Google Employees Don’t Like Building Tools Of War, Protests Pentagon Project

The overall environment and philosophy of Silicon Valley notwithstanding, it can be difficult to find too many other companies that have employees who are as progressive as those in Google. They’re so progressive that they even kicked out an engineer who expressed sentiments that were taken to be sexist. As such, it’s only natural that these employees would also object to being tasked to create tools that will be used for war, and they are making their displeasure known to CEO Sundar Pichai.

Writing a stern letter to the Google boss, thousands of employees are protesting the project that the company received from the Pentagon, The New York Times reports. The initiative is called Project Maven and it basically involves using artificial intelligence for image recognition that helps machines understand exactly what it is looking at.

When installed in a drone, for example, it could make for a more accurate killing machine. Literally.

“We believe that Google should not be in the business of war,” the letter reads. “Therefore we ask that Project Maven be cancelled, and that Google draft, publicize and enforce a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology.”

Considering that the motto of the company is “Don’t be evil,” it’s perhaps the most natural thing in the world for employees of Google to be completely against any kind of project that would pose a threat to human lives. To be clear, not all of those who work at the company holds such idealistic opinions, but enough of them do.

As Futurism notes, there’s also an argument being made that with the help of this technology, collateral damage or mistaken targets via drone strikes will be reduced. Unfortunately, it would still make those who work on the project complicit in taking human life. Considering the recent shooting at YouTube’s headquarters, death will have an even bigger presence in the minds of Google employees going forward.