Project Maven is a Pentagon initiative aiming to use AI technologies for deploying and monitoring unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Naturally, Google’s involvement with the initiative received plenty of backlash both internally and externally. At least a dozen employees quit Google while many others threatened to walk out if the firm continued building military products.

The pressure forced Google to abandon the lucrative Pentagon contract. However, it just meant that it was happily picked up by another company.

According to Business Insider who broke the news, the company which stepped in to develop Project Maven was Palantir – a company founded by Peter Thiel, a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and cofounder of PayPal.

Business Insider reporter Becky Peterson wrote that:

“Palantir is working with the Defense Department to build artificial intelligence that can analyze video feeds from aerial drones … Internally at Palantir, where names of clients are kept close to the vest, the project is referred to as ‘Tron,’ after the 1982 Steven Lisberger film.”

In June 2018, Thiel famously said that Google’s decision to pull out from Project Maven but push ahead with Project Dragonfly (a search project for China) amounts to “treason” and should be investigated as such.

Project Maven/Tron is described as being capable of extensive tracking and monitoring of UAVs without human input, but the unclassified information available indicates that it will not be able to fire upon targets. This is somewhat in-line with the accepted norms being established about the use of AI in the military.

Many experts accept that AI will increasingly be used in the military but are seeking to establish acceptable practices. One of the key principles is that, while an AI can track and offer advice to human operators, it should never be able to make decisions by itself which could lead to loss of life.

The rapid pace in which the Project Maven contract was picked up by another company gives credence to comments made by some tech giants that, rather than pull out from such contracts altogether – and potentially hand them to less ethical companies – it’s better to help shape them from the inside.

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The new initiative, called AI for Social Good, is a joint effort between the company’s philanthropic subsidiary Google.org and its own experts.

Kicking off the initiative is the ‘AI Impact Challenge’ which is set to provide $25 million in funding to non-profits while providing access to Google’s vast resources.

As part of the initiative, Google partnered with the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to develop algorithms to identify humpback whale calls.

The algorithms were created using 15 years worth of data and provide vital information about humpback whale presence, seasonality, daily calling behaviour, and population structure.

While it’s great to see Google funding and lending its expertise to important AI projects, it’s set to a wider backdrop of Silicon Valley tech giants’ involvement with controversial projects such as defence.

Google itself was embroiled in a backlash over its ‘Project Maven’ defence contract to supply drone analysing AI to the Pentagon. The contract received both internal and external criticism.

Back in April, Google’s infamous ‘Don’t be evil’ motto was removed from its code of conduct’s preface. Now, in the final line, it says: “And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!”

Google’s employees spoke up. Over 4,000 signed a petition demanding their management cease the project and never again “build warfare technology.”

Following the Project Maven backlash, Google CEO Sundar Pichai promised in a blog post the company will not develop technologies or weapons that cause harm, or anything which can be used for surveillance violating “internationally accepted norms” or “widely accepted principles of international law and human rights”.

Here are what Google says is the company’s key objectives for AI developments:

1. 1. Be socially beneficial.

1. 1. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.

1. 1. Be built and tested for safety.

1. 1. Be accountable to people.

1. 1. Incorporate privacy design principles.

1. 1. Uphold high standards of scientific excellence.

1. Be made available for uses that accord with these principles.  

That first objective, “be socially beneficial”, is what Google is aiming for with its latest initiative. The company says it’s not against future government contracts as long as they’re ethical.

“We’re entirely happy to work with the US government and other governments in ways that are consistent with our principles,” Google’s AI chief Jeff Dean told reporters Monday.

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