Through the Maven Project, Google would be directly involved in a military program, an ethical issue raised by employees that disturbs all levels within the company. The employees do not wish to work for the business of war.
Following the launch of the Maven project involving an alliance between Google and the US Department of Defense, 3100 employees of the firm raise an ethical problem and oppose it.
3100 employees positioned against the Maven project
A month ago, Google announced its agreement with the Pentagon under the ” Project Maven “. This alliance between the net giant and the US government aimed to develop an artificial intelligence project for the analysis of images collected by military drones.
After a little more than a month of speaking to define the framework for action, the project was validated within the firm Mountain View, publicly announced by the US site Gizmodo, then divided between the various departments concerned.
If the thing had only triggered some discontent at first, the phenomenon has only been growing, and it is now 3100 Google employees who wrote and signed a letter asking Google to withdraw of this project for ethical reasons.
Google and Pentagon Collaboration, an ethical issue raised by employees
In this letter sent on April 4, 2018 to the CEO of their company, the 3100 employees express their dismay at what they think is a commitment to a military project. The recipient of this official letter, Sundar Pichai, has so far made no final decision.
By this writing, Google employees involved argue, ” We think Google should not be in the business of war. Therefore, we ask that the Maven project be canceled and that Google draft, publish and enforce a policy that clearly states that neither Google nor its providers will ever build war technologies . ”
The argument has been taken into account, a Google official has communicated the following answer ” any military use of deep learning naturally raises valid concerns. Our company is currently engaged in an in-depth discussion on this important topic, as well as with external experts . “
