planning to respond to a pro-

posal by U.S. Customs and Border Protection seeking new

cloud services. The people said activists at Google weren’t

even aware of the CBP project.

Soon after the conversation, a group of employees set up

an account on Medium and posted an open letter citing the

CBP proposal and demanding Google not pursue such con-

tracts. “We have only to look to IBM’s role in working with

the Nazis during the Holocaust to understand the role that

technology can play in automating mass atrocity,” the letter

argued. About 1,500 people at Google eventually signed the

letter. The company and CBP are currently in a trial period,

and activists are hoping to pressure Google to reject a com-

mercial product when the pilot expires this spring, according

to one employee involved. Workers have also begun pressur-

ing the company to stop working with the fossil fuel industry.

Google’s leadership hasn’t responded directly to those

calls. Instead, the company has introduced ethical principles

governing AI, including a promise not to use it on “weapons

or other technologies whose principal purpose or implemen-

tation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people.” It’s

also set up panels to review the technology. Last month the

Defense Innovation Board, a Pentagon-sponsored panel that

Schmidt leads, released its own AI principles, which track

closely with Google’s.

Poulson, who left the company in September 2018, says

these lists of AI principles and the boards who debate them

will always be insufficient, because they treat Google’s work

with the military as something to be smoothed over with a

few technical tweaks. Like many of the thorniest questions

facing Silicon Valley today, Google’s relationship with the mil-

itary doesn’t hinge on how its advanced technology is built

but on the values that determine how it’s used.

There seems to be little chance that activists like Poulson

will convert Google’s leaders, including Pichai, Page, and

Brin, to accept their view. At the event in Washington, Walker,

the chief legal officer, said Google was pursuing higher secu-

rity certifications so it could work more closely with the

Defense Department on other projects. “I want to be clear,”

he said. “We are a proud American company.” <BW>

The New Military

Industrial Complex

A look at some of Silicon Valley’s recent

government work—and the ensuing backlash

THE CONTRACTS

$876 million from the

U.S. Army to help sol-

diers gain access to

data. In August, Palantir

renewed a $49 million

ICE contract.

THE BLOWBACK

Mijente, an immigration

rights group, has orga-

nized protests in front of

Palantir’s headquarters.

Employees have circu-

lated letters both sup-

porting and opposing its

work with ICE.

THECONTRACTS

JEDI,worth$10billion

andawardedinOctober,

anda $480millioncon-

tracttosupplyHoloLens

headsetstotheArmy.

Microsoft’sGitHub

subsidiaryrecently

reneweda $200,000

contract to provide soft-

ware to Immigration and

Customs Enforcement.

THE BLOWBACK

Microsoftemployees

suggestedtheJEDI

dealwasunethical in

an anonymous blog

post. Protesters erected

a cage in front of

GitHub’s office.

THECONTRACTS

A $600millioncloud

servicescontractwith

theCIA.A futurecon-

tractwiththeagency

couldbeworth$10bil-

lionormore,accord-

ingtoBloomberg

Government.Lastyear

it pitchedtoICEfacial-

recognition software it

already sells to police

departments.

THE BLOWBACK

The facial-recognition

software was among

the issues raised by

protesters—some

of them dressed as

poop emojis—who

showed up at Amazon’s

annual meeting earlier

this year.