A few weeks ago my eyebrows went up when I read this article about SOCOM commander Tony Thomas recounting a meeting with then-Google exec Eric Schmidt:
Thomas said Schmidt issued SOCom a report card saying the command is failing to utilize deep learning to help solve the problems it faces.
"It was a bold move on his part," Thomas said. "He said, ‘You are terrible at deep learning.’ He said, ‘You live in a world of wicked problems. I bet if I spent a moment, a bit of time under your tent, I could solve every one of your wicked problems … using advanced algorithms and mathematics.’
"He was totally certain he was right, and I was totally certain I was about to bounce him out of the car on Bayshore Avenue."
Google employees aren't all happy with it. The most recent updates indicate some are walking out:
It’s been nearly three months since many Google employees—and the public—learned about the company’s decision to provide artificial intelligence to a controversial military pilot program known as Project Maven, which aims to speed up analysis of drone footage by automatically classifying images of objects and people. Now, about a dozen Google employees are resigning in protest over the company’s continued involvement in Maven.
The resigning employees’ frustrations range from particular ethical concerns over the use of artificial intelligence in drone warfare to broader worries about Google’s political decisions—and the erosion of user trust that could result from these actions. Many of them have written accounts of their decisions to leave the company, and their stories have been gathered and shared in an internal document, the contents of which multiple sources have described to Gizmodo.
I wonder if the Google development crew are having thoughts like Robert Oppenheimer did after the Bomb. However it seems the genie has already been out of the bottle and Schmidt is saying we need to catch up to the Chinese.